ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 THE EBB TIDE
 
 A CERTAIN DISMAL SOMETHING . . . TOPPLED TO 
 ONE SIDE AND HEAVILY COLLAPSED 
 
 From a draining by Alfred Brcnnan
 
 THE NOVELS AND TALES OF 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 ILLUSTRATED
 
 PK 
 
 /f A/ 
 
 Copyright, 1889, 1895, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Copyright, 1917, by 
 LLOYD OSBOUBNE 
 
 THE SCRIBNER PRESS
 
 PREFACE 
 
 "NOTHING like a little judicious levity," says Michael Finsbury in the 
 text: nor can any better excuse be found for the volume in the 
 reader's hand. The authors can but add that one of them is old 
 enough to be ashamed of himself, and the other young enough to 
 learn better. 
 
 R. L. S. 
 L O.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGI 
 
 THE WRONG BOX i 
 
 Written in collaboration with Lloyd Osbourne. 
 
 THE EBB TIDE 221 
 
 A TRIO AND QUARTETTE 
 Written in collaboration with Lloyd Osboume.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 A TRIO AND QUARTETTE 
 
 PART I 
 THE TRIO 
 
 <VAPTSR PAGE 
 
 I NIGHT ON THE BEACH 223 
 
 II MORNING ON THE BEACH. THE THREE LETTERS .... 238 
 
 III THE OLD CALABOOSE. DESTINY AT THE DOOR .... 250 
 
 IV THE YELLOW FLAG 262 
 
 V THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 270 
 
 VI THE PARTNERS 298 
 
 PART II 
 THE QUARTETTE 
 
 VH THE PEARL FISNE* 311 
 
 VIII BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 329 
 
 IX THE DINNER-PARTY 345 
 
 X THE OPEN DOOR 356 
 
 XI DAVID AND GOLUTH 372 
 
 XII A TAIL-PIECE 396
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH LLOYD OSBOURNB
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 i 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 HOW very little does the amateur, dwelling at home 
 at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the 
 author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a 
 work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of 
 toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bod- 
 leian, correspondence with learned and illegible Ger- 
 mans in one word, the vast scaffolding that was first 
 built up and then knocked down, to while away an 
 hour for him in a railway train ! Thus I might begin 
 this tale with a biography of Tonti birthplace, parent- 
 age, genius probably inherited from his mother, remark- 
 able instance of precocity, etc. and a complete treatise 
 on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The 
 material is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to 
 appear vainglorious. Tonti is dead, and I never saw 
 anyone who even pretended to regret him; and as for 
 the tontine system, a word will suffice for all the pur- 
 poses of this unvarnished narrative. 
 A number of sprightly youths (the more the merrier)
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 put up a certain sum of money, which is then funded in 
 a pool under trustees ; coming on for a century later, the 
 proceeds are fluttered for a moment in the face of the 
 last survivor, who is probably deaf, so that he cannot 
 even hear of his success and who is certainly dying, 
 so that he might just as well have lost. ' The peculiar 
 poetry and even humour of'the scheme is now apparent, 
 since it is one by which nobody concerned can possibly 
 profit ; but its fine, sportsmanlike character endeared it 
 to our grandparents. 
 
 When Joseph Finsbury and his brother Masterman 
 were little lads in white-frilled trousers, their father a 
 well-to-do merchant in Cheapside caused them to 
 join a small but rich tontine of seven and thirty lives. 
 A thousand pounds was the entrance fee; and Joseph 
 Finsbury can remember to this day the visit to the law- 
 yer's, where the members of the tontine all children 
 like himself were assembled together and sat in turn 
 in the big office-chair, and signed their names with the 
 assistance of a kind old gentleman in spectacles and 
 Wellington boots. He remembers playing with the 
 children afterward on the lawn at the back of the law- 
 yer's house, and a battle royal that he had with a brother 
 tontiner, who had kicked his shins. The sound of 
 war called forth the lawyer from where he was dispens- 
 ing cake and wine to the assembled parents in the office, 
 and the combatants were separated, and Joseph's spirit 
 (for he was the smaller of the two) commended by the 
 gentleman in the Wellington boots, who vowed he 
 had been just such another at the same age. Joseph 
 wondered to himself if he had worn at that time little 
 Wellingtons and a little bald head, and when (in bed at
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 night) he grew tired of telling himself stories of sea- 
 fights, he used to dress himself up as the old gentle- 
 man, and entertain other little boys and girls with cake 
 and wine. 
 
 In the year 1840 the thirty-seven were all alive; in 
 1850 their number had decreased by six; in 1856 and 
 1857 business was more lively, for the Crimea and the 
 Mutiny carried off no less than nine. There remained 
 in 1870 but five of the original members, and at the 
 date of my story, including the two Finsburys, but 
 three. 
 
 By this time Masterman was in his seventy-third year; 
 he had long complained of the effects of age, had long 
 since retired from business, and now lived in absolute 
 seclusion under the roof of his son Michael, the well- 
 known solicitor. Joseph, on the other hand, was still 
 up and about, and still presented but a semi-venerable 
 figure on the streets in which he loved to wander. This 
 was the more to be deplored, because Masterman had 
 led (even to the least particular) a model British life. 
 Industry, regularity, respectability, and a preference for 
 the four per cents, are understood to be the very founda- 
 tions of a green old age. All these Masterman had emi- 
 nently displayed, and here he was, ab agenda, at seventy- 
 three ; while Joseph, barely two years younger, and in 
 the most excellent preservation, had disgraced himself 
 through life by idleness and eccentricity. Embarked in 
 the leather trade, he had early wearied of business, for 
 which he was supposed to have small parts. A taste 
 tor general information, not promptly checked, had soon 
 begun to sap his manhood. There is no passion more 
 debilitating to the mind, unless, perhaps, it be that itch 
 
 3
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 of public speaking which it not infrequently accompa- 
 nies or begets. The two were conjoined in the case of 
 Joseph ; the acute stage of this double malady, that in 
 which the patient delivers gratuitous lectures, soon de- 
 clared itself with severity, and not many years had 
 passed over his head before he would have travelled 
 thirty miles to address an infant-school. He was no 
 student; his reading was confined to elementary text- 
 books and the daily papers ; he did not even fly as high 
 as cyclopaedias; life, he would say, was his volume. 
 His lectures were not meant (he would declare) for 
 college professors; they were addressed direct to "the 
 great heart of the people," and the heart of the people 
 must certainly be sounder than its head, for his lucubra- 
 tions were received with favour. That entitled, " How 
 to Live Cheerfully on Forty Pounds a Year," created a 
 sensation among the unemployed. "Education: Its 
 Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability," gained him 
 the respect of the shallow-minded. As for his cele- 
 brated essay on " Life Insurance Regarded in its Relation 
 to the Masses," read before the Working Men's Mutual 
 Improvement Society, Isle of Dogs, it was received 
 with a " literal ovation " by an unintelligent audience of 
 both sexes. And so marked was the effect that he was 
 next year elected honorary president of the institution, 
 an office of less than no emolument, since the holder 
 was expected to come down with a donation, but one 
 which highly satisfied his self-esteem. 
 
 While Joseph was thus building himself up a reputa- 
 tion among the more cultivated portion of the ignorant, 
 his domestic life was suddenly overwhelmed by orphans. 
 The death of his younger brother Jacob saddled him 
 
 4
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 with the charge of two boys, Morris and John; and in 
 the course of the same year his family was still further 
 swelled by the addition of a little girl, the daughter of 
 John Henry Hazeltine, Esq., a gentleman of small prop- 
 erty and fewer friends. He had met Joseph only once, 
 at a lecture-hall in Holloway ; but from that formative 
 experience he returned home to make a new will, and 
 consign his daughter and her fortune to the lecturer. 
 Joseph had a kindly disposition; and yet it was not 
 without reluctance that he accepted this new responsi- 
 bility, advertised for a nurse, and purchased a second- 
 hand perambulator. Morris and John he made more 
 readily welcome ; not so much because of the tie of con- 
 sanguinity as because the leather business (in which he 
 hastened to invest their fortune of thirty thousand 
 pounds) had recently exhibited inexplicable symptoms 
 of decline. A young but capable Scot was chosen as 
 manager to the enterprise, and the cares of business 
 never again afflicted Joseph Finsbury. Leaving his 
 charges in the hands of the capable Scot (who was mar- 
 ried), he began his extensive travels on the Continent 
 and in Asia Minor. 
 
 With a polyglot Testament in one hand and a phrase- 
 book in the other, he groped his way among the speak- 
 ers of eleven European languages. The first of these 
 guides is hardly applicable to the purposes of the philo- 
 sophic traveller, and even the second is designed more 
 expressly for the tourist than for the expert in life. But 
 he pressed interpreters into his service whenever he 
 could get their services for nothing and by one means 
 and another filled many note-books with the results of 
 his researches. 
 
 5
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 In these wanderings he spent several years, and only 
 returned to England when the increasing age of his 
 charges needed his attention. The two lads had been 
 placed in a good but economical school, where they had 
 received a sound commercial education; which was 
 somewhat awkward, as the leather business was by no 
 means in a state to court inquiry. In fact, when Joseph 
 went over his accounts preparatory to surrendering his 
 trust, he was dismayed to discover that his brother's 
 fortune had not increased by his stewardship ; even by 
 making over to his two wards every penny he had in 
 the world, there would still be a deficit of seven thou- 
 sand eight hundred pounds. When these facts were 
 communicated to the two brothers in the presence of a 
 lawyer, Morris Finsbury threatened his uncle with all 
 the terrors of the law, and was only prevented from 
 taking extreme steps by the advice of the professional 
 man. 
 
 "You cannot get blood from a stone," observed the 
 lawyer. 
 
 And Morris saw the point, and came to terms with 
 his uncle. On the one side, Joseph gave up all that he 
 possessed and assigned to his nephew his contingent 
 interest in the tontine, already quite a hopeful specula- 
 tion. On the other, Morris agreed to harbour his uncle 
 and Miss Hazeltine (who had come to grief with the 
 rest), and to pay to each of them one pound a month 
 as pocket-money. The allowance was amply sufficient 
 for the old man ; it scarce appears how Miss Hazeltine 
 contrived to dress upon it; but she did, and what is 
 more she never complained. She was, indeed, sin- 
 cerely attached to her incompetent guardian. He had
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 never been unkind ; his age spoke for him loudly; there 
 was something appealing in his whole-souled quest of 
 knowledge and innocent delight in the smallest mark 
 of admiration ; and though the lawyer had warned her 
 she was being sacrificed, Julia had refused to add to the 
 perplexities of Uncle Joseph. 
 
 In a large, dreary house in John Street, Bloomsbury, 
 these four dwelt together; a family in appearance, in 
 reality a financial association. Julia and Uncle Joseph 
 were, of course, slaves ; John, a gentleman with a taste 
 for the banjo, the music-hall, the Gaiety bar, and the 
 sporting papers, must have been anywhere a secondary 
 figure; and the cares and delights of empire devolved 
 entirely upon Morris. That these are inextricably inter- 
 mixed is one of the commonplaces with which the bland 
 essayist consoles the incompetent and the obscure, but 
 in the case of Morris the bitter must have largely out- 
 weighed the sweet. He grudged no trouble to himself, 
 he spared none to others; he called the servants in the 
 morning, he served out the stores with his own hand, 
 he took soundings of the sherry, he numbered the re- 
 mainder biscuits; painful scenes took place over the 
 weekly bills, and the cook was frequently impeached, 
 and the tradespeople came and- hectored with him in 
 the back parlour, upon a question of three farthings. 
 The superficial might have deemed him a miser; in his 
 own eyes he was simply a man who had been de- 
 frauded; the world owed him seven thousand eight 
 hundred pounds, and he intended that the world should 
 pay. 
 
 But it was in his dealings with Joseph that Morris's 
 character particularly shone. His uncle was a rather
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 gambling stock in which he had invested heavily; and 
 he spared no pains in nursing the security. The old 
 man was seen monthly by a physician, whether he was 
 well or ill. His diet, his raiment, his occasional out- 
 ings, now to Brighton, now to Bournemouth, were 
 doled out to him like pap to infants. In bad weather 
 he must keep the house. In good weather, by half- 
 past nine, he must be ready in the hall ; Morris would 
 see that he had gloves and that his shoes were sound ; 
 and the pair would start for the leather business arm in 
 arm. The way there was probably dreary enough, for 
 there was no pretence of friendly feeling ; Morris had 
 never ceased to upbraid his guardian with his defalca- 
 tion and to lament the burthen of Miss Hazeltine; and 
 Joseph, though he was a mild enough soul, regarded 
 his nephew with something very near akin to hatred. 
 But the way there was nothing to the journey back ; for 
 the mere sight of the place of business, as well as every 
 detail of its transactions, was enough to poison life for 
 any Finsbury. 
 
 Joseph's name was still over the door; it was he who 
 still signed the cheques; but this was only policy on the 
 part of Morris, and designed to discourage other mem- 
 bers of the Tontine. In reality, the business was entirely 
 his ; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried 
 to sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. 
 He tried to extend it, and it was only the liabilities he 
 succeeded in extending; to restrict it, and it was only the 
 profits he managed to restrict. Nobody had ever made 
 money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who 
 retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff 
 and built a castle with his profits. The memory of this 
 
 8
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 fallacious Caledonian, Morris would revile daily, as he 
 sat in the private office opening his mail, with old Jo- 
 seph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or sav- 
 agely affixing signatures to he knew not what. And 
 when the man of the heather pushed cynicism so far as 
 to send him the announcement of his second marriage 
 (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Rev. Alexander 
 McCraw) it was really supposed that Morris would have 
 had a fit. 
 
 Business hours, in the Finsbury leather trade, had been 
 cut to the quick ; even Morris's strong sense of duty to 
 himself was not strong enough to dally within those 
 walls and under the shadow of that bankruptcy; and 
 presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long 
 breath, and compose themselves for another day of pro- 
 crastination. Raw Haste, on the authority of my Lord 
 Tennyson, is half-sister to Delay ; but the Business Hab- 
 its are certainly her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather- 
 merchant would lead his living investment back to John 
 Street like a puppy dog; and having there immured him 
 in the hall, would depart for the day on the quest of 
 seal rings, the only passion of his life. Joseph had more 
 than the vanity of man, he had that of lecturers. He 
 owned he was in fault; although more sinned against 
 (by the capable Scot) than sinning; but had he steeped 
 his hands in gore, he would still not deserve to be thus 
 dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit a 
 captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be 
 entertained with mortifying comments on his whole 
 career to have his costume examined, his collar pulled 
 up, the presence of his mittens verified, and to be taken 
 out and brought home in custody, like an infant with a
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with 
 venom, and he would make haste to hang up his hat 
 and coat and the detested mittens, and slink up-stairs 
 to Julia and his note-books. The drawing-room at least 
 was sacred from Morris; it belonged to the old man and 
 the young girl; it was there that she made her dresses; 
 it was there that he inked his spectacles over the regis- 
 tration of disconnected facts and the calculation of in- 
 significant statistics. 
 
 Here he would sometimes lament his connection with 
 the Tontine. "If it were not for that," he cried one 
 pfternoon, "he would not care to keep me. I might be 
 A free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself 
 by giving lectures." 
 
 "To be sure you could," said she; "and I think it 
 one of the meanest things he ever did to deprive you 
 of that amusement. There were those nice people 
 at the Isle of Cats (wasn't it?) who wrote and asked 
 you so very kindly to give them an address. I did think 
 he might have let you go to the Isle of Cats." 
 
 " He is a man of no intelligence," cried Joseph. " He 
 lives here literally surrounded by the absorbing spectacle 
 of life, and for all the good it does him, he might just as 
 well be in his coffin. Think of his opportunities! The 
 heart of any other young man would burn within him at 
 the chance. The amount of information that I have it 
 in my power to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing 
 that beggars language, Julia." 
 
 "Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn't excite 
 yourself," said Julia; "for you know, if you look at all 
 ill, the doctor will be sent for." 
 
 " That is very true," returned the old man, humbly.
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 "I will compose myself with a little study." He thumbed 
 his gallery of note-books. "I wonder," he said, "I 
 wonder (since I see your hands are occupied) whether 
 it might not interest you " 
 
 " Why, of course it would," cried Julia. " Read me 
 one of your nice stories, there's a dear! " 
 
 He had the volume down and his spectacles upon his 
 nose instanter, as though to forestall some possible re- 
 tractation. "What I propose to read to you," said he, 
 skimming through the pages, "is the notes of a highly 
 important conversation with a Dutch courier of the name 
 of David Abbas, which is the Latin for abbot. Its results 
 are well worth the money it cost me, for as Abbas at 
 first appeared somewhat impatient, I was induced to 
 (what is, I believe, singularly called) stand him drink. 
 It runs only to about five and twenty pages. Yes, here 
 it is." He cleared his throat, and began to read. 
 
 Mr. Finsbury (according to his own report) contrib- 
 uted about four hundred and ninety-nine five-hundredths 
 of the interview, and elicited from Abbas literally noth- 
 ing. It was dull for Julia, who did not require to listen ; 
 for the Dutch courier, who had to answer, it must have 
 been a perfect nightmare. It would seem as if he had 
 consoled himself by frequent applications to the bottle ; 
 it would even seem that (toward the end) he had ceased 
 to depend on Joseph's frugal generosity, and called for 
 the flagon on his own account. The effect, at least, of 
 some mellowing influence was visible in the record: 
 Abbas became suddenly a willing witness ; he began to 
 volunteer disclosures; and Julia had just looked up from 
 her seam with something like a smile, when Morris burst 
 into the house, eagerly calling for his uncle, and the next 
 
 it
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 instant plunged into the room, waving in the air the 
 evening paper. 
 
 It was indeed with great news that he came charged. 
 The demise was announced of Lieutenant-General Sir 
 Glascow Biggar, K. C.S.I., K.C.M.G., etc., and the prize 
 of the tontine now lay between the Finsbury brothers. 
 Here was Morris's opportunity at last. The brothers 
 had never, it is true, been cordial. When word came 
 that Joseph was in Asia Minor, Masterman had ex- 
 pressed himself with irritation. "I call it simply inde- 
 cent," he had said. " Mark my words we shall hear 
 of him next at the North Pole." And these bitter ex- 
 pressions had been reported to the traveller on his re- 
 turn. What was worse, Masterman had refused to 
 attend the lecture on "Education; its aims, objects, 
 purpose, and desirability," although invited to the plat- 
 form. Since then, the brothers had not met. On the 
 other hand, they never had openly quarrelled; Joseph 
 (by Morris's orders) was prepared to waive the advan- 
 tage of his juniority ; Masterman had enjoyed all through 
 life the reputation of a man neither greedy nor unfair. 
 Here, then, were all the elements of compromise as- 
 sembled; and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven 
 thousand eight hundred pounds restored to him, and 
 himself dismissed from the vicissitudes of the leather 
 trade, hastened the next morning to the office of his 
 cousin Michael. 
 
 Michael was something of a public character. 
 Launched upon the law at a very early age, and quite 
 without protectors, he had become a trafficker in shady 
 affairs. He was known to be the man for a lost cause, 
 it was known he could extract testimony from a stone,
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 and interest from a gold mine ; and his office was be- 
 sieged in consequence by all that numerous class of 
 persons who have still some reputation to lose, and 
 find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those 
 who have made undesirable acquaintances, who have 
 mislaid a compromising correspondence, or who are 
 blackmailed by their own butlers. In private life, 
 Michael was a man of pleasure ; but it was thought his 
 dire experience at the office had gone far to sober him, 
 and it was known that (in the matter of investments) 
 he preferred the solid to the "brilliant. What was yet 
 more to the purpose, he had been all his life a consis- 
 tent scoffer at the Finsbury tontine. 
 
 It was therefore with little fear for the result that 
 Morris presented himself before his cousin, and pro- 
 ceeded feverishly to set forth his scheme. For near 
 upon a quarter of an hour, the lawyer suffered him to 
 dwell upon its manifest advantages uninterrupted. 
 Then Michael rose from his seat, and ringing for his 
 clerk, uttered a single clause. 
 
 "It won't do, Morris." 
 
 It was in vain that the leather merchant pleaded and 
 reasoned, and returned day after day to plead and rea- 
 son. It was in vain that he offered a bonus of one 
 thousand, of two thousand, of three thousand pounds; 
 in vain that he offered, in Joseph's name, to be content 
 with only one-third of the pool. Still there came the 
 same answer: " It won't do." 
 
 "I can't see the bottom of this," he said at last. 
 "You answer none of my arguments, you haven't a 
 word to say. For my part, I believe it's malice." 
 
 The lawyer smiled at him benignly. " You may be-
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 lieve one thing," said he; "whatever else I do, I am 
 not going to gratify any of your curiosity. You see I 
 am a trifle more communicative to-day, because this is 
 our last interview upon the subject." 
 
 "Our last interview!" cried Morris. 
 
 "The stirrup-cup, dear boy," returned Michael. " I 
 can't have my business hours encroached upon. And 
 by the by, have you no business of your own? Are 
 there no convulsions in the leather trade ? " 
 
 " I believe it to be malice," repeated Morris, doggedly. 
 "You always hated and despised me from a boy." 
 
 "No, no not hated," returned Michael, soothingly. 
 "I rather like you than otherwise; there's such a per- 
 manent surprise about you, you look so dark and attrac- 
 tive from a distance. Do you know that to the naked 
 eye you look romantic? like what they call a man 
 with a history. And indeed, from all that I can hear 
 the history of the leather trade is full of incident." 
 
 "Yes," said Morris, disregarding these remarks, "it's 
 no use coming here, I shall see your father." 
 
 ' ' Oh, no, you won't, " said Michael. ' ' Nobody shall 
 see my father." 
 
 "I should like to know why," cried his cousin. 
 
 "I never make any secret of that," replied the law- 
 yer. "He is too ill." 
 
 "If he is as ill as you say," cried the other, "the 
 more reason for accepting my proposal. I will see 
 him." 
 
 "Will you?" said Michael, and he rose and rang for 
 his clerk. 
 
 It was now the time, according to Sir Faraday Bond, 
 the medical baronet whose name is so familiar at the 
 
 '4
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS SUSPECTS 
 
 foot of bulletins, that Joseph (the poor Golden Goose) 
 should be removed into the purer air of Bournemouth; 
 and for that uncharted wilderness of villas the family 
 now shook off the dust of Bloomsbury: Julia delighted, 
 because at Bournemouth she sometimes made acquain- 
 tances; John in despair, for he was a man of city tastes; 
 Joseph indifferent where he was, so long as there was 
 pen and ink and daily papers, and he could avoid mar- 
 tyrdom at the office; Morris himself, perhaps, not dis- 
 pleased to pretermit these visits to the city, and have a 
 quiet time for thought. He was prepared for any sac- 
 rifice; all he desired was to get his money again and 
 clear his feet of leather; and it would be strange, since 
 he was so modest in his desires and the pool amounted 
 to upward of a hundred and sixteen thousand pounds 
 it would be strange, indeed, if he could find no way 
 of influencing Michael. "If I could only guess his 
 reason," he repeated to himself; and by day, as he 
 walked in Branksome woods, and by night, as he 
 turned upon his bed, and at meal times, when he for- 
 got to eat, and in the bathing machine, when he forgot 
 to dress himself, that problem was constantly before 
 him: why had Michael refused? 
 
 At last one night, he burst into his brother's room and 
 woke him. 
 
 "What's all this?" asked John. 
 
 "Julia leaves this place to-morrow," replied Morris; 
 "she must go up to town and get the house ready, and 
 find servants. We shall all follow in three days." 
 
 "Oh, bray vo!" cried John. "But why?" 
 
 "I've found it out, John," returned his brother, gently, 
 
 "It? What?" inquired John. 
 
 -.5
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Why Michael won't compromise," said Morris. 
 "It's because he can't. It's because Masterman's dead, 
 and he's keeping it dark." 
 
 "Golly! "cried the impressionable John. "But what's 
 the use ? why does he do it, anyway ?" 
 
 "To defraud us of the tontine," said his brother. 
 
 "He couldn't ; you have to have a doctor's certificate, " 
 objected John. 
 
 j'Did you never hear of venal doctors ?" inquired Mor- 
 ris. " They're as common as blackberries ; you can pick 
 'em up for three pound ten a head." 
 
 " I wouldn't do it under fifty if I were a sawbones," 
 ejaculated John. 
 
 "And then, Michael," continued Morris, "is in the 
 very thick of it. All his clients have come to grief; his 
 whole business is rotten eggs. If any man could arrange 
 it, he could; and depend upon it, he has his plan all 
 straight; and depend upon it, it's a good one, for he's 
 clever, and be damned to him ! But I'm clever, too ; and 
 I'm desperate. I lost seven thousand eight hundred 
 pounds when I was an orphan at school." 
 
 " Oh, don't be tedious," interrupted John. "You've 
 lost far more already trying to get it back."
 
 CHAPTER I! 
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 SOME days later, accordingly, the three males of this 
 depressing family might have been observed (by a reader 
 of G. P. R. James) taking their departure from the East 
 Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw and 
 changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence ac- 
 cording to the principles of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no 
 less strict (as is well known) on costume than on diet. 
 There are few polite invalids who have not lived, or 
 tried to live, by that punctilious physician's orders. 
 "Avoid tea, madam," the reader has doubtless heard 
 him say, "avoid tea, fried liver, antimonial wine, and 
 bakers' bread. Retire nightly at 10.45 an ^ clothe your- 
 self (if you please) throughout in hygienic flannel. Ex- 
 ternally, the fur of the marten is indicated. Do not for- 
 get to procure a pair of health boots at Messrs. Dall & 
 Crumbie's." And he has probably called you back, 
 even after you have paid your fee, to add with sten- 
 torian emphasis: "I had forgotten one caution: avoid 
 kippered sturgeon, as you would the very devil ! " The 
 unfortunate Joseph was cut to the pattern of Sir Fara- 
 day in every button ; he was shod with the health boot ; 
 his suit was of genuine ventilating cloth ; his shirt of 
 hygienic flannel, a somewhat dingy fabric; and he was
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 draped to the knees in the inevitable great-coat of mar* 
 ten's fur. The very railway porters at Bournemouth 
 (which was a favourite station of the doctor's) marked 
 the old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There 
 was but one evidence of personal taste, a vizarded 
 forage-cap; from this fbrm of headpiece, since he had 
 fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and 
 weathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing could divorce 
 our traveller. 
 
 The three Finsburys mounted into their compartment 
 and fell immediately to quarrelling, a step unseemly in 
 itself and (in this case) highly unfortunate for Morris. 
 Had he lingered a moment longer by the window, this 
 tale need never have been written. For he might then 
 have observed (as the porters did not fail to do) the 
 arrival of a second passenger in the uniform of Sir 
 Faraday Bond. But he had other matters on hand 
 which he judged (God knows how erroneously) to be 
 more important. 
 
 "I never heard of such a thing," he cried, resuming a 
 discussion which had scarcely ceased all morning. 
 "The bill is not yours; it is mine." 
 
 "It is payable to me," returned the old gentleman, 
 with an air of bitter obstinacy. ' ' I will do what I please 
 with my own property." 
 
 The bill was one for eight hundred pounds, which 
 had been given him at breakfast to endorse, and which 
 he had simply pocketed. 
 
 "Hear him, Johnny!" cried Morris. "His property! 
 the very clothes upon his back belong to me." 
 
 "Let him alone," said John, "I'm sick of both of 
 you." 
 
 18
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 ''That is no way to speak of your uncle, sir," cried 
 Joseph. "I will not endure this disrespect. You are 
 a pair of exceedingly forward, impudent, and ignorant 
 young men, and I have quite made up my mind to put 
 an end to the whole business." 
 
 "Oh, skittles!" said the graceful John. 
 
 But Morris was not so easy in his mind. This unusual 
 act of insubordination had already troubled him ; and 
 these mutinous words now sounded ominously in his 
 ears. He looked at the old gentleman uneasily. Upon 
 one occasion many years before, when Joseph was de- 
 livering a lecture, the audience had revolted in a body ; 
 finding their entertainer somewhat dry, they had taken 
 the question of amusement into their own hands; and 
 the lecturer (along with the board schoolmaster, the 
 Baptist clergyman, and a working-man's candidate, who 
 made up his bodyguard) was ultimately driven from the 
 scene. Morris had not been present on that fatal day; 
 if he had, he would have recognised a certain fighting 
 glitter in his uncle's eye, and a certain chewing move- 
 ment of his lips, as old acquaintances. But even to the 
 inexpert these symptoms breathed of something dan- 
 gerous. 
 
 "Well, well," said Morris. "I have no wish to 
 bother you further till we get to London." 
 
 Joseph did not so much as look at him in answer; 
 with tremulous hands he produced a copy of the Brit- 
 ish Mechanic, and ostentatiously buried himself in its 
 perusal. 
 
 "I wonder what can make him so cantankerous?" 
 reflected the nephew. "I don't like the look of it at 
 all." And he dubiously scratched his nose. 
 
 19
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 The train travelled forth into the world, bearing along 
 with it the customary freight of obliterated voyagers, 
 and along with these old Joseph, affecting immersion in 
 his paper, and John, slumbering over the columns of the 
 Pink Un, and Morris, revolving in his mind a dozen 
 grudges, and suspicions, and alarms. It passed Christ 
 Church by the sea, Herne with its pinewoods, Ringwood 
 on its mazy river. A little behind time, but not much 
 for the South Western, it drew up at the platform of a 
 station, in the midst of the New Forest, the real name 
 of which (in case the railway company "might have 
 the law of me ") I shall veil under the alias of Brown- 
 dean. 
 
 Many passengers put their heads to the window, and 
 among the rest an old gentleman on whom I willingly 
 dwell, for I am nearly done with him now, and (in the 
 whole course of the present narrative) I am not in the 
 least likely to meet another character so decent His 
 name is immaterial, not so his habits. He had passed 
 his life wandering in a tweed suit on the continent of 
 Europe; and years of Galignani's Messenger having at 
 length undermined his eyesight, he suddenly remem- 
 bered the rivers of Assyria and came to London to con- 
 sult an oculist. From the oculist to the dentist, and 
 from both to the physician, the step appears inevitable; 
 presently he was in the hands of Sir Faraday, robed in 
 ventilating cloth and sent to Bournemouth ; and to that 
 domineering baronet (who was his only friend upon his 
 native soil) he was now returning to report. The case 
 of these tweed-suited wanderers is unique. We have 
 all seen them entering the table d'hdte (at Spezzia, or 
 Gratz, or Venice) with a genteel melancholy and a 
 
 20
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 faint appearance of having been to India and not suc- 
 ceeded ; in the offices of many hundred hotels, they are 
 known by name; and yet, if the whole of this wander- 
 ing cohort were to disappear to-morrow, their absence 
 would be wholly unremarked. How much more, if 
 only one say this one in the ventilating cloth should 
 vanish! He had paid his bills at Bournemouth; his 
 worldly effects were all in the van in two portmanteaus, 
 and these after the proper interval would be sold as un- 
 claimed baggage to a Jew ; Sir Faraday's butler would be 
 a half-crown poorer at the year's end, and the hotel- 
 keepers of Europe about the same date would be mourn- 
 ing a small but quite observable decline in profits. And 
 that would be literally all. Perhaps the old gentleman 
 thought something of the sort, for he looked melan- 
 choly enough as he pulled his bare, gray head back into 
 the carriage, and the train smoked under the bridge ana 
 forth, with ever quickening speed, across the mingled 
 heaths and woods of the New Forest. 
 
 Not many hundred yards beyond Browndean, how- 
 ever, a sudden jarring of brakes set everybody's teeth 
 on edge, and there was a brutal stoppage. Morris Fins- 
 bury was aware of a confused uproar of voices, and 
 sprang to the window. Women were screaming, men 
 were tumbling from the windows on the track, the 
 guard was crying to them to stay where they were; at 
 the same time the train began to gather way and move 
 very slowly backward toward Browndean; and the 
 next moment, all these various sounds were blotted out 
 in the apocalyptic whistle and the thundering onslaught 
 of the down express. 
 
 The actual collision Morris did not hear. Perhaps he
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 fainted. He had a wild dream of having seen the car- 
 riage double up and fall to pieces like a pantomime trick; 
 and sure enough, when he came to himself, he was 
 lying on the bare earth and under the open sky. His 
 head ached savagely ; he carried his hand to his brow 
 and was not surprised to see it red with blood. The 
 air was filled with an intolerable, throbbing roar, which 
 he expected to find die away with the return of con- 
 sciousness ; and instead of that it seemed but to swell the 
 louder and to pierce the more cruelly through his ears. 
 It was a raging, bellowing thunder, like a boiler-rivet- 
 ing factory. 
 
 And now curiosity began to stir, and he sat up and 
 looked about him. The track at this point ran in a sharp 
 curve about a wooded hillock; all of the near side was 
 heaped with the wreckage of the Bournemouth train ; 
 that of the express was mostly hidden by the trees; and 
 just at the turn, under clouds of vomiting steam and 
 piled about with cairns of living coal, lay what remained 
 of the two engines, one upon the other. On the heathy 
 margin of the line were many people running to and fro, 
 and crying aloud as they ran, and many others lying 
 motionless like sleeping tramps. 
 
 Morris suddenly drew an inference. ' ' There has been 
 an accident! " thought he, and was elated at his perspi- 
 cacity. Almost at the same time his eye lighted on 
 John, who lay close by as white as paper. " Poor old 
 John! poor old cove!" he thought, the schoolboy ex- 
 pression popping forth from some forgotten treasury, 
 and he took his brother's hand in his with childish ten- 
 derness. It was perhaps the touch that recalled him; 
 at least John opened his eyes, sat suddenly up, and after 
 
 aa
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 several ineffectual movements of his lips, "What's the 
 row ? " said he, in a phantom voice. 
 
 The din of that devil's smithy still thundered in their 
 ears. " Let us get away from that," Morris cried, and 
 pointed to the vomit of steam that still spouted from the 
 broken engines. And the pair helped each other up, 
 and stood and quaked and wavered and stared about 
 them at the scene of death. 
 
 Just then they were approached by a party of men 
 who had already organized themselves for the purposes 
 of rescue. 
 
 "Are you hurt?" cried one of these, a young fellow 
 with the sweat streaming down his pallid face, and who 
 by the way he was treated was evidently the doctor. 
 
 Morris shook his head, and the young man, nodding 
 grimly, handed him a bottle of some spirit. 
 
 "Take a drink of that," he said, "your friend looks 
 as if he needed it badly. We want every man we can 
 get," he added; "there's terrible work before us, and 
 nobody should shirk. If you can do no more you can 
 carry a stretcher." 
 
 The doctor was hardly gone before Morris, under the 
 spur of the dram, awoke to the full possession of his 
 wits. 
 
 ' ' My God ! " he cried. ' ' Uncle Joseph* " 
 
 " Yes," said John, "where can he be ? He can't be 
 far off. I hope the old party isn't damaged." 
 
 "Come and help me to look," said Morris, with a 
 snap of savage determination strangely foreign to his 
 ordinary bearing; and then, for one moment, he broke 
 forth, "If he's dead!" he cried, and shook his fist at 
 heaven.
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 To and fro the brothers hurried, staring in the faces 
 of the wounded, or turning the dead upon their backs. 
 They must have thus examined forty people, and still 
 there was no word of Uncle Joseph. But now the 
 course of their search brought them near the centre of 
 the collision, where the boilers were still blowing off 
 steam with a deafening clamour. It was a part of the 
 field not yet gleaned by the rescuing party. The ground, 
 especially on the margin of the wood, was full of in- 
 equalities here a pit, there a hillock surmounted with 
 a bush of furze. It was a place where many bodies 
 might lie concealed, and they beat it like pointers after 
 game. Suddenly Morris, who was leading, paused and 
 reached forth his index with a tragic gesture. John 
 followed the direction of his brother's hand. 
 
 In the bottom of a sandy hole lay something that had 
 once been human. The face had suffered severely, and 
 it was unrecognisable; but that was not required. The 
 snowy hair, the coat of marten, the ventilating cloth, 
 the hygienic flannel everything down to the health 
 boots from Messrs. Dall & Crumbie's, identified the body 
 as that of Uncle Joseph. Only the forage cap must have 
 been lost in the convulsion, for the dead man was bare- 
 headed. 
 
 "The poor old beggar!" said John, with a touch of 
 natural feeling; "I would give ten pounds we hadn't 
 chivied him in the train ! " 
 
 But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he 
 gazed upon the dead. Gnawing his nails, with intro- 
 verted eyes, his brow marked with the stamp of tragic 
 indignation and tragic intellectual effort, he stood there 
 silent. Here was a last injustice; he had been robbed 
 
 24
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 while he was an orphan at school, he had been lashed to a 
 decadent leather business, he had been saddled with 
 Miss Hazeltine, his cousin had been defrauding him of 
 the Tontine, and he had borne all this, we might almost 
 say, with dignity, and now they had gone and killed his 
 uncle! 
 
 " Here! " he said, suddenly, " take his heels, we must 
 get him into the woods. I'm not going to have any- 
 body find this. " 
 
 "O, fudge!" said John, " where's the use ? " 
 
 " Do what I tell you," spirted Morris, as he took the 
 corpse by the shoulders. "Am I to carry him my- 
 self?" 
 
 They were close upon the borders of the wood ; in 
 ten or twelve paces they were under cover; and a little 
 farther back, in a sandy clearing of the trees, they laid 
 their burthen down, and stood and looked at it with 
 loathing. 
 
 " What do you mean to do ? " whispered John. 
 
 "Bury him, to be sure!" responded Morris, and he 
 opened his pocket knife and began feverishly to dig. 
 
 "You'll never make a hand of it with that," objected 
 the other. 
 
 ' ' If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk, " screamed 
 Morris, " you can go to the devil! " 
 
 "It's the childishest folly," said John, "but no man 
 shall call me a coward," and he began to help his brother 
 grudgingly. 
 
 The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the 
 roots of the surrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands ; 
 and as they baled the sand from the grave, it was often 
 discoloured with their blood. An hour passed of un- 
 
 25
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 remitting energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm 
 help on that of John ; and still the trench was barely 
 nine inches in depth. Into this the body was rudely 
 flung; sand was piled upon it, and then more sand 
 must be dug, and gorse had to be cut to pile on that; 
 and still from one end of the sordid mound a pair of feet 
 projected and caught the light upon their patent-leather 
 toes. But by this time the nerves of both were shaken ; 
 even Morris had enough of his grisly task; and they 
 skulked off like animals into the thickest of the neigh- 
 bouring covert. 
 
 "It's the best that we can do," said Morris, sitting 
 down. 
 
 "And now," said John, "perhaps you'll have the 
 politeness to tell me what it's all about" 
 
 "Upon my word," cried Morris, "if you do not 
 understand for yourself, I almost desj>air of telling you." 
 
 "Oh, of course it's some rot about the tontine," re- 
 turned the other. " But it's the merest nonsense. We've 
 lost it, and there's an end." 
 
 " I tell you," said Morris, " Uncle Masterman is dead. 
 I know it, there's a voice here that tells me so." 
 
 "Well, and so is Uncle Joseph," said John. 
 
 "He's not dead unless I choose," returned Morris. 
 
 "And come to that," cried John, "if you're right, 
 and Uncle Masterman's been dead ever so long, all we 
 have to do is to tell the truth and expose Michael." 
 
 " You seem to think Michael is a fool, " sneered Morris. 
 " Can't you understand he's been preparing this fraud 
 for years ? He has the whole thing ready : the nurse, 
 the doctor, the undertaker, all bought, the certificate all 
 ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business 
 
 36
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in 
 two days and be buried in a week. But see here, 
 Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a 
 game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live forever, 
 by God, so shall my uncle! " 
 
 "It's illegal, ain't it?" said John. 
 
 "A man must have some moral courage," replied 
 Morris with dignity. 
 
 '" And then suppose you're wrong? suppose Uncle 
 Masterman's alive and kicking ? " 
 
 " Well, even then," responded the plotter, " we are no 
 worse than we were before ; in fact, we're better. Uncle 
 Masterman must die some day ; as long as Uncle Joseph 
 was alive, he might have died any day ; but we're out 
 of all that trouble now : there's no sort of limit to the 
 game that I propose it can be kept up till Kingdom 
 Come." 
 
 " If 1 could only see how you meant to set about it! " 
 sighed John. " But you know, Morris, you always 
 were such a bungler." 
 
 "I'd like to know what I ever bungled," cried Mor- 
 ris; "I have the best collection of signet rings in 
 London." 
 
 "Well, you know, there's the leather business, "sug- 
 gested the other. "That's considered rather a hash." 
 
 It was a mark of singular self-control in Morris that he 
 suffered this to pass unchallenged and even unresented. 
 
 "About the business in hand," said he, "once we 
 can get him up to Bloomsbury, there's no sort of trouble. 
 We bury him in the cellar, which seems made for it; 
 and then all I have to do is to start out and find a venal 
 doctor." 
 
 27
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " Why can't we leave him where he is ? " asked John. 
 
 " Because we know nothing about the country," re- 
 torted Morris. "This wood may be a regular lovers' 
 walk. Turn your mind to the real difficulty. How are 
 we to get him up to Bloomsbury ?" 
 
 Various schemes were mooted and rejected. The rail- 
 way station at Browndean was of course out of the ques- 
 tion ; for it would now be a centre of curiosity and gossip, 
 and (of all things) they would be least able to despatch 
 a dead body without remark. John feebly proposed 
 getting an ale-cask and sending it as beer, but the objec- 
 tions to this course were so overwhelming that Morris 
 scorned to answer. The purchase of a packing-case 
 seemed equally hopeless; for why should two gentle- 
 men without baggage of any kind require a packing- 
 case ? They would be more likely to require clean 
 linen. 
 
 "We are working on wrong lines," cried Morris at 
 i'ast. "The thing must be gone about more carefully. 
 Suppose, now," he added, excitedly, speaking by fits 
 and starts as if he were thinking aloud, "suppose we 
 rent a cottage by the month : a householder can buy a 
 packing-case without remark. Then suppose we clear 
 the people out to-day, get the packing-case to-night, 
 and to-morrow I hire a carriage or a cart that we could 
 drive ourselves and take the box, or whatever we get, 
 to Ringwood or Lyndhurst or somewhere, we could 
 label it ' specimens,' don't you see ? Johnny, I believe 
 I've hit the nail at last." 
 
 " Well, it sounds more feasible," admitted John. 
 
 " Of course, we must take assumed names," continued 
 Morris. " It would never do to keep our own. What 
 
 28
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 do you say to ' Masterman ' itself? It sounds quiet and 
 dignified." 
 
 "I will not take the name of Masterman," returned 
 his brother; " you may, if you like. I shall call myself 
 Vance the Great Vance ; positively the last six nights. 
 There's some go in a name like that." 
 
 " Vance ! " cried Morris. ' ' Do you think we are play- 
 ing a pantomime for our amusement ? There was never 
 anybody named Vance who wasn't a music-hall singer." 
 
 "That's the beauty of it," returned John, "it gives 
 you some standing at once. You may call yourself 
 Fortescue till all's blue, and nobody cares; but to be 
 Vance gives a man a natural nobility." 
 
 "But there's lots of other theatrical names," cried 
 Morris. "Leybourne, Irving, Brough, Toole " 
 
 "Devil a one will I take," returned his brother, "I 
 am going to have my little lark out of this as well as 
 you." 
 
 "Very well," said Morris, who perceived that John 
 was determined to carry his point, "I shall be Robert 
 Vance." 
 
 "And I shall be George Vance," cried John, "the 
 only original George Vance! Rally round the only 
 original ! " 
 
 Repairing as well as they were able the disorder of 
 their clothes, Finsbury brothers returned to Browndean 
 by a circuitous route in quest of luncheon and a suitable 
 cottage. It is not always easy to drop at a moment's 
 notice on a furnished residence in a retired locality ; but 
 fortune presently introduced our adventurers to a deaf 
 carpenter, a man rich in cottages of the required de- 
 scription, and unaffectedly eager to supply their wants. 
 
 29
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 The second place they visited, standing, as it did, about 
 a mile and a half from any neighbours, caused them to 
 exchange a glance of hope. On a nearer view the place 
 was not without depressing features. It stood in a 
 marshy-looking hollow of a heath ; tall trees obscured 
 its windows; the thatch visibly rotted on the rafters; 
 and the walls were stained with splashes of unwhole- 
 some green. The rooms were small, the ceilings low, 
 the furniture merely nominal; a strange chill and a 
 haunting smell of damp pervaded the kitchen; and the 
 bedroom boasted only of one bed. 
 
 Morris, with a view to cheapening the place, remarked 
 on this defect. 
 
 "Well," returned the man, "if you can't sleep two 
 abed, you'd better take a villa residence." 
 
 " And then," pursued Morris, "there's no water; how 
 do you get your water ? " 
 
 " We fill that from the spring," replied the carpenter, 
 pointing to a big barrel that stood beside the door. 
 "The spring ain't so very far off, after all, and it's easy 
 brought in buckets. There's a bucket there." 
 
 Morris nudged his brother as they examined the wa- 
 ter-butt; it was new, and very solidly constructed for its 
 office ; if anything had been wanting to decide them, this 
 eminently practicable barrel would have turned the scale. 
 A bargain was promptly struck, the month's rent was 
 paid upon the nail, and about an hour later Finsbury 
 brothers might have been observed returning to the 
 blighted cottage, having along with them the key, which 
 was the symbol of their tenancy, a spirit-lamp, with 
 which they fondly told themselves they would be able 
 to cook, a pork-pie of suitable dimensions, and a quart 
 
 30
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 of the worst whiskey in Hampshire. Nor was this all 
 they had effected ; already (under the plea that they were 
 landscape-painters) they had hired for dawn on the 
 morrow a light but solid two-wheeled cart; so that, 
 when they entered in their new character, they were 
 able to tell themselves that the back of the business was 
 already broken. 
 
 John proceeded to get tea; while Morris, foraging 
 about the house, was presently delighted by discovering 
 the lid of the water-butt upon the kitchen shelf. Here, 
 then, was the packing-case complete ; in the absence of 
 straw, the blankets (which he himself, at least, had not 
 the smallest intention of using for their present purpose) 
 would exactly take the place of packing; and Morris, as 
 the difficulties began to vanish from his path, rose almost 
 to the brink of exultation. There was, however, one 
 difficulty not yet faced, one upon which his whole 
 scheme depended. Would John consent to remain alone 
 in the cottage ? He had not yet dared to put the question. 
 
 It was with high good humour that the pair sat down 
 to the deal table, and proceeded to fall to on the pork- 
 pie. Morris retailed the discovery of the lid, and the 
 Great Vance was pleased to applaud by beating on the 
 table with his fork in true music-hall style. 
 
 "That's the dodge," he cried. "I always said a 
 water-butt was what you wanted for this business." 
 
 "Of course," said Morris, thinking this a favourable 
 opportunity to prepare his brother, " of course you must 
 stay on in this place till I give the word ; I'll give out 
 that uncle is resting in the New Forest. It would not 
 do for both of us to appear in London ; we could never 
 conceal the absence of the old man." 
 
 31
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 John's jaw dropped. 
 
 "Oh, come! " he cried. "You can stay in this hole 
 yourself. I won't" 
 
 The colour came into Morris's cheeks. He saw that 
 he must win his brother at any cost 
 
 " You must please remember, Johnny," he said, " the 
 amount of the tontine. If I succeed, we shall have each 
 fifty thousand to place to our bank account; ay, and 
 nearer sixty." 
 
 "But if you fail," returned John, "what then? 
 What'll be the colour of our bank account in that 
 case?" 
 
 "I will pay all expenses," said Morris, with an in- 
 ward struggle; "you shall lose nothing." 
 
 "Well," said John, with a laugh, "if the ex-s are 
 yours, and half profits mine, I don't mind remaining 
 here for a couple of days." 
 
 "A couple of days!" cried Morris, who was begin- 
 ning to get angry and controlled himself with difficulty. 
 "Why, you would do more to win five pounds on a 
 horse race!" 
 
 " Perhaps I would," returned the Great Vance; " it's 
 the artistic temperament" 
 
 "This is monstrous! " burst out Morris. " I take all 
 risks; I pay all expenses; 1 divide profits; and you 
 won't take the slightest pains to help me. It's not de- 
 cent; it's not honest; it's not even kind." 
 
 "But suppose," objected John, who was considera- 
 bly impressed by his brother's vehemence, "suppose 
 that Uncle Masterman is alive after all, and lives ten 
 years longer; must I rot here all that time?" 
 
 "Of course not," responded Morris, in a more con- 
 32
 
 IN WHICH MORRIS TAKES ACTION 
 
 ciliatory tone. "I only ask a month at the outside; and 
 if Uncle Masterman is not dead by that time you can go 
 abroad." 
 
 "Go abroad?" repeated John, eagerly. "Why 
 shouldn't I go at once ? Tell 'em that Joseph and I are 
 seeing life in Paris." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Morris. 
 
 "Well, but look here," said John; "it's this house, 
 it's such a pig-sty, it's so dreary and damp. You said 
 yourself that it was damp." 
 
 "Only to the carpenter," Morris distinguished, "and 
 that was to reduce the rent. But really you know, now 
 we're in it, I've seen worse." 
 
 "And what am I to do?" complained the victim. 
 " How can I entertain a friend ? " 
 
 "My dear Johnny, if you don't think the tontine 
 worth a little trouble, say so; and I'll give the busi- 
 ness up." 
 
 "You're dead certain of the figures, I suppose?" 
 asked John. ' ' Well " with a deep sigh ' ' send me 
 the Pink Un and all the comic papers regularly. I'll 
 face the music." 
 
 As afternoon drew on, the cottage breathed more 
 thrillingly of its native marsh ; a creeping chill inhab- 
 ited its chambers; the fire smoked; and a shower of 
 rain, coming up from the Channel on a slant of wind, 
 tingled on the window-panes. At intervals, when the 
 gloom deepened towards despair, Morris would produce 
 the whiskey bottle, and at first John welcomed the di- 
 version not for long. It has been said this spirit was 
 the worst in Hampshire; only those acquainted with 
 the county can appreciate the force of that superlative; 
 
 33
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 and at length even the Great Vance (who was no con- 
 noisseur) waved the decoction from his lips. The ap- 
 proach of dusk, feebly combated with a single tallow 
 candle, added a touch of tragedy; and John suddenly 
 stopped whistling through his fingers an art to the 
 practice of which he had been reduced and bitterly 
 lamented his concessions. 
 
 "I can't stay here a month," he cried. "No one 
 could. The thing's nonsense, Morris. The parties that 
 lived in the Bastille would rise against a place like this, " 
 
 With an admirable affectation of indifference, Morris 
 proposed a game of pitch-and-toss. To what will not 
 the diplomatist condescend! It was John's favourite 
 game; indeed, his only game he had found all the 
 rest too intellectual and he played it with equal skill 
 and good fortune. To Morris himself, on the other 
 hand, the whole business was detestable ; he was a bad 
 pitcher, he had no luck in tossing, and he was one who 
 suffered torments when he lost But John was in a 
 dangerous humour, and his brother was prepared for 
 any sacrifice. 
 
 By seven o'clock, Morris, with incredible agony, had 
 lost a couple of half-crowns. Even with the tontine be- 
 fore his eyes, this was as much as he could bear; and 
 remarking that he would take his revenge some other 
 time, he proposed a bit of supper and a grog. 
 
 Before they had made an end of this refreshment, it 
 was time to be at work. A bucket of water for pres- 
 ent necessities was withdrawn from the water-butt, 
 which was then emptied and rolled before the kitchen 
 fire to dry ; and the two brothers set forth on their ad- 
 venture under a starless heaven. 
 
 34
 
 CHAPTER II! 
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 WHETHER mankind is really partial to happiness is an 
 open question. Not a month passes by, but some cher- 
 ished son runs off into the merchant service, or some 
 valued husband decamps to Texas with a lady help; 
 clergymen have fled from their parishioners; and even 
 judges have been known to retire. To an open mind, 
 it will appear (upon the whole) less strange that Joseph 
 Finsbury should have been led to entertain ideas of es- 
 cape. His lot (I think we may say) was not a happy 
 one. My friend, Mr. Morris, with whom I travel up 
 twice or thrice a week from Snaresbrook Park, is cer- 
 tainly a gentleman whom I esteem ; but he was scarce 
 a model nephew. As for John, he is of course an ex- 
 cellent fellow; but if he was the only link that bound 
 one to a home, I think the most of us would vote for 
 foreign travel. In the case of Joseph, John (if he were 
 a link at all) was not the only one; endearing bonds 
 had long enchained the old gentleman to Bloomsbury; 
 and by these expressions I do not in the least refer 
 to Julia Hazeltine (of whom, however, he was fond 
 enough), but to that collection of manuscript note- 
 books in which his life lay buried. That he should 
 ever have made up his mind to separate himself from 
 
 35
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 these collections, and go forth upon the world with no 
 other resources than his memory supplied, is a circum- 
 stance highly pathetic in itself, and but little creditable 
 to the wisdom of his nephews. 
 
 The design, or at least the temptation, was already 
 some months old; and when a bill for eight hundred 
 pounds, payable to himself, was suddenly placed in 
 Joseph's hand, it brought matters to an issue. He re- 
 tained that bill, which, to one of his frugality, meant 
 wealth ; and he promised himself to disappear among 
 the crowds at Waterloo, or (if that should prove im- 
 possible) to slink out of the house in the course of the 
 evening and melt like a dream into the millions of 
 London. By a peculiar interposition of providence 
 and railway mismanagement, he had not so long to 
 wait. 
 
 He was one of the first to come to himself and scram- 
 ble to his feet, after the Browndean catastrophe, and he 
 had no sooner remarked his prostrate nephews, than 
 he understood his opportunity and fled. A man of up- 
 ward of seventy, who has just met with a railway acci- 
 dent, and who is cumbered besides with the full uni- 
 form of Sir Faraday Bond, is not very likely to flee far, 
 but the wood was close at hand and offered the fugitive 
 at least a temporary covert. Hither, then, the old gen- 
 tleman skipped with extraordinary expedition, and being 
 somewhat winded and a good deal shaken, here he lay 
 down in a convenient grove and was presentlv over- 
 whelmed by slumber. The way of fate is often highly 
 entertaining to the looker-on, and it is certainly a pleas- 
 ant circumstance, that while Morris and John were 
 delving in the sand to conceal the body of a total 
 
 36
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 stranger, their uncle lay in dreamless sleep a few hun- 
 dred yards deeper in the wood. 
 
 He was awakened by the jolly note of a bugle from 
 the neighbouring highroad, where a char-a-banc was 
 bowling by with some belated tourists. The sound 
 cheered his old heart, it directed his steps into the bar- 
 gain, and soort he was on the highway, looking east 
 and west from under his vizor, and doubtfully revolving 
 what he ought to do. A deliberate sound of wheels 
 arose in the distance, and then a cart was seen ap- 
 proaching, well filled with parcels, driven by a good- 
 natured looking man on a double bench, and displaying 
 on a board the legend, "I. Chandler, carrier." In the 
 infamously prosaic mind of Mr. Finsbury, certain streaks 
 of poetry survived and were still efficient; they had 
 carried him to Asia Minor as a giddy youth of forty, 
 and now, in the first hours of his recovered freedom, 
 they suggested to him the idea of continuing his flight 
 in Mr. Chandler's cart. It would be cheap; properly 
 broached, it might even cost nothing, and after years 
 of mittens and hygienic flannel, his heart leaped out to 
 meet the notion of exposure. 
 
 Mr. Chandler was perhaps a little puzzled to find so 
 old a gentleman, so strangely clothed, and begging for 
 a lift on so retired a roadside. But he was a good- 
 natured man, glad to do a service, and so he took the 
 stranger up ; and he had his own idea of civility, and so 
 he asked no questions. Silence, in fact, was quite good 
 enough for Mr. Chandler; but the cart had scarcely be- 
 gun to move forward ere he found himself involved in a 
 one-sided conversation. 
 
 "I can see," began Mr. Finsbury, "by the mixture 
 
 37
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 of parcels and boxes that are contained in your cart, 
 each marked with its individual label, and by the good 
 Flemish mare you drive, that you occupy the post of 
 carrier in that great English system of transport, which, 
 with all its defects, is the pride of our country." 
 
 "Yes, sir," returned Mr. Chandler vaguely, for he 
 hardly knew what to reply, "them parcels' posts has 
 done us carriers a world of harm." 
 
 "I am not a prejudiced man," continued Joseph Fins- 
 bury. "As a young man I travelled much. Nothing 
 was too small or too obscure for me to acquire. At sea 
 I studied seamanship, learned the complicated knots 
 employed by mariners, and acquired the technical terms. 
 At Naples, I would learn the art of making macaroni ; 
 at Nice, the principles of making candied fruit. I never 
 went to the opera without first buying the book of the 
 piece, and making myself acquainted with the princi- 
 pal airs by picking them out on the piano with one 
 finger." 
 
 "You must have seen a deal, sir," remarked the car- 
 rier, touching up his horse; "I wish I could have had 
 your advantages." 
 
 "Do you know how often the word whip occurs in 
 the Old Testament?" continued the old gentleman. 
 "One hundred and (if I remember exactly) forty-seven 
 times." 
 
 "Do it indeed, sir?" said Mr. Chandler. "I never 
 should have thought it." 
 
 "The Bible contains three million five hundred and 
 one thousand two hundred and forty-nine letters. Of 
 verses I believe there are upward of eighteen thousand. 
 There have been many editions of the Bible; Wiclif was
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 the first to introduce it into England, about the year 
 1 300. The ' Paragraph Bible, ' as it is called, is a well- 
 known edition, and is so called because it is divided into 
 paragraphs. The 'Breeches Bible' is another well- 
 known instance, and gets its name either because it was 
 printed by one Breeches, or because the place of publi- 
 cation bore that name." 
 
 The carrier remarked drily that he thought that was 
 only natural, and turned his attention to the more con- 
 genial task of passing a cart of hay ; it was a matter of 
 some difficulty, for the road was narrow, and there was 
 a ditch on either hand. 
 
 "I perceive," began Mr. Finsbury, when they had 
 successfully passed the cart, "that you hold your reins 
 with one hand; you should employ two." 
 
 "Well, I like that! " cried the carrier, contemptuously. 
 "Why?" 
 
 "You do not understand," continued Mr. Finsbury. 
 "What I tell you is a scientific fact, and reposes on the 
 theory of the lever, a branch of mechanics. There are 
 some very interesting little shilling-books upon the field 
 of study, which I should think a man in your station 
 would take a pleasure to read. But I am afraid you 
 have not cultivated the art of observation ; at least we 
 have now driven together for some time, and I cannot 
 remember that you have contributed a single fact. This 
 is a very false principle, my good man. For instance, I 
 do not know if you observed that (as you passed the 
 hay-cart man) you took your left ? " 
 
 "Of course I did," cried the carrier, who was now 
 getting belligerent; "he'd have the law on me if I 
 hadn't."
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "In France, now," resumed the old man, "and also, 
 I believe, in the United States of America, you would 
 have taken the right." 
 
 "I would not," cried Mr. Chandler, indignantly. "I 
 would have taken the left." 
 
 "I observe," again continued Mr. Finsbury, scorning 
 to reply, "that you mend the dilapidated parts of your 
 harness with string. I have always protested against 
 this carelessness and slovenliness of the English poor. 
 In an essay that I once read before an appreciative au- 
 dience " 
 
 " It ain't string," said the carrier, sullenly, " it's pack- 
 thread." 
 
 "I have always protested," resumed the old man, 
 "that in their private and domestic life, as well as in 
 their labouring career, the lower classes of this country 
 are improvident, thriftless, and extravagant. A stitch 
 in time " 
 
 "Who the devil are the lower classes?" cried the 
 carrier. "You are the lower classes yourself! If I 
 thought you were a blooming aristocrat I shouldn't 
 have given you a lift." 
 
 The words were uttered with undisguised ill-feeling; 
 it was plain the pair were not congenial, and further 
 conversation, even to one of Mr. Finsbury's pathetic 
 loquacity, was out of the question. With an angry 
 gesture he pulled down the brim of the forage-cap over 
 his eyes, and producing a note-book and a blue pencil 
 from one of his innermost pockets, soon became ab- 
 sorbed in calculations. 
 
 On his part the carrier fell to whistling with fresh 
 zest; and if (now and again) he glanced at the com- 
 
 40
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 panion of his drive, it was with mingled feelings of 
 triumph and alarm triumph because he had succeeded 
 in arresting that prodigy of speech, and alarm lest (by 
 any accident) it should begin again. Even the shower, 
 which presently overtook and passed them, was endured 
 by both in silence; and it was still in silence that they 
 drove at length into Southampton. 
 
 Dusk had fallen ; the shop windows glimmered forth 
 Into the streets of the old seaport; in private houses 
 lights were kindled for the evening meal ; and Mr. Fins- 
 bury began to think complacently of his night's lodging. 
 He put his papers by, cleared his throat, and looked 
 doubtfully at Mr. Chandler. 
 
 " Will you be civil enough," said he, "to recommend 
 me to an inn ? " 
 
 Mr. Chandler pondered for a moment. 
 
 "Well," he said at last, "I wonder how about the 
 'Tregonwell Arms.'" 
 
 "The 'Tregonwell Arms' will do very well," re- 
 turned the old man, "if it's clean and cheap, and the 
 people civil." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking so much of you," returned Mr. 
 Chandler, thoughtfully. "I was thinking of my friend 
 Watts as keeps the 'ouse; he's a friend of mine, you 
 see, and he helped me through my trouble last year. 
 And I was thinking, would it be fair-like on Watts to 
 saddle him with an old party like you, who might be 
 the death of him with general information. Would it 
 be fair to the 'ouse ? " inquired Mr. Chandler, with an air 
 of candid appeal. 
 
 "Mark me," cried the old gentleman, with spirit. 
 " ! t was kind in you to bring me here for nothing, but
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 it gives you no right to address me in such terms. 
 Here's a shilling for your trouble; and if you do not 
 choose to set me down at the ' Tregonwell Arms,' I can 
 find it for myself." 
 
 Chandler was surprised and a little startled; mutter- 
 ing something apologetic, he returned the shilling, drove 
 in silence through several intricate lanes and small 
 streets, drew up at length before the bright windows 
 of an inn, and called loudly for "Mr. Watts." 
 
 "Is that you, Jem?" cried a hearty voice from the 
 stableyard. "Come in and warm yourself." 
 
 "I only stopped here," Mr. Chandler explained, "to 
 let down an old gent what wants food and lodging. 
 Mind, I warn you agin him; he's worse nor a temper- 
 ance lecturer." 
 
 Mr. Finsbury dismounted with difficulty, for he was 
 cramped with his long drive, and the shaking he had 
 received in the accident. The friendly Mr. Watts, in 
 spite of the carter's scarcely agreeable introduction, 
 treated the old gentleman with the utmost courtesy, and 
 led him into the back parlour, where there was a big 
 fire burning in the grate. Presently a table was spread 
 in the same room, and he was invited to seat himself 
 before a stewed fowl somewhat the worse for having 
 seen service before and a big pewter mug of ale from 
 the tap. 
 
 He rose from supper a giant refreshed ; and changing 
 his seat to one nearer the fire, began to examine the 
 other guests with an eye to the delights of oratory. 
 There were near a dozen present, all men, and (as Jo- 
 seph exulted to perceive) all working-men. Often 
 already had he seen cause to bless that appetite for dis- 
 
 42
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 connected fact and rotatory argument, which is so marked 
 a character of the mechanic. But even an audience of 
 working-men has to be courted, and there was no man 
 more deeply versed in the necessary arts than Joseph 
 Finsbury. He placed his glasses on his nose, drew from 
 his pocket a bundle of papers, and spread them before 
 him on a table. He crumpled them, he smoothed them 
 out; now he skimmed them over, apparently well 
 pleased with their contents ; now, with tapping pencil 
 and contracted brows, he seemed maturely to consider 
 some particular statement. A stealthy glance about the 
 room assured him of the success of his manoeuvres ; all 
 eyes were turned on the performer, mouths were open, 
 pipes hung suspended; the birds were charmed. At 
 the same moment the entrance of Mr. Watts afforded 
 him an opportunity. 
 
 "I observe," said he, addressing the landlord, but 
 taking at the same time the whole room into his confi- 
 dence with an encouraging look, "I observe that some 
 of these gentlemen are looking with curiosity in my 
 direction ; and certainly it is unusual to see anyone im- 
 mersed in literary and scientific labours in the public 
 apartment of an inn. I have here some calculations I 
 made this morning upon the cost of living in this and 
 other countries a subject, I need scarcely say, highly 
 interesting to the working classes. I have calculated a 
 scale of living for incomes of eighty, one hundred and 
 sixty, two hundred, and two hundred and forty pounds 
 a year. I must confess that the income of eighty pounds 
 has somewhat baffled me, and the others are not so 
 exact as I could wish ; for the price of washing varies 
 largely in foreign countries, and the different cokes, 
 
 43
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 coals, and firewoods fluctuate surprisingly. I will read 
 my researches, and I hope you won't scruple to point 
 out to me any little errors that I may have committed 
 either from oversight or ignorance. I will begin, gen- 
 tlemen, with the income of eighty pounds a year." 
 
 Whereupon the old gentleman, with less compassion 
 than he would have had for brute beasts, delivered him- 
 self of all his tedious calculations. As he occasionally 
 gave ten versions of a single income, placing the im- 
 aginary person in London, Paris, Bagdad, Spitsbergen, 
 Bassorah, Heligoland, the Scilly Islands, Brighton, Cin- 
 cinnati, and Nijni-Novgorod, with an appropriate out- 
 fit for each locality, it is no wonder that his hearers look 
 back on that evening as the most tiresome they ever 
 spent 
 
 Long before Mr. Finsbury had reached Nijni-Novgo- 
 rod with the income of one hundred and sixty pounds, 
 the company had dwindled and faded away to a few 
 old topers and the bored but affable Watts. There was 
 a constant stream of customers from the outer world, 
 but so soon as they were served they drank their liquor 
 quickly, and departed with the utmost celerity for the 
 next public-house. 
 
 By the time the young man with two hundred a year 
 was vegetating in the Scilly Islands, Mr. Watts was left 
 alone with the economist; and that imaginary person 
 had scarce commenced life at Brighton before the last of 
 his pursuers desisted from the chase. 
 
 Mr. Finsbury slept soundly after the manifold fatigues 
 of the day. He rose late, and after a good breakfast, 
 ordered the bill. Then it was that he made a discovery 
 which has been made by many others, both before and 
 
 44
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 since: that it is one thing to order your bill, and another 
 to discharge it. The items were moderate and (what 
 does not always follow) the total small; but after the 
 most sedulous review of all his pockets, one and nine- 
 pence halfpenny appeared to be the total of the old gen- 
 tleman's available assets. He asked to see Mr. Watts. 
 
 " Here is a bill on London for eight hundred pounds," 
 said Mr. Finsbury, as that worthy appeared. "I am 
 afraid unless you choose to discount it yourself, it may 
 detain me a day or two till I can get it cashed." 
 
 Mr. Watts looked at the bill, turned it over, and dogs- 
 eared it with his fingers. "It will keep you a day or 
 two ? " he said, repeating the old man's words. "You 
 have no other money with you ? " 
 
 "Some trifling change," responded Joseph. "Noth- 
 ing to speak of." 
 
 "Then you can send it me; I should be pleased to 
 trust you." 
 
 "To tell the truth," answered the old gentleman, "I 
 am more than half inclined to stay; I am in need of 
 funds." 
 
 "If a loan of ten shillings would help you, It is at 
 your service," responded Watts, with eagerness. 
 
 "No, I think I would rather stay," said the old man, 
 "and get my bill discounted." 
 
 "You shall not stay in my house," cried Mr. Watts. 
 "This is the last time you shall have a bed at the 'Tre- 
 gonwell Arms.'" 
 
 " I insist upon remaining," replied Mr. Finsbury, with 
 spirit; " I remain by Act of Parliament; turn me out if 
 ypu dare." 
 
 "Then pay your bill," said Mr. Watts. 
 
 45
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " Take that," cried the old man, tossing him the ne- 
 gotiable bill. 
 
 " It is not legal tender," replied Mr. Watts. " You 
 must leave my house at once." 
 
 " You cannot appreciate the contempt I fed for you, 
 Mr. Watts," said the old gentleman, resigning himself 
 to circumstances. " But you shall feel it in one way; I 
 refuse to pay my bilL" 
 
 "I don't care for your bill," responded Mr. Watts. 
 "What I want is your absence." 
 
 " That you shall have! " said the old gentleman, and 
 taking up his forage-cap as he spoke, he crammed it on 
 his head. " Perhaps you are too insolent," he added, 
 " to inform me of the time of the next London train ?" 
 
 " It leaves in three-quarters of an hour," returned the 
 inn-keeper, with alacrity. "You can easily catch it." 
 
 Joseph's position was one of considerable weakness. 
 On the one hand, it would have been well to avoid the 
 direct line of railway, since it was there he might expect 
 his nephews to lie in wait for his recapture; on the 
 other, it was highly desirable, it was even strictly need- 
 ful, to get the bill discounted ere it should be stopped. 
 To London, therefore, he decided to proceed on the first 
 train ; and there remained but one point to be considered, 
 how to pay his fare. 
 
 Joseph's nails were never clean, he ate almost entirely 
 with his knife. I doubt if you could say he had the 
 manners of a gentleman ; but he had better than that, a 
 touch of genuine dignity. Was it from his stay in Asia 
 Minor? Was it from a strain in the Finsbury blood 
 sometimes alluded to by customers ? At least, when he 
 presented himself before the station-master, his salaam
 
 THE LECTURER AT LARGE 
 
 was truly oriental, palm-trees appeared to crowd about 
 the little office, and the simoom or the bulbul but I 
 leave this image to persons better acquainted with the 
 East. His appearance, besides, was highly in his favour; 
 the uniform of Sir Faraday, however inconvenient and 
 conspicuous, was, at least, a costume in which no 
 swindler could have hoped to prosper; and the exhibi- 
 tion of a valuable watch and a bill for eight hundred 
 pounds completed what deportment had begun. Quarter 
 of an hour later, when the train came up, Mr. Finsbury 
 was introduced to the guard and installed in a first-class 
 compartment, the station-master smilingly assuming all 
 responsibility. 
 
 As the old gentleman sat waiting the moment of de- 
 parture, he was the witness of an incident strangely 
 connected with the fortunes of his house. A packing- 
 case of cyclopean bulk was borne along the platform by 
 some dozen of tottering porters, and ultimately, to the 
 delight of a considerable crowd, hoisted on board the. 
 van. It is often the cheering task of the historian to 
 direct attention to the designs and (if it may be rever- 
 ently said) the artifices of Providence. In the luggage; 
 van, as Joseph was borne out of the station of South- 
 ampton East upon his way to London, the egg of this; 
 romance lay (so to speak) unhatched. The huge pack*, 
 ing-case was directed " to lie at Waterloo till called for," 
 and addressed to one " William Dent Pitman ; " and the 
 very next article, a goodly barrel jammed into the corner 
 of the van, bore the superscription " M. Finsbury, 16 
 John Street, Bloomsbury. Carriage paid." 
 
 In this juxtaposition, the train of powder was prepared ; 
 and there was now wanting only an idle hand to fire it off. 
 
 47
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN 
 
 THE city of Winchester is famed for a cathedral, a 
 bishop but he was unfortunately killed some years 
 ago while riding a public school, a considerable as- 
 sortment of the military, and the deliberate passage of 
 the trains on the London and South Western line. 
 These and many similar associations would have doubt- 
 less crowded on the mind of Joseph Finsbury ; but his 
 spirit had at that time flitted from the railway compart- 
 ment to a heaven of populous lecture-halls and endless 
 oratory. His body, in the meanwhile, lay doubled on 
 the cushions, the forage-cap rakishly tilted back after the 
 fashion of those that lie in wait for nursery-maids, the 
 poor old face quiescent, one arm clutching to his heart 
 Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper. 
 
 To him, thus unconscious, enter and exeunt again a 
 pair of voyagers. These two had saved the train and 
 no more. A tandem urged to its last speed, an act of 
 something closely bordering on brigandage at the ticket 
 office, and a spasm of running, had brought them on 
 the platform just as the engine uttered its departing 
 snort. There was but one carriage easily within their 
 reach; and they had sprung into it, and the leader and 
 elder already had his feet upon the floor, when he ob- 
 served Mr. Finsbury. 
 
 48
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN 
 
 "Good God!" he cried, "Uncle Joseph! This'll 
 never do." 
 
 And he backed out, almost upsetting his companion, 
 and once more closed the door upon the sleeping patri- 
 arch. 
 
 The next moment the pair had jumped into the bag- 
 gage van. 
 
 " What's the row about your Uncle Joseph ? " inquired 
 the younger traveller, mopping his brow. "Does he 
 object to smoking ? " 
 
 "I don't know that there's anything the row with 
 him," returned the other. " He's by no means the first 
 comer, my Uncle Joseph, I can tell you! Very respect- 
 able old gentleman; interested in leather; been to Asia 
 Minor; no family, no assets and a tongue, my dear 
 Wickham, sharper than a serpent's tooth." 
 
 "Cantankerous old party, eh ?" suggested Wickham. 
 
 "Not in the least," cried the other; "only a man 
 with a solid talent for being a bore; rather cheery, I 
 dare say, on a desert island, but on a railway journey, 
 insupportable. You should hear him on Tonti, the ass 
 that started tontines. He's incredible on Tonti." 
 
 "By Jove!' : cried Wickham, "then you're one of 
 these Finsbury tontine fellows. I hadn't a guess of 
 that." 
 
 "Ah!" said the other, "do you know, that old boy 
 in the carriage is worth a hundred thousand pounds to 
 me ? There he was asleep, and nobody there but you ! 
 But I spared him, because I'm a conservative in politics." 
 
 Mr. Wickham, pleased to be in a luggage van, was 
 flitting to and fro like a gentlemanly butterfly. 
 
 "By Jingo!" he cried, "here's something for you! 
 
 49
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 'M. Finsbury, 16 John Street, Bloomsbury, London.' 
 M. stands for Michael, you sly dog; you keep two es- 
 tablishments, do you ? " 
 
 "Oh, that's Morris," responded Michael from the 
 other end of the van, where he had found a comfortable 
 seat upon some sacks. " He's a little cousin of mine. 
 I like him myself, because he's afraid of me. He's one 
 of the ornaments of Bloomsbury, and has a collection 
 of some kind birds' eggs or something that's sup- 
 posed to be curious. I bet it's nothing to my clients! " 
 
 "What a lark it would be to play billy with the 
 labels! " chuckled Mr. Wickham. " By George, here's 
 a tack-hammer! We might send all these things skip- 
 ping about the premises like what's-his-name! " 
 
 At this moment the guard, surprised by the sound 
 of voices, opened the door of his little cabin. 
 
 "You had best step in here, gentlemen," said he, 
 when he had heard their story. 
 
 "Won't you come, Wickham ?" asked Michael. 
 
 "Catch me I want to travel in a van," replied the 
 south. 
 
 And so the door of communication was closed; and 
 for the rest of the run Mr. Wickham was left alone over 
 his diversions on the one side, and on the other Michael 
 and the guard were closeted together in familiar talk. 
 
 ' ' I can get you a compartment here, sir, " observed the 
 official, as the train began to slacken speed before Bishop- 
 stoke station. " You had best get out at my door, and 
 I can bring your friend." 
 
 Mr. Wickham, whom we left (as, the reader has 
 shrewdly suspected) beginning to "play billy" with 
 the labels in the van, was a young gentleman of much 
 
 50
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN 
 
 wealth, a pleasing but sandy exterior, and a highly va- 
 cant mind. Not many months before, he had contrived 
 to get himself black-mailed by the family of a Walla- 
 chian Hospodar, resident for political reasons in the gay 
 city of Paris. A common friend (to whom he had con- 
 fided his distress) recommended him to Michael; and 
 the lawyer was no sooner in possession of the facts, 
 than he instantly assumed the offensive, fell on the flank 
 of the Wallachian forces, and in the inside of three days, 
 had the satisfaction to behold them routed and fleeing 
 for the Danube. It is no business of ours to follow them 
 on this retreat, over which the police were so obliging 
 as to preside paternally. Thus relieved from what he 
 loved to refer to as the Bulgarian Atrocity, Mr. Wick- 
 ham returned to London with the most unbounded and 
 embarrassing gratitude and admiration for his saviour. 
 These sentiments were not repaid either in kind or de- 
 gree; indeed, Michael was a trifle ashamed of his new 
 client's friendship; it had taken many invitations to get 
 him to Winchester and Wickham Manor; but he had 
 gone at last, and was now returning. It has been re- 
 marked by some judicious thinker (possibly J. F. Smith) 
 that Providence despises to employ no instrument, how- 
 ever humble; and it is now plain to the dullest that 
 both Mr. Wickham and the Wallachian Hospodar were 
 liquid lead and wedges in the hand of destiny. 
 
 Smitten with the desire to shine in Michael's eyes and 
 show himself a person of original humour and resources, 
 the young gentleman (who was a magistrate, more by 
 token, in his native county) was no sooner alone in the 
 van, than he fell upon the labels with all the zeal of a 
 reformer; and when he rejoined the lawyer at Bishop- 
 si
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 stoke, his face was flushed with his exertions, and his 
 cigar, which he had suffered to go out, was almost bit- 
 ten in two. 
 
 "By George, but this has been a lark!" he cried. 
 "I've sent the wrong thing to everybody in England. 
 These cousins of yours have a packing-case as big as a 
 house. I've muddled the whole business up to that ex- 
 tent, Finsbury, that if it were to get out, it's my belief 
 we should be lynched." 
 
 It was useless to be serious with Mr. Wickham. 
 "Take care," said Michael. "I am getting tired of 
 your perpetual scrapes; my reputation is beginning to 
 suffer." 
 
 "Your reputation will be all gone before you finish 
 with me," replied his companion, with a grin. "Clap 
 it in the bill, my boy. ' For total loss of reputation, six 
 and eightpence.' But, "continued Mr. Wickham, with 
 more seriousness, "could I be bowled out of the Com- 
 mission for this little jest ? I know it's small, but I like 
 to be a J. P. Speaking as a professional man, do you 
 think there's any risk ? " 
 
 " What does it matter? " responded Michael. "They'll 
 chuck you out sooner or later. Somehow you don't 
 give the effect of being a good magistrate." 
 
 "I only wish I was a solicitor," retorted his com- 
 panion, " instead of a poor devil of a country gentleman. 
 Suppose we start one of those tontine affairs ourselves ; 
 I to pay five hundred a year, and you to guarantee me 
 against every misfortune except illness or marriage." 
 
 " It strikes me," remarked the lawyer with a medita- 
 tive laugh, as he lighted a cigar; "it strikes me that you 
 must be a cursed nuisance in this world of ours." 
 
 s*
 
 THE MAGISTRATE IN THE LUGGAGE VAN 
 
 "Do you really think so, Finsbury ?" responded the 
 magistrate, leaning back in his cushions, delighted with 
 the compliment. "Yes, I suppose I am a nuisance. 
 But mind you, I have a stake in the country: don't for- 
 get that, dear boy."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 IT has been mentioned that at Bournemouth Jufia 
 sometimes made acquaintances; it fs true she had but 
 a glimpse of them before the doors of John Street closed 
 again upon its captives, but the glimpse was sometimes 
 exhilarating, and the consequent regret was tempered 
 with hope. Among those whom she had thus met a 
 year before, was a young barrister of the name of Gideon 
 Forsyth. 
 
 About three o'clock of the eventful day when the 
 magistrate tampered with the labels, a somewhat moody 
 and distempered ramble had carried Mr. Forsyth to the 
 corner of John Street; and about the same moment Miss 
 Hazeltine was called to the door of No. 16 by a thunder- 
 ing double knock. 
 
 Mr. Gideon Forsyth was a happy enough young man ; 
 he would have been happier if he had had more money 
 and less uncle. One hundred and twenty pounds a year 
 was all his store; but his uncle, Mr. Edward Hugh 
 Bloomfield, supplemented this with a handsome allow- 
 ance and a great deal of advice, couched in language 
 that would probably have been judged intemperate on 
 board a pirate ship. Mr. Bloomfield was indeed a figure 
 quite peculiar to the days of Mr. Gladstone; what we 
 
 M
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 may call (for the lack of an accepted expression) a Squir- 
 radical. Having acquired years without experience, he 
 carried into the radical side of politics those noisy, after 
 dinner-table passions, which we are more accustomed 
 to connect with toryism in its severe and senile aspects. 
 To the opinions of Mr. Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the 
 temper and the sympathies of that extinct animal, the 
 Squire. He admired pugilism, he carried a formidable 
 oaken staff, he was a reverent churchman, and it was 
 hard to know which would have more volcanically 
 stirred his choler a person who should have defended 
 the established church, or one who should have neglected 
 to attend its celebrations. He had besides some level- 
 ing catch-words, justly dreaded in the family circle; and 
 when he could not go so far as to declare a step Un- 
 English, he might still (and with hardly less effect) de- 
 nounce it as Unpractical. It was under the ban of this 
 lesser excommunication that Gideon had fallen. His 
 views on the study of law had been pronounced un- 
 practical ; and it had been intimated to him, in a vocifer- 
 ous interview punctuated with the oaken staff, that he 
 must either take a new start and get a brief or two, or 
 prepare to live on his own money. 
 
 No wonder if Gideon was moody. He had not the 
 slightest wish to modify his present habits; but he 
 would not stand on that, since the recall of Mr. Bloom- 
 field's allowance would revolutionise them still more 
 radically. He had not the least desire to acquaint him- 
 self with law; he had looked into it already, and it 
 seemed not to repay attention ; but upon this also he 
 was ready to give way. In fact, he would go as far as 
 he could to meet the views of his uncle, the squirradical. 
 
 55
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 But there was one part of the programme that appeared 
 independent of his wilL How to get a brief? there was 
 the question. And there was another and a worse. 
 Suppose he got one, should he prove the better man ? 
 
 Suddenly he found his way barred by a crowd. A 
 garishly illuminated van was backed against the kerb; 
 from its open stern, half resting on the street, half sup- 
 ported by some glistening athletes, the end of the largest 
 packing-case in the county of Middlesex might have 
 been seen protruding; while on the steps of the house, 
 the burly person of the driver and the slim figure of a 
 young girl stood as upon a stage, disputing. 
 
 "It is not for us," the girl was saying. "I beg you 
 to take it away; it couldn't get into the house, even if 
 you managed to get it out of the van." 
 
 " I shall leave it on the pavement, then, and M. Fins- 
 bury can arrange with the Vestry as he likes," said the 
 van-man. 
 
 " But I am not M. Finsbury," expostulated the girl. 
 
 " It doesn't matter who you are," said the van-man. 
 
 "You must allow me to help you, Miss Hazeltine," 
 said Gideon, putting out his hand. 
 
 Julia gave a little cry of pleasure. ' ' Oh, Mr. Forsyth, " 
 she cried, "I am so glad to see you; we must get this 
 horrid thing, which can only have come here by mistake, 
 into the house. The man says we'll have to take off the 
 door, or knock two of our windows into one, or be fined 
 by the Vestry or Custom House or something, for leav- 
 ing our parcels on the pavement" 
 
 The men, by this time, had successfully removed the 
 box from the van, had plumped it down on the pave- 
 ment, and now stood leaning against it, or gazing at 
 
 c*
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 the door of No. 16, in visible physical distress and 
 mental embarrassment. The windows of the whole 
 street had filled, as if by magic, with interested and 
 entertained spectators. 
 
 With as thoughtful and scientific an expression as he 
 could assume, Gideon measured the doorway with his 
 cane, while Julia entered his observations in a drawing- 
 book. He then measured the box, and, upon compar- 
 ing his data, found that there was just enough space for 
 it to enter. Next, throwing off his coat and waistcoat, 
 he assisted the men to take the door from its hinges. 
 And lastly, all by-standers being pressed into the ser- 
 vice, the packing-case mounted the steps upon some 
 fifteen pairs of wavering legs scraped, loudly grind- 
 ing, through the doorway and was deposited at 
 length, with a formidable convulsion, in the far end of 
 the lobby, which it almost blocked. The artisans of 
 this victory smiled upon each other as the dust sub- 
 sided. It was true they had smashed a bust of Apollo 
 and ploughed the wall into deep ruts; but, at least, 
 they were no longer one of the public spectacles of 
 London. 
 
 "Well, sir," said the van-man, "I never see such a 
 job." 
 
 Gideon eloquently expressed his concurrence in this 
 sentiment by pressing a couple of sovereigns in the 
 man's hand. 
 
 "Make it three, sir, and I'll stand Sam to everybody 
 here! " cried the latter; and this having been done, the 
 whole body of volunteer porters swarmed into the van, 
 which drove off in the direction of the nearest reliable 
 public-house. Gideon closed the door on their de- 
 
 57
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 parture and turned to Julia: their eyes met; the most 
 uncontrollable mirth seized upon them both, and they 
 made the house ring with their laughter. Then curios- 
 ity awoke in Julia's mind, and she went and examined 
 the box, and more especially the label. 
 
 "This is the strangest thing that ever happened," 
 she said, with another burst of laughter. "It is cer- 
 tainly Morris's handwriting, and I had a letter from him 
 only this morning telling me to expect a barrel. Is 
 there a barrel coming, too, do you think, Mr. Forsyth ? " 
 
 "Statuary with Care, Fragile," read Gideon aloud 
 from the painted warning on the box. "Then you 
 were told nothing about this ? " 
 
 "No," responded Julia. "Oh, Mr. Forsyth, don't 
 you think we might take a peep at it?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," cried Gideon. "Just let me have a 
 hammer." 
 
 "Come down, and I'll show you where it is," cried 
 Julia, "the shelf is too high for me to reach;" and, 
 opening the door of the kitchen stair, she bade Gideon 
 follow her. They found both a hammer and a chisel; 
 but Gideon was surprised to see no sign of a servant. 
 He also discovered that Miss Hazeltine had a very pretty 
 little foot and ankle; and the discovery embarrassed 
 him so much that he was glad to fall at once upon the 
 packing-case. 
 
 He worked hard and earnestly, and dealt his blows 
 with the precision of a blacksmith; Julia the while 
 standing silently by his side and regarding rather the 
 workman than the work. He was a handsome fellow, 
 she told herself; she had never seen such beautiful 
 arms. And suddenly, as though he had overheard 
 
 58
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 these thoughts, Gideon turned and smiled to her. She, 
 too, smiled and coloured; and the double change be- 
 came her so prettily that Gideon forgot to turn away 
 his eyes, and, swinging the hammer with a will, dis- 
 charged a smashing blow on his own knuckles. With 
 admirable presence of mind he crushed down an oath 
 and substituted the harmless comment, "butter fin- 
 gers ! " But the pain was sharp, his nerve was shaken, 
 and after an abortive trial he found he must desist from 
 further operations. 
 
 In a moment Julia was off to the pantry, in a moment 
 she was back again with a basin of water and a sponge, 
 and had begun to bathe his wounded hand. 
 
 " I am dreadfully sorry," said Gideon, apologetically. 
 "If I had had any manners I should have opened the 
 box first, and smashed my hand afterward. It feels 
 much better," he added. "I assure you it does." 
 
 " And now I think you are well enough to direct op^ 
 erations," said she. " Tell me what to do, and I'll be 
 your workman." 
 
 "A very pretty workman," said Gideon, rather for- 
 getting himself. She turned and looked at him, with a 
 suspicion of a frown; and the indiscreet young man 
 was glad to direct her attention to the packing-case. 
 The bulk of the work had been accomplished; and pres- 
 ently Julia had burst through the last barrier and dis- 
 closed a zone of straw. In a moment they were kneel- 
 ing side by side, engaged like haymakers; the next 
 they were rewarded with a glimpse of something white 
 and polished; and the next again, laid bare an unmis- 
 takable marble leg. 
 
 " He is surely a very athletic person," said Julia. 
 59
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "I never saw anything like it," responded Gideon. 
 "His muscles stand out like penny rolls." 
 
 Another leg was soon disclosed, and then what 
 seemed to be a third. This resolved itself, however, 
 into a knotted club resting upon a pedestal. 
 
 "It is a Hercules," cried Gideon; "I might have 
 guessed that from his calf. I'm supposed to be rather 
 partial to statuary, but when it comes to Hercules, the 
 police should interfere. I should say," he added, 
 glancing with disaffection at the swollen leg, "that 
 this was about the biggest and the worst in Europe. 
 What in heaven's name can have induced him to come 
 here?" 
 
 "I suppose nobody else would have a gift of him," 
 said Julia. "And for that matter, I think we could 
 have done without the monster very well." 
 
 "Oh, don't say that," returned Gideon. "This has 
 been one of the most amusing experiences of my life." 
 
 " I don't think you'll forget it very soon," said Julia. 
 ''Your hand will remind you." 
 
 "Well, I suppose I must be going," said Gideon, 
 reluctantly. 
 
 "No, "pleaded Julia. "Why should you? Stay and 
 have tea with me." 
 
 "If I thought you really wished me to stay," said 
 Gideon, looking at his hat, "of course I should only be 
 too delighted." 
 
 "What a silly person you must take me for!" re- 
 turned the girl. "Why, of course I do; and besides I 
 want some cakes for tea, and I've nobody to send. 
 Here is the latch-key." 
 
 Gideon put on his hat with alacrity, and casting one 
 60
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 look at Miss Hazeltine and another at the legs of Her- 
 cules, threw open the door and departed on his errand. 
 
 He returned with a large bag of the choicest and most 
 tempting of cakes and tartlets, and found Julia in the act 
 of spreading a small tea-table in the lobby. 
 
 "The rooms are all in such a state," she cried, 
 "that I thought we should be more cosy and com- 
 fortable in our own lobby, and under our own vine and 
 statuary." 
 
 " Ever so much better," cried Gideon, delightedly. 
 
 "Oh, what adorable cream tarts!" said Julia, open- 
 ing the bag, "and the dearest little cherry tartlets, with 
 all the cherries spilled out into the cream ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Gideon, concealing his dismay, " I knew 
 they would mix beautifully; the woman behind the 
 counter told me so." 
 
 "Now," said Julia, as they began their little festival, 
 " I am going to show you Morris's letter; read it aloud, 
 please; perhaps there's something I have missed." 
 
 Gideon took the letter, and spreading it out on his 
 knee, read as follows : 
 
 " DEAR JULIA: I write you from Browndean, where we are stopping 
 over for a few days. Uncle was much shaken in that dreadful acci- 
 dent, of which, I dare say, you have seen the account. To-morrow I 
 leave him here with John, and come up alone; but before that you will 
 have received a barrel containing specimens for a friend. Do not 
 open it on any account, but kave it in the lobby till I come. 
 
 " Yours in haste, 
 
 " M. FINSBURY. 
 
 " P.S. Be sure and kave the bai -el in the lobby." 
 
 "No," said Gideon, "there seems to be nothing 
 61
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 about the monument," and he nodded as he spoke at 
 the marble legs. "Miss Hazeltine," he continued, 
 " would you mind me asking a few questions ?" 
 
 "Certainly not," replied Julia; "and if you can make 
 me understand why Morris has sent a statue of Hercules 
 instead of a barrel containing specimens for a friend, I 
 shall be grateful till my dying day. And what are speci- 
 mens for a friend ? " 
 
 "I haven't a guess," said Gideon. "Specimens are 
 usually bits of stone, but rather smaller than our friend 
 the monument. Still, that is not the point. Are you 
 quite alone in this big house ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am at present," returned Julia. " I came up 
 before them to prepare the house, and get another 
 servant. But I couldn't get one I liked." 
 
 "Then you are utterly alone," said Gideon in amaze- 
 ment. " Are you not afraid ? " 
 
 "No," responded Julia, stoutly. "I don't see why I 
 should be more afraid than you would be; I am weaker, 
 of course, but when I found I must sleep alone in the 
 house, I bought a revolver wonderfully cheap, and made 
 the man show me how to use it." 
 
 "And how do you use it?" demanded Gideon, much 
 amused at her courage. 
 
 "Why," said she, with a smile, "you pull the little 
 trigger thing on top, and then pointing it very low, for 
 it springs up as you fire, you pull the underneath little 
 trigger thing, and it goes off as well as if a man had 
 done it." 
 
 "And how often have you used it?" asked Gideon. 
 
 "Oh, I have not used it yet," said the determined 
 young lady; "but I know how, and that makes me 
 
 62
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 wonderfully courageous, especially when I barricade my 
 door with a chest of drawers." 
 
 "I'm awfully glad they are coming back soon," said 
 Gideon. " This business strikes me as excessively un- 
 safe; if it goes on much longer, I could provide you 
 with a maiden aunt of mine, or my landlady, if you 
 preferred." 
 
 " Lend me an aunt! " cried Julia. " Oh, what gener- 
 osity ! I begin to think it must have been you that sent 
 the Hercules." 
 
 "Believe me," cried the young man, "I admire 
 you too much to send you such an infamous work 
 of art." 
 
 Julia was beginning to reply, when they were both 
 startled by a knocking at the door. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Forsyth!" 
 
 "Don't be afraid, my dear girl," said Gideon, laying 
 his hand tenderly on her arm. 
 
 "I know it's the police, "she whispered. "They are 
 coming to complain about the statue." 
 
 The knock was repeated. It was louder than before, 
 and more impatient. 
 
 "It's Morris," cried Julia, in a startled voice, and she 
 ran to the door and opened it. 
 
 It was indeed Morris that stood before them ; not the 
 Morris of ordinary days, but a wild-looking fellow, pale 
 and haggard, with blood-shot eyes, and a two days' 
 beard upon his chin. 
 
 "The barrel!" he cried. "Where's the barrel that 
 came this morning?" and he stared about the lobby, 
 his eyes, as they fell upon the legs of Hercules, literally 
 goggling in his head. " What is that ? " he screamed. 
 
 63
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "What is that wax-work? Speak, you fool! What 
 is that? and where's the barrel the water-butt?" 
 
 "No barrel came, Morris," responded Julia, coldly. 
 "This is the only thing that has arrived." 
 
 "This!" shrieked the miserable man. "I never 
 heard of it! " 
 
 " It came addressed in your hand," replied Julia; "we 
 had nearly to pull the house down to get it in, and that 
 is all that I can tell you." 
 
 Morris gazed at her in utter bewilderment. He passed 
 his hand over his forehead, he leaned' against the wall 
 like a man about to faint. Then his tongue was loosed, 
 and he overwhelmed the girl with torrents of abuse. 
 Such fire, such directness, such a choice of ungentle- 
 manly language, none had ever before suspected Morris to 
 possess ; and the girl trembled and shrank before his fury. 
 
 " You shall not speak to Miss Hazeltine in that way," 
 said Gideon, sternly. " It is what I will not suffer." 
 
 "I shall speak to the girl as I like," returned Morris, 
 with a fresh outburst of anger. " I'll speak to the hussy 
 as she deserves." 
 
 " Not a word more, sir, not one word," cried Gideon. 
 "Miss Hazeltine," he continued, addressing the young 
 girl, "you cannot stay a moment longer in the same 
 house with this unmanly fellow. Here is my arm, let 
 me take you where you will be secure from insult." 
 
 "Mr. Forsyth," returned Julia, "you are right, I can- 
 not stay here longer, and I am sure I trust myself to an 
 honourable gentleman." 
 
 Pale and resolute, Gideon offered her his arm, and the 
 pair descended the steps, followed by Morris clamouring 
 for the latch-key. 
 
 64
 
 MR. GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE GIGANTIC BOX 
 
 Julia had scarcely handed the key to Morris before an 
 empty hansom drove smartly into John Street It was 
 hailed by both men, and as the cabman drew up his res- 
 tive horse, Morris made a dash into the vehicle. 
 
 ' ' Sixpence above fare, " he cried, recklessly. ' ' Water- 
 loo station for your life. Sixpence for yourself ! " 
 
 "Make it a shilling, Guv'ner," said the man, with a 
 grin, "the other parties were first." 
 
 "A shilling then," cried Morris, with the inward re- 
 flection that he would reconsider it at Waterloo. The 
 man whipped up his horse, and the hansom vanished 
 from John Street
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 As the hansom span through the streets of London, 
 Morris sought to rally the forces of his mind. The water- 
 butt with the dead body had miscarried, and it was 
 essential to recover it. So much was clear; and if, by 
 some blest good-fortune, it was still at the station, all 
 might be well. If it had been sent out, however, if it 
 were already in the hands of some wrong person, mat- 
 ters looked more ominous. People who receive unex- 
 plained packages are usually keen to have them open ; 
 the example of Miss Hazeltine (whom he cursed again) 
 was there to remind him of the circumstance; and if 
 anyone had opened the water-butt " Oh, Lord," cried 
 Morris at the thought, and carried his hand to his damp 
 forehead. The private conception of any breach of law 
 is apt to be inspiriting, for the scheme (while yet in- 
 choate) wears dashing and attractive colours. Not so 
 in the least, that part of the criminal's later reflections 
 which deal with the police. That useful corps (as Morris 
 now began to think) had scarce been kept sufficiently 
 in view when he embarked upon his enterprise. " I 
 must play devilish close," he reflected, and he was aware 
 of an exquisite thrill of fear in the region of the spine. 
 
 " Main line, or loop ?" inquired the cabman, through 
 the scuttle.
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRS* 
 
 "Main line," replied Morris, and mentally decided 
 that the man should have his shilling after all. " It would 
 be madness to attract attention," thought he. "But 
 what this thing will cost me, first and last, begins to be 
 a nightmare! " 
 
 He passed through the booking office and wandered 
 disconsolately on the platform. It was a breathing space 
 in the day's traffic; there were few people there, and 
 these for the most part quiescent on the benches. 
 Morris seemed to attract no remark, which was a good 
 thing; but, on the other hand, he was making no 
 progress in his quest. Something must be done, some- 
 thing must be risked; every passing instant only added 
 to his dangers. Summoning all his courage, he stopped 
 a porter, and asked him if he remembered receiving ? 
 barrel by the morning train ; he was anxious to get infop 
 mation, for the barrel belonged to a friend. "It is a 
 matter of some moment," he added, "for it contains 
 specimens." 
 
 "I was not here this morning, sir," responded the 
 porter, somewhat reluctantly, "but I'll ask Bill. Do 
 you recollect, Bill, to have got a barrel from Bourne- 
 mouth this morning containing specimens ? " 
 
 "I don't know about specimens," replied Bill; "but 
 the party as received the barrel I mean, raised a sight of 
 trouble." 
 
 " What's that ?" cried Morris, in the agitation of the 
 moment, pressing a penny into the man's hand. 
 
 "You see, sir, the barrel arrived at one thirty; no one 
 claimed it till about three, when a small, sickly-looking 
 gentleman (probably a curate) came up, and sez he, 
 'Have you got anything for Pitman,' or ' Will'm Bent 
 
 67
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Pitman,' if I recollect right ' I don't exactly know,' sez 
 L'but I rather fancy that there barrel bears that name.* 
 The little man went up to the barrel, and seemed regu- 
 larly all took aback when he saw the address, and then 
 he pitched into us for not having brought what he 
 wanted. 'I don't care a damn what you want,' sez I 
 to him, 'but if you are Wffl'm Bent Pitman, there's 
 your barrel.' " 
 
 "Well, and did he take it?" cried the breathless 
 Morris. 
 
 "Well, sir," returned Bill, "it appears it was a pack- 
 ing-case he was after. The packing-case came; that's 
 sure enough, because it was about the biggest packing- 
 case ever I clapped eyes on. And this Pitman he seemed 
 a good deal cut up, and he had the superintendent out, 
 and they got hold of the van-man him as took the 
 packing-case. Well, sir," continued Bin, with a smile, 
 "I never see a man in such a state; everybody about 
 that van was mortal, bar the horses. Some genleman 
 (as weU as I could make out) had given roe van-man a 
 sov; and so that was where the trouble come in, you 
 see." 
 
 " But what did he say ?" gasped Morris. 
 
 "I don't know as he said much, sir," said BflL 
 "But he offered to fight this Pitman for a pot of beer. 
 He had lost his book, too, and the receipts; and his men 
 were an as mortal as himself. Oh, they were all like " 
 and BiU paused for a simile " like lords! the superin- 
 tendent sacked them on the spot" 
 
 "Oh, come, but that's not so bad," said Morris, with 
 a bursting sigh. " He couldn't teU where he took the 
 packing-case, then?" 
 
 m
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 "Not he," said Bill, " nor yet nothink else." 
 
 "And what what did Pitman do ?" asked Morris. 
 
 "Oh, he went off with the barrel in a four-wheeler, 
 very trembling like," replied Bill. " I don't believe he's 
 a gentleman as has good health." 
 
 "Well, so the barrel's gone," said Morris, half to 
 himself. 
 
 " You may depend on that, sir," returned the porter. 
 " But you had better see the superintendent." 
 
 "Not in the least, it's of no account," said Morris. 
 ' ' It only contained specimens. " And he walked hastily 
 away. 
 
 Ensconced once more in a hansom, he proceeded to 
 reconsider his position. Suppose (he thought), suppose 
 he should accept defeat and declare his uncle's death at 
 once ? He should lose the tontine, and with that the 
 last hope of his seven thousand eight hundred pounds. 
 But on the other hand, since the shilling to the hansom 
 cabman, he had begun to see that crime was expensive 
 in its course, and since the loss of the water-butt, that it 
 was uncertain in its consequences. Quietly at first, and 
 then with growing heat, he reviewed the advantages of 
 backing out. It involved a loss; but (come to think of 
 it) no such great loss after all ; only that of the tontine, 
 which had been always a toss up, which at bottom he 
 had never really expected. He reminded himself of that 
 eagerly; he congratulated himself upon his constant 
 moderation. He had never really expected the tontine; 
 he had never even very definitely hoped to recover his 
 seven thousand eight hundred pounds; he had been 
 hurried into the whole thing by Michael's obvious dis- 
 honesty. Yes, it would probably be better to draw
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 back from this high-flying venture, settle back on the 
 leather business 
 
 " Great God! " cried Morris, bounding in the hansom 
 like a Jack-in-a-box. "I have not only not gained the 
 tontine I have lost the leather business! " 
 
 Such was the monstrous fact. He had no power to 
 sign ; he could not draw a check for thirty shillings ; until 
 he could produce legal evidence of his uncle's death, he 
 was a penniless outcast and as soon as he produced it 
 he had lost the tontine ! There was no hesitation on the 
 part of Morris ; to drop the tontine like a hot chestnut, 
 to concentrate all his forces on the leather business and 
 the rest of his small but legitimate inheritance, was the 
 decision of a single instant. And the next, the full ex- 
 tent of his calamity was suddenly disclosed to him. 
 Declare his uncle's death ? He couldn't! Since the body 
 was lost, Joseph had (in a legal sense) become immortal. 
 
 There was no created vehicle big enough to contain 
 Morris and his woes. He paid the hansom off and 
 walked on he knew not whither. 
 
 " I seem to have gone into this business with too much 
 precipitation," he reflected, with a deadly sigh. "I 
 fear it seems too ramified for a person of my powers of 
 mind." 
 
 And then a remark of his uncle's flashed into his mem- 
 ory: If you want to think clearly, put it all down on 
 paper. " Well, the old boy knew a thing or two," said 
 Morris. " I will try; but I don't believe the paper was 
 ever made that will clear my mind." 
 
 He entered a place of public entertainment, ordered 
 bread and cheese, and writing materials, and sat down 
 before them heavily. He tried the pen ; it was an ex- 
 
 70
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 cellent pen, but what was he to write ? "I have it," 
 cried Morris. "Robinson Crusoe and the double col- 
 umns ! " He prepared his paper after that classic model 
 and began as follows : 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 I . I have lost my uncle's body. i . But then Pitman has found it. 
 
 "Stop a bit," said Morris, "I am letting the spirit of 
 antithesis run away with me. Let's start again." 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 1. I have lost my uncle's body. i. But then I no longer require 
 
 tc bury it. 
 
 2. I have lost the tontine. 2. But I may still save that if 
 
 Pitman disposes of the body, 
 and if I can find a physician 
 who will stick at nothing. 
 
 3. I have lost the leather busi- 3. But not if Pitman gives the 
 ness and the rest of my un- body up to the police. 
 
 cle's succession. 
 
 " Oh, but in that case I go to jail ; I had forgot that," 
 thought Morris. " Indeed, I don't know that I had bet- 
 ter dwell on that hypothesis at all ; it's all very well to 
 talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this kind, a 
 man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any an- 
 swer to No. 3 ? Is there any possible good side to such 
 a beastly bungle ? There must be, of course, or where 
 would be the use of this double-entry business ? And 
 by George, I have it!" he exclaimed; "it's exactly 
 the same as the last! " And he hastily rewrote the pas- 
 sage. 
 
 Bad. Good. 
 
 3. I have lost the leather busi- 3. But not if I can find a physician 
 ness and the rest of my un- who will stick at nothing, 
 
 cle's succession. 
 
 7
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "This venal doctor seems quite a desideratum," he 
 reflected. "I want him first to give me a certificate 
 that my uncle is dead, so that I may get the leather 
 business; and then that he's alive but here we are 
 again at the incompatible interests! " And he returned 
 to his tabulation. 
 
 Bad. 
 
 4. I have almost no money. 
 
 5. Yes, but I can't get the money 
 in the bank. 
 
 6. I have left the bill for eight hun- 
 dred pounds in Uncle Joseph's 
 pocket. 
 
 Good. 
 
 4. But there is plenty in the bank. 
 
 5. But well, that seems unhap- 
 pily to be the case. 
 
 6. But if Pitman is only a dishon- 
 est man, the presence of this 
 bill may lead him to keep the 
 whole thing dark and throw 
 the body into the New Cut. 
 
 7. Yes, but if I am right about 
 Uncle Masterman, I can black- 
 mail Michael. 
 
 8. Worse luck! 
 
 7. Yes, but if Pitman is dishonest 
 and finds the bill, he will know 
 who Joseph is, and he may 
 blackmail me. 
 
 8. But I can't blackmail Michael 
 (which is, besides, a very dan- 
 gerous thing to do) until I find 
 out. 
 
 9. The leather business will soon 
 want money for current ex- 
 penses, and 1 have none to 
 give. 
 
 10. Yes, but it's all the ship I have. 
 
 1 1 . John will soon want money, 
 and I have none to give. 
 
 12. And the venal doctor will 
 want money down. 
 
 13. And if Pitman is dishonest 13. 
 and don't send me to jail, he 
 
 will want a fortune. 
 
 "Oh, this seems to be a very one-sided business." 
 
 72 
 
 9. But the leather business is a 
 sinking ship. 
 
 10. A fact. 
 
 1 1. 
 
 12.
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 exclaimed Morris. ' ' There's not so much in this method 
 as I was led to think." He crumpled the paper up and 
 threw it down ; and then, the next moment, picked it 
 up again and ran it over. " It seems it's on the finan- 
 cial point that my position is weakest," he reflected. 
 "Is there positively no way of raising the wind? In a 
 vast city like this, and surrounded by all the resources 
 of civilisation, it seems not to be conceived ! Let us 
 have no more precipitation. Is there nothing I can sell? 
 My collection of signet . " But at the thought of scat- 
 tering these beloved treasures, the blood leaped into 
 Morris's cheek. "I would rather die!" he exclaimed, 
 and cramming his hat upon his head, strode forth into 
 the streets. 
 
 " I must raise funds," he thought. " My uncle being 
 dead, the money in the bank is mine; or would be mine, 
 but for the cursed injustice that has pursued me ever 
 since I was an orphan in a Commercial Academy. I 
 know what any other man would do; any other man in 
 Christendom would forge ; although I don't know why 
 I call it forging, either, when Joseph's dead, and the 
 funds are my own. When I think of that, when I think 
 that my uncle is really as dead as mutton, and that I 
 can't prove it, my gorge rises at the injustice of the 
 whole affair. I used to feel bitterly about that seven 
 thousand eight hundred pounds; it seems a trifle now! 
 Dear me, why, the day before yesterday I was compar- 
 atively happy." 
 
 And Morris stood on the side\ /alk and heaved another 
 sobbing sigh. 
 
 "Then there's another thing," he resumed; "can I? 
 Am I able ? Why didn't I practise different handwrit- 
 
 73
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 ings while I was young ? How a fellow regrets those 
 lost opportunities when he grows up! But there's one 
 comfort: it's not morally wrong; I can try it on with a 
 clear conscience, and even if I was found out, 1 wouldn't 
 greatly care morally, I mean. And then, if I succeed, 
 and if Pitman is staunch there's nothing to do but 
 find a venal doctor; and that ought to be simple enough 
 in a place like London. By all accounts the town's 
 alive with them. It wouldn't do, of course, to adver- 
 tise for a corrupt physician; that would be impolitic. 
 No, I suppose a fellow has simply to spot along the 
 streets for a red lamp and herbs in the window, and 
 then you go in and and and put it to him plainly; 
 though it seems a delicate step." 
 
 He was near home now, after many devious wander- 
 ings, and turned up John Street. As he thrust his latch- 
 key in the lock, another mortifying reflection struck him 
 to the heart. 
 
 "Not even this house is mine till 1 can prove him 
 dead," he snarled, and slammed the door behind him 
 so that the windows in the attic rattled. 
 
 Night had long fallen; long ago the lamps and the 
 shop-fronts had begun to glitter down the endless streets ; 
 the lobby was pitch-dark; and, as the devil would have 
 it, Morris barked his shins and sprawled all his length 
 over the pedestal of Hercules. The pain was sharp; 
 his temper was already thoroughly undermined; by a 
 last misfortune his hand closed on the hammer as he 
 fell; and, in a spasm of childish irritation, he turned 
 and struck at the offending statue. There was a splin- 
 tering crash. 
 
 "OLord, what have I done next?" wailed Morris; 
 
 74
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS : PART THE FIRST 
 
 and he groped his way to find a candle. "Yes," he 
 reflected, as he stood with the light in his hand and 
 looked upon the mutilated leg, from which about a 
 pound of muscle was detached. "Yes, I have de- 
 stroyed a genuine antique; I may be in for thousands! " 
 And then there sprung up in his bosom a sort of angry 
 hope. " Let me see," he thought. "Julia's got rid of; 
 there's nothing to connect me with that beast, Forsyth ; 
 the men were all drunk, and (what's better) they've 
 been all discharged. Oh, come, I think this is another 
 case for moral courage! I'll deny all knowledge of the 
 thing." 
 
 A moment more, and he stood again before the Her- 
 cules, his lips sternly compressed, the coal-axe and the 
 meat-cleaver under his arm. The next, he had fallen 
 upon the packing-case. This had been already seriously 
 undermined by the operations of Gideon ; a few well- 
 directed blows, and it already quaked and gaped; yet a 
 few more, and it fell about Morris in a shower of boards 
 followed by an avalanche of straw. 
 
 And now the leather merchant could behold the na- 
 ture of his task; and at the first sight his spirit quailed. 
 It was indeed, no more ambitious a task for De Lesseps, 
 with all his men and horses, to attack the hills of Pa- 
 nama, than for a single, slim young gentleman, with no 
 previous experience of labour in a quarry, to measure 
 himself against that bloated monster on his pedestal. 
 And yet the pair were well encountered: on the one 
 side, bulk on the other, genuine heroic fire. 
 
 "Down you shall come, you great big ugly brute!" 
 cried Morris aloud, with something of that passion 
 which swept the Parisian mob against the walls of the 
 
 75
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Bastille. "Down you shall come, this night I'll have 
 none of you in my lobby." 
 
 The face, from its indecent expression, had particu- 
 larly animated the zeal of our iconoclast; and it was 
 against the face that he began his operations. The great 
 height of the demigod for he stood a fathom and 
 half in his stocking feet offered a preliminary obstacle 
 to this attack. But here, in the first skirmish of the 
 battle, intellect already began to triumph over matter. 
 By means of a pair of library steps, the injured house- 
 holder gained a posture of advantage; and with great 
 swipes of the coal-axe, proceeded to decapitate the 
 brute. 
 
 Two hours later, what had been the erect image of 
 a gigantic coal-porter turned miraculously white, was 
 now no more than a medley of disjected members : the 
 quadragenarian torso prone against the pedestal; the 
 lascivious countenance leering down the kitchen stair; 
 the legs, the arms, the hands, and even the fingers, 
 scattered broadcast on the lobby floor. Half an hour 
 more, and all the debris had been laboriously carted to 
 the kitchen; and Morris, with a gentle sentiment of 
 triumph, looked round upon the scene of his achieve- 
 ments. Yes, he could deny all knowledge of it now: 
 the lobby, beyond the fact that it was partly ruinous, 
 betrayed no trace of the passage of Hercules. But it 
 was a weary Morris that crept up to bed ; his arms and 
 shoulders ached, the palms of his hands burned from 
 the rough kisses of the coal-axe, and there was one 
 smarting finger that stole continually to his mouth. 
 Sleep long delayed to visit the dilapidated hero, and 
 with the first peep of day it had again deserted him. 
 
 76
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 The morning, as though to accord with his disas- 
 trous fortunes, dawned inclemently. An easterly gale 
 was shouting in the streets; flaws of rain angrily as- 
 sailed the windows ; and as Morris dressed, the draught 
 from the fireplace vividly played about his legs. 
 
 "I think," he could not help observing, bitterly, 
 "that with all I have to bear, they might have given 
 me decent weather." 
 
 There was no bread in the house, for Miss Hazeltine 
 (like all women left to themselves) had subsisted en- 
 tirely upon cake. But some of this was found, and 
 (along with what the poets call a glass of fair, cold 
 water) made up a semblance of a morning meal. And 
 then down he sat undauntedly to his delicate task. 
 
 Nothing can be more interesting than the study of 
 signatures, written (as they are) before meals and after, 
 during indigestion and intoxication ; written when the 
 signer is trembling for the life of his child, or has come 
 from winning the Derby, in his lawyer's office, or under 
 the bright eyes of his sweetheart. To the vulgar, these 
 seem never the same ; but to the expert, the bank clerk, 
 or the lithographer, they are constant quantities and as 
 recognisable as the North Star to the night-watch on 
 deck. 
 
 To all this Morris was alive. In the theory of that 
 graceful art in which he was now embarking, our 
 spirited leather merchant was beyond all reproach. But 
 happily for the investor, forgery is an affair of practice. 
 And as Morris sat surrounded by examples of his uncle's 
 signature, and his own incompetence, insidious depres- 
 sion stole upon his spirits. From time to time the wind 
 wuthered in the chimney at his back; from time to time 
 
 77
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 there swept over Bloomsbury a squall so dark that he 
 must rise and light the gas ; about him was the chili and 
 the mean disorder of a house out of commission the 
 floor bare, the sofa heaped with books and accounts en- 
 veloped in a dirty table-cloth, the pens rusted, the paper 
 glazed with a thick film of dust; and yet these were but 
 adminicles of misery, and the true root of his depression 
 lay round him on the table in the shape of misbegotten 
 forgeries. 
 
 " It's one of the strangest things I ever heard of," he 
 complained " It almost seems as if it was a talent that 
 I didn't possess. " He went once more minutely through 
 his proofs. " A clerk would simply gibe at them, " said 
 he. "Well, there's nothing else but tracing possible." 
 
 He waited till a squall had passed and there came a 
 blink of scowling daylight Then he went to the win- 
 dow, and in the face of all John Street traced his uncle's 
 signature. It was a poor thing at the best " But it 
 must do," said he, as he stood gazing wofully on his 
 handiwork. "He's dead anyway." And he filled up 
 the cheque for a couple of a hundred and sallied forth 
 for the Anglo-Patagonian Bank. 
 
 There, at the desk at which he was accustomed to 
 transact business, and with as much indifference as he 
 could assume, Morris presented the forged cheque to 
 the big, red-bearded Scots teller. The teller seemed to 
 view it with surprise; and as he turned it this way and 
 that, and even scrutinised the signature with a magni- 
 fying glass, his surprise appeared to warm into disfavour. 
 Begging to be excused for a moment, he passed away 
 into the rearmost quarters of the bank; whence, after 
 an appreciable interval, he returned again in earnest 
 
 78
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 talk with a superior, an oldish and a baldish, but a very 
 gentlemanly man. 
 
 "Mr. Morris Finsbury, I believe," said the gentle- 
 manly man, fixing Morris with a pair of double eye- 
 glasses. 
 
 "That is my name," said Morris, quavering. "Is 
 there anything wrong ? " 
 
 "Well, the fact is, Mr. Finsbury, you see we are 
 rather surprised at receiving this," said the other, flick- 
 ing at the cheque. " There are no effects." 
 
 "No effects?" cried Morris. "Why, I know my- 
 self there must be eight and twenty hundred pounds, if 
 there's a penny." 
 
 "Two seven six four, I think/' replied the gentle- 
 manly man; " but it was drawn yesterday." 
 
 "Drawn!" cried Morris. 
 
 "By your uncle himself, sir," continued the other. 
 "Not only that, but we discounted a bill for him for 
 let me see how much was it for, Mr. Bell ? " 
 
 " Eight hundred, Mr. Judkin," replied the teller. 
 
 " Dent Pitman! " cried Morris, staggering back. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mr. Judkin. 
 
 "It's it's only an expletive," said Morris. 
 
 "I hope there's nothing wrong, Mr. Finsbury," said 
 Mr. Bell. 
 
 "All I can tell you," said Morris, with a harsh laugh, 
 "is that the whole thing's impossible. My uncle is at 
 Bournemouth, unable to move." 
 
 "Really!" cried Mr. Bell, and he recovered the 
 cheque from Mr. Judkin. " But this cheque is dated in 
 London, and to-day," he observed. " How d'ye ac- 
 count for that, sir ? " 
 
 79
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Oh, that was a mistake," said Morris, and a deep 
 tide of colour dyed his face and neck. 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt," said Mr. Judkin, but he 
 looked at his customer inquiringly. 
 
 "And and ," resumed Morris, "even if there 
 were no effects this is a very trifling sum to over- 
 draw our firm the name of Finsbury is surely good 
 enough for such a wretched sum as this." 
 
 "No doubt, Mr. Finsbury," returned Mr. Judkin; 
 "and if you insist I will take it into consideration; but 
 I hardly think in short, Mr. Finsbury, if there had 
 been nothing else, the signature seems hardly all that 
 we could wish." 
 
 "That's of no consequence, "replied Morris, nervous- 
 ly. " I'll get my uncle to sign another. The fact is," 
 he went on, with a bold stroke, "my uncle is so far 
 from well at present that he was unable to sign this 
 cheque without assistance, and I fear that my holding 
 the pen for him may have made the difference in the 
 signature." 
 
 Mr. Judkin shot a keen glance into Morris's face; and 
 then turned and looked at Mr. Bell. 
 
 "Well," he said, "it seems as if we have been vic- 
 timised by a swindler. Pray tell Mr. Finsbury we shall 
 put detectives on at once. As for this cheque of yours, 
 I regret that, owing to the way it was signed, the bank 
 can hardly consider it what shall I say? business- 
 like," and he returned the cheque across the counter. 
 
 Morris took it up mechanically, he was thinking of 
 something very different 
 
 "In a case of this kind," he began, "I believe the 
 loss falls on us; I mean upon my uncle and myself." 
 
 80
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE FIRST 
 
 "It does not, sir," replied Mr. Bell; "the bank is re- 
 sponsible, and the bank will either recover the money 
 or refund it, you may depend on that." 
 
 Morris's face fell ; then it was visited by another gleam 
 of hope. 
 
 "I'll tell you what," he said, "you leave this entirely 
 in my hands. I'll sift the matter. I've an idea, at any 
 rate; and detectives," he added appealingly, "are so 
 expensive." 
 
 "The bank would not hear of it," returned Mr. Jud- 
 kin. "The bank stands to lose between three and four 
 thousand pounds; it will spend as much more if neces- 
 sary. An undiscovered forger is a permanent danger. 
 We shall clear it up to the bottom, Mr. Finsbury, set 
 your mind at rest on that." 
 
 "Then I'll stand the loss," said Morris, boldly. "I 
 order you to abandon the search." He was determined 
 that no inquiry should be made. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," returned Mr. Judkin, "but we 
 have nothing to do with you in this matter, which is 
 one between your uncle and ourselves. If he should 
 take this opinion, and will either come here himself or 
 will let me see him in his sick-room " 
 
 "Quite impossible," cried Morris. 
 
 "Well then, you see," said Mr. Judkin, "how my 
 hands are tied. The whole affair must go at once into 
 the hands of the police." 
 
 Morris mechanically folded the cheque and restored it 
 to his pocket-book. 
 
 "Good-morning," said he, and scrambled somehow 
 out of the bank. 
 
 "I don't know what they suspect," he reflected, "I
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 can't make them out, their .whole behaviour is thor- 
 oughly unbusiness-like. But it doesn't matter: all's up 
 with everything. The money has been paid ; the police 
 are on the scent; in two hours, that idiot Pitman will 
 be nabbed and the whole story of the dead body in 
 the evening papers." 
 
 If he could have heard what passed in the bank after 
 his departure, he would have been less alarmed, perhaps 
 more mortified. 
 
 " That was a curious affair, Mr. Bell," said Mr. Judkin. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Mr. Bell, "but I think we have given 
 him a fright." 
 
 "Oh, we shall hear no more of Mr. Morris Finsbury," 
 returned the other; "it was a first attempt, and the 
 house have dealt with us so long that I was anxious to 
 deal gently. But I suppose, Mr. Bell, there can be no 
 mistake about yesterday? It was old Mr. Finsbury 
 himself?" 
 
 "There could be no possible doubt of that," said Mr. 
 Bell, with a chuckle. " He explained to me the princi- 
 ples of banking." 
 
 " Well, well," said Mr. Judkin. "The next time he 
 calls, ask him to step into my room. It is only proper 
 he should be warned."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 NORFOLK STREET, King's Road jocularly known 
 among Mr. Pitman's lodgers as "Norfolk Island," is 
 neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing thoroughfare. 
 Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in 
 pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the 
 voice of love. The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. 
 An occasional organ-grinder wanders in and wanders 
 out again, disgusted. In holiday time the street is the 
 arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and 
 the householders have an opportunity of studying the 
 manly art of self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street has 
 one claim to be respectable, for it contains not a single 
 shop unless you count the public house at the corner, 
 which is really in the King's Road. 
 
 The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with 
 the legend " W. D. Pitman, Artist." It was not a par- 
 ticularly clean brass plate, nor was No. 7 itself a par- 
 ticularly inviting place of residence. And yet it had a 
 character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse 
 of the reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an 
 artist and a distinguished artist too, highly distin- 
 guished by his ill-success which had never been made 
 the subject of an article in the illustrated magazines. No 
 
 85
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 wood-engraver had ever reproduced "a corner in the 
 back drawing-room " or "the studio mantelpiece" of 
 No. 7; no young lady author had ever commented on 
 "the unaffected simplicity" with which Mr. Pitman re- 
 ceived her in the midst of his "treasures." It is an 
 omission I would gladly supply, but our business is only 
 with the backward parts and " abject rear " of this aes- 
 thetic dwelling. 
 
 Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that 
 never played) in the centre, a few grimy-looking flowers 
 in pots, two or three newly-planted trees which the spring 
 of Chelsea visited without noticeable consequence, and 
 two or three statues after the antique, representing sa- 
 tyrs and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculp- 
 tured art. On one side, the garden was over-shadowed 
 by a pair of crazy studios, usually hired out to the more 
 obscure and youthful practitioners of British art. Oppo- 
 site these another lofty out-building, somewhat more 
 carefully finished, and boasting of a communication 
 with the house and a private door on the back lane, 
 enshrined the multifarious industry of Mr. Pitman. AH 
 day, it is true, he was engaged in the work of educa- 
 tion at a seminary for young ladies ; but the evenings at 
 least were his own, and these he would prolong far 
 into the night, now dashing off A landscape with water- 
 fall in oil, now a volunteer bust ("in marble," as he 
 would gently but proudly observe) of some public 
 character, now stooping his chisel to a mere nymph 
 (" for a gas-bracket on a stair, sir "), or a life-size Infant 
 Samuel for a religious nursery. Mr. Pitman had studied 
 in Paris, and he had studied in Rome, supplied with 
 funds by a fond parent who went subsequently bank- 
 
 84
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 nipt, in consequence of a fall in corsets; and though he 
 was never thought to have the smallest modicum of 
 talent, it was at one time supposed that he had learned 
 his business. Eighteen years of what is called ' ' tuition " 
 had relieved him of the dangerous knowledge. His artist 
 lodgers would sometimes reason with him ; they would 
 point out to him how impossible it was to paint by gas- 
 light, or to sculpture life-sized nymphs without a model. 
 
 "I know that," he would reply. "No one in Nor- 
 folk Street knows it better; and if I were rich I should 
 certainly employ the best models in London ; but being 
 poor, I have taught myself to do without them. An 
 occasional model would only disturb my ideal concep- 
 tion of the figure, and be a positive impediment in my 
 career. As for painting by an artificial light," he would 
 continue, "that is simply a knack I have found it neces- 
 sary to acquire, my days being engrossed in the work 
 of tuition." 
 
 At the moment when we must present him to our 
 readers, Pitman was in his studio alone, by the dying 
 light of the October day. He sat (sure enough with 
 "unaffected simplicity") in a Windsor chair, his low- 
 crowned black felt hat by his side; a dark, weak, harm- 
 less, pathetic little man, clad in the hue of mourning, 
 his coat longer than is usual with the laity, his neck 
 enclosed in a collar without a parting, his neckcloth 
 pale in hue and simply tied; the whole outward man, 
 except for a pointed beard, tentatively clerical. There 
 was a thinning on the top of Pitman's head, there were 
 silver hairs at Pitman's temple; poor gentleman, he was 
 no longer young; and years, and poverty, and humble 
 ambition thwarted, make a cheerless lot. 
 
 85
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 In front of him, in the corner by the door, there stood 
 a portly barrel; and let him turn them where he might, 
 it was always to the barrel that his eyes and his thoughts 
 returned. 
 
 "Should I open it? Should I return it? Should I 
 communicate with Mr. Semitopolis at once ? " he won- 
 dered. " No," he concluded finally, " nothing without 
 Mr. Finsbury's advice." And he arose and produced a 
 shabby leathern desk. It opened without the formality 
 of unlocking, and displayed the thick cream-coloured 
 note paper on which Mr. Pitman was in the habit of 
 communicating with the proprietors of schools and the 
 parents of his pupils. He placed the desk on the table 
 by the window, and taking a saucer of Indian ink from 
 the chimney-piece, laboriously composed the following 
 letter: 
 
 " My dear Mr. Finsbury," it ran, " would it be presuming on your 
 kindness if I asked you to pay me a visit here this evening ? It is in 
 no trifling matter that 1 invoke your valuable assistance, for need I say 
 more than it concerns the welfare of Mr. Semitopolis's statue of Her- 
 cules? I write you in great agitation of mind; for I have made all in- 
 quiries, and greatly fear that this work of ancient art has been mislaid. 
 1 labour besides under another perplexity, not unconnected with the 
 first. Pray excuse the inelegance of this scrawl, and believe me yours 
 in haste, William D. Pitman." 
 
 Armed with this he set forth and rang the bell of No. 
 233 King's Road, the private residence of Michael Fins- 
 bury. He had met the lawyer at a time of great public 
 excitement in Chelsea; Michael, who had a sense of hu- 
 mour and a great deal of careless kindness in his nature, 
 followed the acquaintance up, and having come to laugh, 
 remained to drop into a contemptuous kind of friend- 
 
 86
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 ship. By this time, which was four years after the first 
 meeting, Pitman was the lawyer's dog. 
 
 "No," said the elderly housekeeper who opened the 
 door in person, "Mr. Michael's not in yet. But ye're 
 looking terrible poorly, Mr. Pitman. Take a glass of 
 sherry, sir, to cheer ye up." 
 
 "No, I thank you, ma'am," replied the artist. "It is 
 very good in you, but I scarcely feel in sufficient spirits 
 for sherry. Just give Mr. Finsbury this note, and ask 
 him to look round to the door in the lane, you will 
 please tell him; I shall be in the studio all evening." 
 
 And he turned again into the street and walked slowly 
 homeward. A hair-dresser's window caught his atten- 
 tion, and he stared long and earnestly at the proud, high- 
 born, waxen lady in evening dress, who circulated in 
 the centre of the show. The artist woke in him, in 
 spite of his troubles. 
 
 " It is all very well to run down the men who make 
 these things," he cried, "but there's a something 
 there's a haughty, indefinable something about that 
 figure. It's what I tried for in my Empress Eugtnie, ' ' 
 he added, with a sigh. 
 
 And he went home reflecting on the quality. " They 
 don't teach you that direct appeal in Paris," he thought. 
 "It's British. Come, I am going to sleep, I must wake 
 up, I must aim higher aim higher," cried the little ar- 
 tist to himself. All through his tea and afterward, as 
 he was giving his eldest boy a lesson on the fiddle, his 
 mind dwelt no longer on his troubles, but he was wrapt 
 into the better land; and no sooner was he at liberty 
 than he hastened with positive exhilaration to his studio. 
 
 Not even the sight of the barrel could entirely cast him 
 87
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 down. He flung himself with rising zest into his work 
 a bust of Mr. Gladstone from a photograph ; turned 
 (with extraordinary success) the difficulty of the back 
 of the head, for which he had no documents beyond a 
 hazy recollection of a public meeting; delighted himself 
 by his treatment of the collar; and was only recalled to 
 the cares of life by Michael Finsbury's rattle at the door. 
 
 "Well, what's wrong?" said Michael, advancing to 
 the grate where, knowing his friend's delight in a bright 
 fire, Mr. Pitman had not spared the fuel. "I suppose 
 you have come to grief somehow." 
 
 "There is no expression strong enough," said the 
 artist. "Mr. Semitopolis's statue has not turned up, 
 and I am afraid I shall be answerable for the money ; but 
 I think nothing of that what I fear, my dear Mr. Fins^ 
 bury, what I fear alas, that 1 should have to say it!-^ 
 is exposure. The Hercules was to be smuggled out of 
 Italy ; a thing positively wrong, a thing in which a man 
 of my principles and in my responsible position should 
 have taken (as I now see too late) no part whatever." 
 
 "This sounds like very serious work," said the law- 
 yer. " It will require a great deal of drink, Pitman." 
 
 " I took the liberty of in short, of being prepared 
 for you," replied the artist, pointing to a kettle, a bottle 
 of gin, a lemon, and glasses. 
 
 Michael mixed himself a grog, and offered the artist a 
 cigar. 
 
 "No, thank you," said Pitman. "I used occasion- 
 ally to be rather partial to it, but the smell is so disagree- 
 able about the clothes." 
 
 "All right," said the lawyer. "I am comfortable 
 now. Unfold your tale." 
 
 88
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 At some length, Pitman set forth his sorrows. He 
 had gone to-day to Waterloo, expecting to receive the 
 colossal Hercules, and he had received instead a barrel 
 not big enough to hold Discobolus ; yet the barrel was 
 addressed in the hand (with which he was perfectly ac- 
 quainted) of his Roman correspondent. What was 
 stranger still, a case had arrived by the same train, large 
 enough and heavy enough to contain the Hercules ; and 
 this case had been taken to an address now undiscover- 
 able. "The van man (I regret to say it) had been 
 drinking, and his language was such as I could never 
 bring myself to repeat. He was at once discharged by 
 the superintendent of the line, who behaved most prop- 
 erly throughout and is to make inquiries at Southamp- 
 ton. In the meanwhile, what was I to do ? I left my 
 address and brought the barrel home; but remembering 
 an old adage, I determined not to open it except in the 
 presence of my lawyer." 
 
 " Is that all ? " asked Michael. " I don't see any cause 
 to worry. The Hercules has stuck u^on the road. It 
 will drop in to-morrow or the day after; and as for the 
 barrel, depend upon it, it's a testimonial from one of 
 your young ladies, and probably contains oysters." 
 
 ' ' Oh, don't speak so loud ! " cried the little artist. ' ' It 
 would cost me my place if I were heard to speak lightly 
 of the young ladies, and besides, why oysters from Italy ? 
 and why should they come to me addressed in Signor 
 Ricardi's hand?" 
 
 " Well, let's have a look at it," said Michael. " Let's 
 roll it forward to the light." 
 
 The two men rolled the barrel from the corner, and 
 stood it on end before the fire. 
 
 80
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " It's heavy enough to be oysters," remarked Michael, 
 judiciously. 
 
 "Shall we open it at once?" inquired the artist, who 
 had grown decidedly cheerful under the combined 
 effects of company and gin ; and without waiting for a 
 reply, he began to strip as if for a prize-fight, tossed 
 his clerical collar in the waste-paper basket, hung his 
 clerical coat upon a nail, and with a chisel in one hand 
 and a hammer in the other, struck the first blow of the 
 evening. 
 
 "That's the style, William Dent!" cried Michael. 
 "There's fire for your money! It may be a romantic 
 visit from one of the young ladies a sort of Cleopatra 
 business. Have a care, and don't stave in Cleopatra's 
 head." 
 
 But the sight of Pitman's alacrity was infectious. The 
 lawyer could sit still no longer. Tossing his cigar into 
 the fire, he snatched the instrument from the unwilling 
 hands of the artist, and fell to himself. Soon the sweat 
 stood in beads upon his large, fair brow; his stylish 
 trousers were defaced with iron rust, and the state of 
 his chisel testified to misdirected energies. 
 
 A cask is not an easy thing to open, even when you 
 set about it in the right way; when you set about it 
 wrongly, the whole structure must be resolved into 
 its elements. Such was the course pursued alike by 
 the artist and the lawyer. Presently the last hoop had 
 been removed a couple of smart blows tumbled the 
 staves upon the ground and what had once been a 
 barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken 
 and distorted boards. 
 
 In the midst of these, a certain dismal something, 
 90
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 swathed in blankets, remained for an instant upright, 
 and then toppled to one side and heavily collapsed be- 
 fore the fire. Even as the thing subsided, an eyeglass 
 tingled to the floor and rolled toward the screaming 
 Pitman. 
 
 "Hold your tongue!" said Michael. He dashed to 
 the house door and locked it; then, with a pale face and 
 bitten lip, he drew near, pulled aside a corner of the 
 swathing blanket, and recoiled, shuddering. 
 
 There was a long silence in the studio. 
 
 "Now tell me," said Michael, in a low voice: "Had 
 you any hand in it ? " and he pointed to the body. 
 
 The little artist could only utter broken and disjointed 
 sounds. 
 
 Michael poured some gin into a glass. " Drink that," 
 he said. "Don't be afraid of me. I'm your friend 
 through thick and thin." 
 
 Pitman put the liquor down untasted. 
 
 "I swear before God, " he said, ' ' this is anoth 3r mys- 
 tery to me. In my worst fears, I never dreamed of such 
 a thing. I would not lay a finger on a sucking infant." 
 
 "That's all square," said Michael, with a sigh of 
 huge relief. "I believe you, old boy." And he shook 
 the artist warmly by the hand. "I thought for a mo- 
 ment, " he added, with rather a ghastly smile, ' ' I thought 
 for a moment you might have made way with Mr. 
 Semitopolis." 
 
 " It would make no difference if I had," groaned Pit- 
 man. "All is at an end for me. There's the writing 
 on the wall." 
 
 "To begin with," said Michael, "let's get him out of 
 sight; for to be quite plain with you, Pitman, I don't
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 like your friend's appearance." And with that the law- 
 yer shuddered. "Where can we put it ?" 
 
 "You might put it in the closet there if you could 
 bear to touch it," answered the artist. 
 
 "Somebody has to do it, Pitman," returned the law- 
 yer; "and it seems as if it had to be me. You go over 
 to the table, turn your back, and mix me a grog; that's 
 a fair division of labour." 
 
 About ninety seconds later, the closet door was heard 
 to shut. 
 
 " There, " observed Michael, "that's more home-like. 
 You can turn now, my pallid Pitman. Is this the grog ? " 
 he ran on. " Heaven forgive you, it's a lemonade ! " 
 
 "But oh, Finsbury, what are we to do with it?" 
 wailed the artist, laying a clutching hand upon the law- 
 yer's arm. 
 
 " Do with it ?" repeated Michael. " Bury it in one of 
 your flower-beds, and erect one of your own statues for 
 a monument. I tell you we should look devilish roman- 
 tic shovelling out the sod by the moon's pale ray. Here, 
 put some gin in this." 
 
 "I beg of you, Mr. Finsbury, do not trifle with my 
 misery," cried Pitman. "You see before you a man 
 who has been all his life I do not hesitate to say it 
 eminently respectable. Even in this solemn hour I can 
 lay my hand upon my heart without a blush. Except 
 on the really trifling point of the smuggling of the Her- 
 cules (and even of that I now humbly repent), my life 
 has been entirely fit for publication. I never feared the 
 light," cried the little man; "and now now !" 
 
 "Cheer up, old boy," said Michael. "I assure you 
 we should count this little contretemps a trifle at the 
 
 92
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 office : it's the sort of thing that may occur to anyone ; 
 and if you're perfectly sure you had no hand in it " 
 
 "What language am 1 to find " began Pitman. 
 
 "Oh, I'll do that part of it," interrupted Michael, 
 "you have no experience. But the point is this: If 
 or rather since you know nothing of the crime, since 
 the the party in the closet is neither your father, 
 nor your brother, nor your creditor, nor your mother- 
 in-law, nor what they call an injured husband " 
 
 "Oh, my dear sir!" interjected Pitman, horrified. 
 
 "Since, in short," continued the lawyer, "you had 
 no possible interest in the crime, we have a perfectly 
 free field before us and a safe game to play. Indeed the 
 problem is really entertaining; it is one I have long con- 
 templated in the light of an A. B. case; here it is at last 
 under my hand in specie; and I mean to pull you 
 through. Do you hear that? I mean to pull you 
 through. Let me see: it's a long time since I have had 
 what I call a genuine holiday; I'll send an excuse to- 
 morrow to the office. We had best be lively," he 
 added, significantly; "for we must not spoil the mar- 
 ket for the other man." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" inquired Pitman. "What 
 other man ? The inspector of police ? " 
 
 "Damn the inspector of police! " remarked his com- 
 panion. "If you won't take the short cut and bury 
 this in your back garden, we must find someone who 
 will bury it in his. We must place the affair, in short, 
 in the hands of someone of fewer scruples and more 
 resources." 
 
 " A private detective, perhaps?" suggested Pitman. 
 
 "There are times when you fill me with pity," ob- 
 93
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 served the lawyer. " By the way, Pitman," he added, 
 in another key, "I have always regretted that you 
 have no piano in this den of yours. Even if you don't 
 play yourself, your friends might like to entertain them- 
 selves with a little music while you were mudding." 
 
 "I shall get one at once if you like," said Pitman, 
 nervously, anxious to please. " I play the fiddle a little 
 as it is." 
 
 "I know you do," said Michael; "but what's the 
 fiddle above all as you play it? What you want is 
 polyphonic music. And I'll tell you what it is, since 
 it's too late for you to buy a piano I'll give you mine." 
 
 "Thank you," said the artist, blankly. "You will 
 give me yours ? I am sure it's very good in you." 
 
 "Yes, I'll give you mine," continued Michael, "for 
 the inspector of police to play on while his men are 
 digging up your back garden." 
 
 Pitman stared at him in pained amazement. 
 
 "No, I'm not insane," Michael went on. " I'm play- 
 ful but quite coherent. See here, Pitman; follow me 
 one half minute. I mean to profit by the refreshing 
 fact that we are really and truly innocent; nothing but 
 the presence of the you know what connects us 
 with the crime; once let us get rid of it, no matter 
 how, and there is no possible clue to trace us by. 
 Well, I give you my piano; we'll bring it round this 
 very night. To-morrow, we rip the fittings out, de- 
 posit the our friend inside, plump the whole on a 
 cart, and carry it to the chambers of a young gentleman 
 whom I know by sight." 
 
 "Whom you know by sight?" repeated Pitman. 
 
 "And what is more to the purpose," continued 
 
 94
 
 IN WHICH WILLIAM DENT PITMAN TAKES LEGAL ADVICE 
 
 Michael, "whose chambers I know better than he does 
 himself. A friend of mine I call him my friend for 
 brevity; he is now, I understand, in Demerara and 
 (most likely) in jail was the previous occupant. I 
 defended him, and I got him off too all saved but 
 honour; his assets were nil, but he gave me what he 
 had, poor gentleman, and along with the rest the key 
 of his chambers. It's there that I propose to leave the 
 piano and, shall we say, Cleopatra?" 
 
 " It seems very wild," said Pitman. " And what will 
 become of the poor young gentleman whom you know 
 by sight ? " 
 
 "It will do him good," said Michael, cheerily. "Just 
 what he wants to steady him." 
 
 " But, my dear sir, he might be involved in a charge 
 of a charge of murder," gulped the artist. 
 
 " Well, he'll be just where we are," returned the law- 
 yer. "He's innocent, you see. What hangs people, 
 my dear Pitman, is the unfortunate circumstance of 
 guilt." 
 
 "But indeed, indeed," pleaded Pitman, "the whole 
 scheme appears to me so wild. Would it not be safer, 
 after all, just to send for the police ? " 
 
 " And make a scandal ? " inquired Michael. " ' The 
 Chelsea Mystery ; alleged innocence of Pitman ? ' How 
 would that do at the Seminary ?" 
 
 " It would imply my discharge," admitted the draw- 
 ing-master. " I cannot deny that." 
 
 "And besides," said Michael, " I am not going to 
 embark in such a business and have no fun for my 
 money." 
 
 ' 'Oh, my dear sir, is that a proper spirit ? "cried Pitman.
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " Oh, I only said that to cheer you up," said the una- 
 bashed Michael. "Nothing like a little judicious levity. 
 But it's quite needless to discuss. If you mean to fol- 
 low my advice, come on, and let us get the piano at 
 once. If you don't, just drop me the word, and I'll 
 leave you to deal with the whole thing according to 
 your better judgment." 
 
 ' ' You know perfectly well that I depend on you en- 
 tirely," returned Pitman. "But oh, what a night is 
 before me with that horror in my studio! How am 
 I to think of it on my pillow ? " 
 
 "Well, you know, my piano will be there too," said 
 Michael. "That'll raise the average." 
 
 An hour later a cart came up the lane, and the law- 
 yer's piano a momentous Broadwood grand was 
 deposited in Mr. Pitman's studio. 
 
 <#
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 PUNCTUALLY at eight o'clock next morning the lawyer 
 rattled (according to previous appointment) on the 
 studio door. He found the artist sadly altered for the 
 worse bleached, bloodshot, and chalky a man upon 
 wires, the tail of his haggard eye still wandering to the 
 closet. Nor was the professor of drawing less inclined 
 to wonder at his friend. Michael was usually attired 
 in the height of fashion, with a certain mercantile bril- 
 liancy best described perhaps as stylish ; nor could any- 
 thing be said against him, as a rule, but that he looked 
 a trifle too like a wedding guest to be quite a gentle- 
 man. To-day he had fallen altogether from these 
 heights. He wore a flannel shirt of washed-out shep- 
 herd's tartan, and a suit of reddish tweeds, of the colour 
 known to tailors as "heather mixture;" his neckcloth 
 was black, and tied loosely in a sailor's knot; a rusty 
 ulster partly concealed these advantages; and his feet 
 were shod with rough walking boots. His hat was 
 an old soft felt, which he removed with a flourish as he 
 entered. 
 
 "Here I am, William Dent!" he cried, and drawing 
 from his pocket two little wisps of reddish hair, he held 
 them to his cheeks like side-whiskers and danced about 
 the studio with the filmy graces of a ballet-girl.
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Pitman laughed sadly. "I should never have known 
 you," said he. 
 
 "Nor were you intended to," returned Michael, re- 
 placing his false whiskers in his pocket. "Now we 
 must overhaul you and your wardrobe, and disguise 
 you up to the nines." 
 
 "Disguise!" cried the artist. "Must I indeed dis- 
 guise myself ? Has it come to that?" 
 
 "My dear creature," returned his companion, "dis- 
 guise is the spice of life. What is life, passionately 
 exclaimed the French philosopher, without the plea- 
 sures of disguise ? I don't say it's always good taste, 
 and I know it's unprofessional; but what's the odds, 
 down-hearted drawing-master ? It has to be. We 
 have to leave a false impression on the minds of many 
 persons, and in particular on the mind of Mr. Gideon 
 Forsyth the young gentleman I know by sight if 
 he should have the bad taste to be at home." 
 
 "If he be at home?" faltered the artist. "That 
 would be the end of all." 
 
 "Won't matter a d ," returned Michael, airily. 
 
 " Let me see your clothes, and I'll make a new man of 
 you in a jiffy." 
 
 In the bedroom, to which he was at once conducted, 
 Michael examined Pitman's poor and scanty wardrobe 
 with a humorous eye, picked out a short jacket of black 
 alpaca, and presently added to that a pair of summer 
 trousers which somehow took his fancy as incongruous. 
 Then, with the garments in his hand, he scrutinised the 
 artist closely. 
 
 ' ' I don't like that clerical collar, " he remarked. ' ' Have 
 you nothing else ? " 
 
 98
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 The professor of drawing pondered for a moment, 
 and then brightened; "I have a pair of low-necked 
 shirts," he said, "that I used to wear in Paris as a stu- 
 dent. They are rather loud." 
 
 "The very thing! " ejaculated Michael. " You look 
 perfectly beastly. Here are spats, too," he continued, 
 drawing forth a pair of those offensive little gaiters. 
 "Must have spats! And now you jump into these, 
 and whistle a tune at the window for (say) three- 
 quarters of an hour. After that you can rejoin me on 
 the field of glory." 
 
 So saying Michael returned to the studio. It was the 
 morning of the easterly gale; the wind blew shrilly 
 among the statues in the garden, and drove the rain 
 upon the skylight in the studio ceiling; and at about 
 the same moment of time when Morris attacked the 
 hundredth version of his uncle's signature in Blooms- 
 bury, Michael, in Chelsea, began to rip the wires out of 
 the Broadwood grand. 
 
 Three-quarters of an hour later Pitman was admitted 
 to find the closet-door standing open, the closet unten- 
 anted, and the piano discreetly shut. 
 
 " It's a remarkably heavy instrument," observed 
 Michael, and turned to consider his friend's dis- 
 guise. "You must shave off that beard of yours," 
 he said. 
 
 "My beard!" cried Pitman. "I cannot shave my 
 beard. I cannot tamper with my appearance my 
 principals would object. They hold very strong views 
 as to the appearance of the professors young ladies 
 are considered so romantic. My beard was regarded 
 as quite a feature when I went about the place. It was 
 
 99
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 regarded," said the artist, with rising colour, "it was 
 regarded as unbecoming." 
 
 "You can let it grow again," returned Michael, "and 
 then you'll be so precious ugly that they'll raise your 
 salary." 
 
 " But I don't want to look ugly," cried the artist. 
 
 "Don't be an ass," said Michael, who hated beards 
 and was delighted to destroy one. "Off with it like a 
 man!" 
 
 "Of course, if you insist," said Pitman; and then he 
 sighed, fetched some hot water from the kitchen, and 
 setting a glass upon his easel, first clipped his beard 
 with scissors and then shaved his chin. He could not 
 conceal from himself, as he regarded the result, that his 
 last claims to manhood had been sacrificed, but Michael 
 seemed delighted. 
 
 " A new man, I declare!" he cried. "When I give 
 you the window-glass spectacles I have in my pocket, 
 you'll be the beau ideal of a French commercial trav- 
 eller." 
 
 Pitman did not reply, but continued to gaze discon- 
 solately on his image in the glass. 
 
 "Do you know," asked Michael, "what the Gov- 
 ernor of South Carolina said to the Governor of North 
 Carolina? 'It's a long time between drinks,' ob- 
 served that powerful thinker; and if you will put your 
 hand into the top left-hand pocket of my ulster, I have 
 an impression you will find a flask of brandy. Thank 
 you, Pitman," he added, as he filled out a glass for 
 each. "Now you will give me news of this." 
 
 The artist reached out his hand for the water-jug, but 
 Michael arrested the movement. 
 
 IOO
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 "Not if you went upon your knees!" he cried. 
 "This is the finest liqueur brandy in Great Britain." 
 
 Pitman put his lips to it, set it down again, and 
 sighed. 
 
 "Well, I must say you're the poorest companion for 
 a holiday ! " cried Michael. " If that's all you know of 
 brandy, you shall have no more of it; and while 1 finish 
 the flask, you may as well begin business. Come to 
 think of it," he broke off, "I have made an abominable 
 error: you should have ordered the cart before you 
 were disguised. Why, Pitman, what the devil's the 
 use of you ? why couldn't you have reminded me of 
 that?" 
 
 " I never even knew there was a cart to be ordered," 
 said the artist. " But I can take off the disguise again," 
 he suggested eagerly. 
 
 "You would find it rather a bother to put on your 
 beard," observed the lawyer. "No, it's a false step; 
 the sort of thing that hangs people," he continued, with 
 eminent cheerfulness, as he sipped his brandy; " and it 
 can't be retraced now. Off to the mews with you, 
 make all the arrangements; they're to take the piano 
 from here, cart it to Victoria, and despatch it thence by 
 rail to Cannon Street, to lie till called for in the name of 
 Fortun6 du Boisgobey." 
 
 "Isn't that rather an awkward name ?" pleaded Pit- 
 man. 
 
 "Awkward?" cried Michael, scornfully. "It would 
 hang us both ! Brown is both safer and easier to pro- 
 nounce. Call it Brown." 
 
 "I wish," said Pitman, "for my sake, I wish you 
 wouldn't talk so much of hanging." 
 
 101
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Talking about it's nothing, my boy!" returned 
 Michael. " But take your hat and be off, and mind and 
 pay everything beforehand." 
 
 Left to himself, the lawyer turned his attention for 
 some time exclusively to the liqueur brandy, and his 
 spirits, which had been pretty fair all morning, now 
 prodigiously rose. He proceeded to adjust his whiskers 
 finally before the glass. " Devilish rich," he remarked, 
 as he contemplated his reflection; " I look like a purser's 
 mate." And at that moment, the window-glass spec- 
 tacles (which he had hitherto destined for Pitman) flashed 
 into his mind; he put them on, and fell in love with the 
 effect. "Just what I required," he said. "I wonder 
 what I look like now ? A humorous novelist, I should 
 think," and he began to practise divers characters of 
 walk, naming them to himself as he proceeded. ' ' Walk 
 of a humorous novelist but that would require an um- 
 brella. Walk of a purser's mate. Walk of an Australian 
 colonist revisiting the scenes of childhood. Walk of 
 Sepoy colonel, ditto, ditto." And in the midst of the 
 Sepoy colonel (which was an excellent assumption, al- 
 though inconsistent with the style of his make-up), his 
 eye lighted on the piano. This instrument was made 
 to lock both at the top and at the keyboard, but the key 
 of the latter had been mislaid. Michael opened it and 
 ran his fingers over the dumb keys. " Fine instrument 
 full, rich tone," he observed, and he drew in a seat. 
 
 When Mr. Pitman returned to the studio, he was ap- 
 palled to observe his guide, philosopher, and friend per- 
 forming miracles of execution on the silent grand. 
 
 "Heaven help me!" thought the little man, "I fear 
 he has been drinking! Mr. Finsbury," he said aloud;
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 and Michael, without rising, turned upon him a coun- 
 tenance somewhat flushed, encircled with the bush of 
 the red whiskers, and bestridden by the spectacles. 
 "Capriccio in B-flat on the departure of a friend," said 
 he, continuing his noiseless evolutions. 
 
 Indignation awoke in the mind of Pitman. "Those 
 spectacles were to be mine," he cried. "They are an 
 essential part of my disguise." 
 
 " I am going to wear them myself," replied Michael; 
 and he added, with some show of truth, "there would 
 be a devil of a lot of suspicion aroused if we both wore 
 spectacles." 
 
 "Oh, well," said the assenting Pitman, "I rather 
 counted on them ; but of course, if you insist ! And at 
 any rate, here is the cart at the door." 
 
 While the men were at work, Michael concealed him- 
 self in the closet among the debris of the barrel and the 
 wires of the piano ; and as soon as the coast was clear, 
 the pair sallied forth by the lane, jumped into a hansom 
 in the King's Roa'd, and were driven rapidly toward 
 town. It was still cold and raw and boisterous; the 
 rain beat strongly in their faces, but Michael refused to 
 have the glass let down ; he had now suddenly donned 
 the character of cicerone, and pointed out and lucidly 
 commented on the sights of London, as they drove. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, "you don't seem to know 
 anything of your native city. Suppose we visited the 
 Tower ? No ? Well, perhaps it's a trifle out of our 
 way. But anyway Here, Cabby, drive round by 
 Trafalgar Square! " And on that historic battle-field he 
 insisted on drawing up, while he criticised the statues 
 and gave the artist many curious details (quite new to 
 
 103
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 history) of the lives of the celebrated men they repre- 
 sented. 
 
 It would be difficult to express what Pitman suffered 
 in the cab: cold, wet, terror in the capital degree, a 
 grounded distrust of the commander under whom he 
 served, a sense of impudency in the matter of the low- 
 necked shirt, a bitter sense of the decline and fall in- 
 volved in the deprivation of his beard, all these were 
 among the ingredients of the bowl. To reach the res- 
 taurant, for which they were deviously steering, was 
 the first relief. To hear Michael bespeak a private room 
 was a second and a still greater. Nor, as they mounted 
 the stair under the guidance of an unintelligible alien, 
 did he fail to note with gratitude the fewness of the per- 
 sons present, or the still more cheering fact that the 
 greater part of these were exiles from the land of France. 
 It was thus a blessed thought that none of them would 
 be connected with the Seminary ; for even the French 
 professor, though admittedly a papist, he could scarce 
 imagine frequenting so rakish an establishment. 
 
 The alien introduced them into a small, bare room 
 with a single table, a sofa, and a dwarfish fire; and Mi- 
 chael called promptly for more coals and a couple of 
 brandies and sodas. 
 
 "Oh, no," said Pitman, "surely not no more to 
 drink." 
 
 " I don't know what you would be at," said Michael, 
 plaintively. " It's positively necessary to do something; 
 and one shouldn't smoke before meals I thought that 
 was understood. You seem to have no idea of hygiene." 
 And he compared his watch with the clock upon the 
 chimney-piece. 
 
 104
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 Pitman fell into bitter musing; here he was, ridicu- 
 lously shorn, absurdly disguised, in the company of a 
 drunken man in spectacles, and waiting for a champagne 
 luncheon in a restaurant painfully foreign. What would 
 his principals think, if they could see him ? What, if 
 they knew his tragic and deceitful errand ? 
 
 From these reflections he was aroused by the entrance 
 of the alien with the brandies and sodas. Michael took 
 one and bade the waiter pass the other to his friend. 
 
 Pitman waved it from him with his hand. "Don't 
 let me lose all self-respect," he said. 
 
 "Anything to oblige a friend," returned Michael. 
 " But I'm not going to drink alone. Here," he added 
 to the waiter, "you take it." And then, touching glasses, 
 "The health of Mr. Gideon Forsyth," said he. 
 
 "Meestare Gidden Borsye," replied the waiter, and 
 he tossed off the liquor in four gulps. 
 
 " Have another ?" said Michael, with undisguised in- 
 terest. "I never saw a man drink faster. It restores 
 one's confidence in the human race." 
 
 But the waiter excused himself politely, and assisted 
 by someone from without, began to bring in lunch. 
 
 Michael made an excellent meal, which he washed 
 down with a bottle of Heidsieck's dry monopole. As 
 for the artist, he was far too uneasy to eat, and his com- 
 panion flatly refused to let him share in the champagne 
 unless he did. 
 
 "One of us must stay sober," remarked the lawyer, 
 "and I won't give you champagne on the strength of 
 a leg of grouse. I have to be cautious," he added, con- 
 fidentially. "One drunken man, excellent business 
 two drunken men, all my eye." 
 
 10$
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 On the production of coffee and departure of the 
 waiter, Michael might have been observed to make por- 
 tentous efforts after gravity of mien. He looked his 
 friend in the face (one eye perhaps a trifle off), and ad- 
 dressed him thickly but severely. 
 
 "Enough of this fooling," was his not inappropriate 
 exordium. " To business. Mark me closely. I am an 
 Australian. My name is John Dickson, though you 
 mightn't think it from my unassuming appearance. You 
 will be relieved to hear that I am rich, sir, very rich. 
 You can't go into this sort of thing too thoroughly, Pit- 
 man ; the whole secret is preparation, and I get up my 
 biography from the beginning, and I could tell it you 
 now, only I have forgotten it" 
 
 " Perhaps I'm stupid " began Pitman. 
 
 "That's it! " cried Michael. " Very stupid; but rich 
 too richer than I am. I thought you would enjoy it, 
 Pitman, so I've arranged that you were to be literally 
 wallowing in wealth. But then, on the other hand, 
 you're only an American, and a maker of india-rubber 
 overshoes at that. And the worst of it is why should 
 I conceal it from you the worst of it is that you're 
 called Ezra Thomas. Now," said Michael, with a really 
 appalling seriousness of manner, " tell me who we are." 
 
 The unfortunate little man was cross-examined till he 
 knew these facts by heart. 
 
 "There!" cried the lawyer. "Our plans are laid. 
 Thoroughly consistent that's the great thing." 
 
 " But I don't understand," objected Pitman. 
 
 "Oh, you'll understand right enough when it comes 
 to the point," said Michael, rising. 
 
 " There doesn't seem any story to it," said the artist 
 106
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 "We can invent one as we go along," returned the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "But I can't invent," protested Pitman. "I never 
 could invent in all my life." 
 
 "You'll find you have to, my boy," was Michael's 
 easy comment, and he began calling for the waiter, with 
 whom he at once resumed a sparkling conversation. 
 
 It was a down-cast little man that followed him. ' ' Of 
 course he is very clever, but can I trust him in such a 
 state?" he asked himself. And when they were once 
 more in a hansom, he took heart of grace. 
 
 " Don't you think," he faltered, "it would be wiser, 
 considering all things, to put this business off?" 
 
 " Put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day?" 
 cried Michael, with indignation. "Never heard of such 
 a thing ! Cheer up, it's all right, go in and win there's 
 a lion-hearted Pitman ! " 
 
 At Cannon Street, they inquired for Mr. Brown's 
 piano, which had duly arrived, drove thence to a neigh- 
 bouring mews, where they contracted for a cart, and 
 while that was being got ready, took shelter in the har- 
 ness-room beside the stove. Here the lawyer presently 
 toppled against the wall and fell into a gentle slumber; 
 so that Pitman found himself launched on his own re- 
 sources in the midst of several staring loafers, such as 
 love to spend unprofitable days about a stable. 
 
 ' ' Rough day, sir, " observed one. "Do you go far ? " 
 
 "Yes, it's a rather a rough day," said the artist; 
 and then, feeling that he must change the conversation, 
 "my friend is an Australian, he is very impulsive," he 
 added. 
 
 "An Australian?" said another. "I've a brother 
 '07
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 myself in Melbourne. Does your friend come from that 
 way at all ? " 
 
 "No, not exactly," replied the artist, whose ideas of 
 the geography of New Holland were a little scattered. 
 " He lives immensely far inland, and is very rich." 
 
 The loafers gazed with great respect upon the slum- 
 bering colonist. 
 
 " Well," remarked the second speaker, " it's a mighty 
 big place, is Australia. Do you come from there away 
 too?" 
 
 "No, I do not," said Pitman. " I do not, and I don't 
 want to," he added, irritably. And then feeling some 
 diversion needful, he fell upon Michael and shook him up. 
 
 "Hullo," said the lawyer, "what's wrong?" 
 
 " The cart is nearly ready," said Pitman, sternly. " I 
 will not allow you to sleep." 
 
 "All right no offence, old man," replied Michael, 
 yawning. ' ' A little sleep never did anybody any harm ; 
 I feel comparatively sober now. But what's all the 
 hurry?" he added, looking round him glassily. "I 
 don't see the cart, and I've forgotten where we left the 
 piano." 
 
 What more the lawyer might have said, in the confi- 
 dence of the moment, is with Pitman a matter of tremu- 
 lous conjecture to this day; but by the most blessed 
 circumstance, the cart was then announced, and Michael 
 must bend the forces of his mind to the more difficult 
 task of rising. 
 
 "Of course, you'll drive," he remarked to his com- 
 panion, as he clambered on the vehicle. 
 
 " I drive! " cried Pitman. " I never did such * thing 
 in my life. I cannot drive." 
 
 108
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 "Very well," responded Michael, with entire compo- 
 sure, " neither can I see. But just as you like. Anything 
 to oblige a friend." 
 
 A glimpse of the ostler's darkening countenance de- 
 cided Pitman. "All right," he said, desperately, "you 
 drive. I'll tell you where to go." 
 
 On Michael in the character of charioteer (since this is 
 not intended to be a novel of adventure) it would be 
 superfluous to dwell at length. Pitman, as he sat hold- 
 ing on and gasping counsels, sole witness of this singu- 
 lar feat, knew not whether most to admire the driver's 
 valour or his undeserved good fortune. But the latter at 
 least prevailed, the cart reached Cannon Street without 
 disaster; and Mr. Brown's piano was speedily and clev- 
 erly got on board. 
 
 "Well, sir," said the leading porter, smiling as he 
 mentally reckoned up a handful of loose silver, "that's 
 a mortal heavy piano." 
 
 " It's the richness of the tone," returned Michael, as 
 he drove away. 
 
 It was but a little distance in the rain, which now fell 
 thick and quiet, to the neighbourhood of Mr. Gideon 
 Forsyth's chambers in the Temple. There, in a deserted 
 by-street, Michael drew up the horses and gave them in 
 charge to a blighted shoe-black; and the pair descending 
 from the cart, whereon they had figured so incongru- 
 ously, set forth on foot for the decisive scene of their 
 adventure. For the first time, Michael displayed a 
 shadow of uneasiness. 
 
 " Are my whiskers right ? " he asked. " It would be 
 the devil and all if I was spotted." 
 
 "They are perfectly in their place," returned Pitman, 
 109
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 with scant attention. "But is my disguise equally ef- 
 fective ? There is nothing more likely than that I should 
 meet some of my patrons." 
 
 "Oh, nobody could tell you without your beard," 
 said Michael. " All you have to do is to remember to 
 speak slow; you speak through your nose already." 
 
 "I only hope the young man won't be at home," 
 sighed Pitman. 
 
 "And I only hope he'll be alone," returned the law- 
 yer. " It will save a precious sight of manoeuvring." 
 
 And sure enough, when they had knocked at the door, 
 Gideon admitted them in person to a room, warmed by 
 a moderate fire, framed nearly to the roof in works con- 
 nected with the bench of British Themis, and offering, 
 except in one particular, eloquent testimony to the legal 
 zeal of the proprietor. The one particular was the 
 chimney-piece, which displayed a varied assortment of 
 pipes, tobacco, cigar-boxes, and yellow-backed French 
 novels. 
 
 " Mr. Forsyth, I believe ? " It was Michael who thus 
 opened the engagement. " We have come to trouble 
 you with a piece of business. I fear it's scarcely pro- 
 fessional " 
 
 " I am afraid I ought to be instructed through a so- 
 licitor," replied Gideon. 
 
 ' ' Well, well, you shall name your own, and the whole 
 affair can be put on a more regular footing to-morrow," 
 replied Michael, taking a chair and motioning Pitman to 
 do the same. ' ' But you see we didn't know any solicit- 
 ors; we did happen to know of you, and time presses." 
 
 "May I inquire, gentlemen," asked Gideon, "to 
 whom it was I am indebted for a recommendation ?"
 
 IN NVnlCH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 " You may inquire," returned the lawyer, with a fool- 
 ish laugh; "but I was invited not to tell you till the 
 thing was done." 
 
 " My uncle, no doubt," was the barrister's conclusion. 
 
 " My name is John Dickson," continued Michael; "a 
 pretty well-known name in Ballarat; and my friend 
 here is Mr. Ezra Thomas, of the United States of 
 America, a wealthy manufacturer of India-rubber over- 
 shoes." 
 
 "Stop one moment till I make a note of that," said 
 Gideon; anyone might have supposed he was an old 
 practitioner. 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn't mind my smoking a cigar? " 
 asked Michael. He had pulled himself together for the 
 entrance ; now again there began to settle on his mind 
 clouds of irresponsible humour and incipient slumber; 
 and he hoped (as so many have hoped in the like case) 
 that a cigar would clear him. 
 
 "Oh, certainly," cried Gideon, blandly. "Try one 
 of mine; I can confidently recommend them." And he 
 handed the box to his client. 
 
 "In case I don't make myself perfectly clear, "ob- 
 served the Australian, "it's perhaps best to tell you 
 candidly that I've been lunching. It's a thing that may 
 happen to anyone." 
 
 "Oh, certainly," replied the affable barrister. " But 
 please be under no sense of hurry. I can give you," he 
 added, thoughtfully consulting his watch "yes, I can 
 give you the whole afternoon." 
 
 "The business that brings me here," resumed the 
 Australian with gusto, "is devilish delicate, I can tell 
 you. My friend Mr. Thomas, being an American of 
 
 in
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Portuguese extraction, unacquainted with our habits, 
 and a wealthy manufacturer of Broad wood pianos 
 
 " Broadwood pianos ? " cried Gideon, with some sur- 
 prise. "Dear me, do I understand Mr. Thomas to be a 
 member of the firm ?" 
 
 " Oh, pirated Broadwoods," returned Michael. " My 
 friend's the American Broadwood." 
 
 " But I understood you to say," objected Gideon, " I 
 certainly have it so in my notes that your friend was 
 a manufacturer of India-rubber overshoes." 
 
 "I know it's confusing at first," said the Australian, 
 with a beaming smile. " But he in short, he com- 
 bines the two professions. And many others besides 
 many, many, many others," repeated Mr. Dickson, 
 with drunken solemnity. "Mr. Thomas' cotton-mills 
 are one of the sights of Tallahassee; Mr. Thomas' to- 
 bacco-mills are the pride of Richmond, Va. ; in short, 
 he's one of my oldest friends, Mr. Forsyth, and I lay his 
 case before you with emotion." 
 
 The barrister looked at Mr. Thomas and was agree- 
 ably prepossessed by his open although nervous counte- 
 nance, and the simplicity and timidity of his manner. 
 "What a people are these Americans!" he thought. 
 " Look at this nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a 
 low-necked shirt, and think of him wielding and direct- 
 ing interests so extended and seemingly incongruous! 
 But had we not better," he observed aloud, "had we 
 not perhaps better approach the facts ?" 
 
 " Man of business, I perceive, sir ! " said the Australian. 
 "Let's approach the facts. It's a breach of fomise case." 
 
 The unhappy artist was so unprepared for this view of 
 his position that he could scarce suppress a cry.
 
 IN WHi^rl MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 "Dear me," said Gideon, "they are apt to be very 
 troublesome. Tell me everything about it," he added, 
 kindly; "if you require my assistance, conceal noth- 
 ing." 
 
 "You tell him," said Michael, feeling, apparently, that 
 he had done his share. "My friend will tell you all 
 about it," he added to Gideon, with a yawn. " Excuse 
 my closing my eyes a moment; I've been sitting up 
 with a sick friend." 
 
 Pitman gazed blankly about the room ; rage and de- 
 spair seethed in his innocent spirit; thoughts of flight, 
 thoughts even of suicide, came and went before him ; 
 and still the barrister patiently waited, and still the artist 
 groped in vain for any form of words, however insig- 
 nificant. 
 
 " It's a breach of promise case," he said at last, in a 
 low voice. "I I am threatened with a breach of 
 promise case." Here, in desperate quest of inspiration, 
 he made a clutch at his beard; his fingers closed upon 
 the unfamiliar smoothness of a shaven chin ; and with 
 that, hope and courage (if such expressions could evef 
 have been appropriate in the case of Pitman) conjointly 
 fled. He shook Michael roughly. "Wake up!" he 
 cried, with genuine irritation in his tones. "I cannot 
 do it, and you know I can't" 
 
 "You must excuse my friend," said Michael; "he's 
 no hand as a narrator of stirring incident. The case is 
 simple, " he went on. ' ' My friend is a man of very strong 
 passions, and accustomed to a simple, patriarchal style 
 of life. You see the thing from here : unfortunate visit 
 to Europe, followed by unfortunate acquaintance with 
 sham foreign count, who has a lovely daughter. Mr.
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Thomas was quite carried away ; he proposed, he was 
 accepted, and he wrote wrote in a style which 1 am 
 sure he must regret to-day. If these letters are produced 
 in court, sir, Mr. Thomas's character is gone." 
 
 "Am I to understand " began Gideon. 
 
 " My dear sir, "said the Australian, emphatically, " it 
 isn't possible to understand unless you saw them." 
 
 "That is a painful circumstance," said Gideon; he 
 glanced pityingly in the direction of the culprit, and ob- 
 serving on his countenance every mark of confusion, 
 pityingly withdrew his eyes. 
 
 " And that would be nothing," continued Mr. Dick- 
 son, sternly, " but I wish I wish from my heart, sir, I 
 could say that Mr. Thomas' hands were clean. He 
 has no excuse; for he was engaged at the time and is 
 still engaged to the belle of Constantinople, Ga. My 
 friend's conduct was unworthy of the brutes that perish." 
 
 "Ga?" repeated Gideon, inquiringly. 
 
 "A contraction in current use," said Michael "Ga 
 for Georgia, in the same way as Co for Company." 
 
 " I was aware it was sometimes so written," returned 
 the barrister, " but not that it was so pronounced." 
 
 " Fact, I assure you," said Michael. " You now see 
 for yourself, sir, that if this unhappy person is to be 
 saved, some devilish sharp practice will be needed. 
 There's money, and no desire to spare it Mr. Thomas 
 could write a cheque to-morrow for a hundred thou- 
 sand. And, Mr. Forsyth, there's better than money. The 
 foreign count Count Tarnow, he calls himself was 
 formerly a tobacconist in Bayswater, and passed under 
 the humble but expressive name of Schmidt ; his daughter 
 if she is his daughter there's another point make a 
 
 "4
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 note of that, Mr. Forsyth his daughter at that time 
 actually served in the shop and she now proposes to 
 marry a man of the eminence of Mr. Thomas ! Now do 
 you see our game ? We know they contemplate a 
 move ; and we wish to forestall 'em. Down you go to 
 Hampton Court, where they live, and threaten, or bribe, 
 or both, until you get the letters ; if you can't, God help 
 us, we must go to court and Thomas must be exposed. 
 I'll be done with him for one," added the unchivalrous 
 friend. 
 
 " There seem some elements of success, " said Gideon. 
 "Was Schmidt at all known to the police?" 
 
 "We hope so," said Michael. "We have every 
 ground to think so. Mark the neighbourhood Bays- 
 water! doesn't Bayswater occur to you as very sugges- 
 tive?" 
 
 For perhaps the sixth time during this remarkable 
 interview, Gideon wondered if he were not becoming 
 light-headed. " I suppose it's just because he has been 
 lunching," he thought; and then added aloud, "to what 
 figure may I go ? " 
 
 "Perhaps five thousand would be enough for to-day," 
 said Michael. " And now, sir, do not let me detain you 
 any longer; the afternoon wears on; there are plenty of 
 trains to Hampton Court; and I needn't try to describe 
 to you the impatience of my friend. Here is a five 
 pound note for current expenses; and here is the ad- 
 dress." And Michael began to write, paused, tore up 
 the paper, and put the pieces in his pocket. "I will 
 dictate," he said, "my writing is so uncertain." 
 
 Gideon took down the address, "Count Tarnow, 
 Kurnaul Villa, Hampton Court." Then he wrote some- 
 
 115
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 thing else on a sheet of paper. " You said you had not 
 chosen a solicitor," he said. " For a case of this sort, 
 here is the best man in London." And he handed the 
 paper to Michael 
 
 "God bless me! " ejaculated Michael, as he read his 
 own address. 
 
 "Oh, I dare say you have seen his name connected 
 with some rather painful cases," said Gideon. " But he 
 is himself a perfectly honest man and his capacity is 
 recognised. And now, gentlemen, it only remains for 
 me to ask where I shall communicate with you." 
 
 " The Langham, of course, " returned Michael. ' ' Tfll 
 to-night." 
 
 "Till to-night, " replied Gideon, smiling. ' ' I suppose 
 I may knock you up at a late hour?" 
 
 "Any hour, any hour," cried the vanishing solicitor. 
 
 "Now there's a young fellow with a head upon his 
 shoulders," he said to Pitman, as soon as they were in 
 the street 
 
 Pitman was indistinctly heard to murmur, " Perfect 
 fool" 
 
 "Not a bit of him," returned Michael. " He knows 
 who's the best solicitor in London, and it's not every 
 man can say the same. But, I say, didn't 1 pitch it in 
 hot?" 
 
 Pitman returned no answer. 
 
 "Hullo!" said the lawyer, pausing, "what's wrong 
 with the long-suffering Pitman?" 
 
 " You had no right to speak of me as you did," the 
 artist broke out; "your language was perfectly unjusti- 
 fiable; you have wounded me deeply." 
 
 " I never said a word about you," replied Michael 
 
 116
 
 IN WHICH MICHAEL FINSBURY ENJOYS A HOLIDAY 
 
 "I spoke of Ezra Thomas; and do please remember that 
 there's no cuch party." 
 
 "It's just as hard to bear," said the artist. 
 
 But by this time they had reached the corner of the 
 by-street; and there was the faithful shoeblack, stand- 
 ing by the horses' heads with a splendid assumption of 
 dignity ; and there was the piano, pricking forlorn upon 
 the cart, while the rain beat upon its unprotected sides 
 and trickled down its elegantly varnished legs. 
 
 The shoeblack was again put in requisition to bring 
 five or six strong fellows from the neighbouring public- 
 house; and the last battle of the campaign opened. It 
 is probable that Mr. Gideon Forsyth had not yet taken 
 his seat in the train for Hampton Court, before Michael 
 opened the door of the chambers, and the grunting por- 
 ters deposited the Broadwood grand in the middle of the 
 floor. 
 
 "And now," said the lawyer, after he had sent the 
 men about their business, "one more precaution. We 
 must leave him the key of the piano, and we must con- 
 trive that he shall find it. Let me see." And he built 
 a square tower of cigars upon the top of the instrument, 
 and dropped the key into the middle. 
 
 "Poor young man," said the artist, as they descended 
 the stairs. 
 
 "He is in a devil of a position," assented Michael, 
 dryly. " It'll brace him up " 
 
 "And that reminds me," observed the excellent Pit- 
 man, "that I fear I displayed a most ungrateful temper. 
 I had no right, I see, to resent expressions, wounding 
 as they were, which were in no sense directed." 
 
 "That's all right, "cried Michael, getting on the cart, 
 117
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Not a word more, Pitman. Very proper feeling on 
 your part ; no man of self-respect can stand by and hear 
 his alias insulted." 
 
 The rain had now ceased, Michael was fairly sober, 
 the body had been disposed of, and the friends were 
 reconciled. The return to the mews was therefore (in 
 comparison with previous stages of the day's adven- 
 tures) quite a holiday outing; and when they had re- 
 turned the cart and walked forth again from the stable- 
 yard, unchallenged and even unsuspected, Pitman drew 
 a deep breath of joy. 
 
 "And now," he said, "we can go home." 
 
 "Pitman," said the lawyer, stopping short, "your 
 recklessness fills me with concern. What! we have 
 been wet through the greater part of the day, and you 
 propose, in cold blood, to go home! No, sir hot 
 Scotch." 
 
 And taking his friend's arm he led him sternly toward 
 the nearest public-house. Nor was Pitman (I regret to 
 say) wholly unwilling. Now that peace was restored 
 and the body gone, a certain innocent skittishness be- 
 gan to appear in the manners of the artist; and when 
 he touched his steaming glass to Michael's, he giggled 
 aloud like a venturesome school-girl at a picnic.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 I KNOW Michael Finsbury personally ; my business 
 I know the awkwardness of having such a man for a 
 lawyer still it's an old story now, and there is such a 
 thing as gratitude, and, in short, my legal business, al- 
 though now (I am thankful to say) of quite a placid 
 character, remains entirely in Michael's hands. But the 
 trouble is I have no natural talent for addresses ; I learn 
 one for every man that is friendship's offering; and 
 the friend who subsequently changes his residence is 
 dead to me, memory refusing to pursue him. Thus it 
 comes about that, as I always write to Michael at his 
 office, I cannot swear to his number in the King's Road. 
 Of course (like my neighbours), I have been to dinner 
 there. Of late years, since his accession to wealth, neg- 
 lect of business, and election to the club, these little 
 festivals have become common. He picks up a few 
 fellows in the smoking-room all men of Attic wit 
 myself, for instance, if he has the luck to find me disen- 
 gaged; a string of hansoms may be observed (by her 
 Majesty) bowling gaily through St. James's Park; and 
 in a quarter of an hour the party surrounds one of the 
 best appointed boards in London. 
 
 But at the time of which we write the house in the 
 no
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 King's Road (let us still continue to call it No. 233) was 
 kept very quiet; when Michael entertained guests it 
 was at the halls of Nichol or Verrey that he would con- 
 vene them, and the door of his private residence re- 
 mained closed against his friends. The upper storey, 
 which was sunny, was set apart for his father; the 
 drawing-room was never opened; the dining-room was 
 the scene of Michael's life. It is in this pleasant apart- 
 ment, sheltered from the curiosity of King's Road by 
 wire blinds, and entirely surrounded by the lawyer's un- 
 rivalled library of poetry and criminal trials, that we find 
 him sitting down to his dinner after his holiday with 
 Pitman. A spare old lady, with very bright eyes and a 
 mouth humorously compressed, waited upon the law- 
 yer's needs; in every line of her countenance she be- 
 trayed the fact that she was an old retainer; in every 
 word that fell from her lips she flaunted the glorious 
 circumstance of a Scottish origin; and the fear with 
 which this powerful combination fills the boldest was 
 obviously no stranger to the bosom of our friend. The 
 hot Scotch having somewhat warmed up the embers 
 of the Heidsieck, it was touching to observe the mas- 
 ter's eagerness to pull himself together under the ser- 
 vant's eye; and when he remarked: "I think, Teena, 
 I'll take a brandy and soda," he spoke like a man doubt- 
 ful of his elocution, and not half certain of obedience. 
 
 "No such a thing, Mr. Michael," was the prompt re- 
 turn. "Clar't and water." 
 
 "Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best," said 
 the master. ' ' Very fatiguing day at the office, though. " 
 
 "What ? " said the retainer, "ye never were near the 
 office!" 
 
 120
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 " Oh, yes, I was though ; I was repeatedly along Fleet 
 Street," returned Michael. 
 
 "Pretty pliskies ye've been at this day!" cried the 
 old lady, with humorous alacrity; and then: "Take 
 care don't break my crystal! " she cried, as the law- 
 yer came within an ace of knocking the glasses off the 
 table. 
 
 "And how is he keeping?" asked Michael. 
 
 "Oh, just the same, Mr. Michael, just the way he'll 
 be till the end, worthy man!" was the reply. "But 
 ye'll not be the first that's asked me that the day." 
 
 " No ? " said the lawyer. ' ' Who else ? " 
 
 "Ay, that's a joke, too," said Teena, grimly. "A 
 friend of yours: Mr. Morris." 
 
 " Morris! What was the little beggar doing here?" 
 inquired Michael. 
 
 " Wantin' ? To see him*" replied the housekeeper, 
 completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb 
 toward the upper story. " That's by his way of it; but 
 I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. 
 Michael. Bribe me!" she repeated, with inimitable 
 scorn. "That's no kind of a young gentleman." 
 
 " Did he so ? " said Michael. " I bet he didn't offer 
 much." 
 
 "No more he did," replied Teena; nor could any 
 subsequent questioning elicit from her the sum with 
 which the thrifty leather merchant had attempted to 
 corrupt her. " But 1 sent him about his business," she 
 said, gallantly. " He'll not come here again in a hurry." 
 
 "He mustn't see my father, you know; mind 
 that!" said Michael. "I'm not going to have any pub- 
 lic exhibition to a little beast like him."
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "No fear of me lettin' him," replied the trusty one. 
 " But the joke is this, Mr. Michael see, ye're upsettin' 
 the sauce, that's a clean table-cloth the best of the 
 joke is that he thinks your father's dead and you're keep- 
 in' it dark." 
 
 Michael whistled. " Set a thief to catch a thief," said 
 he. 
 
 " Exac'ly what I told him ! " cried the delighted dame. 
 
 "I'll make him dance for that," said Michael. 
 
 "Couldn't ye get the law of him some way?" sug- 
 gested Teena, truculently. 
 
 "No, I don't think I could, and I'm quite sure I don't 
 want to," replied Michael. " But I say, Teena, I really 
 don't believe this claret's wholesome; it's not a sound, 
 reliable wine. Give us a brandy and soda, there's a 
 good soul." Teena's face became like adamant. "Well, 
 then," said the lawyer, fretfully, " I won't eat any more 
 dinner. " 
 
 "Ye can please yourself about that, Mr. Michael," 
 said Teena, and began composedly to take away. 
 
 "I do wish Teena wasn't a faithful servant! " sighed 
 the lawyer, as he issued into King's Road. 
 
 The rain had ceased; the wind still blew, but only 
 with a pleasant freshness ; the town, in the clear dark- 
 ness of the night, glittered with street-lamps and shone 
 with glancing rain-pools. "Come, this is better," 
 thought the lawyer to himself, and he walked on east- 
 ward, lending a pleased ear to the wheels and the mil- 
 lion footfalls of the city. 
 
 Near the end of the King's Road he remembered his 
 brandy and soda, and entered a flaunting public house. 
 A good many persons were present, a waterman from 
 
 122
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 a cab-stand, half a dozen of the chronically unemployed, 
 a gentleman (in one corner) trying to sell aesthetic pho- 
 tographs out of a leather case to another and very youth- 
 ful gentleman with a yellow goatee, and a pair of lovers 
 debating some fine shade, in the other. But the centre- 
 piece and great attraction was a little old man, in a black, 
 ready-made surtout, which was obviously a recent pur- 
 chase. On the marble table in front of him, beside a 
 sandwich and a glass of beer, there lay a battered for- 
 age cap. His hand fluttered abroad with oratorical ges- 
 tures; his voice, naturally shrill, was plainly tuned to 
 the pitch of the lecture-room ; and by arts, comparable 
 to those of the Ancient Mariner, he was now holding 
 spellbound the barmaid, the waterman, and four of the 
 unemployed. 
 
 " I have examined all the theatres in London," he was 
 saying; " and pacing the principal entrances, I have as- 
 certained them to be ridiculously disproportionate to the 
 requirements of their audiences. The doors opened the 
 wrong way I forget at this moment which it is, but 
 have a note of it at home ; they were frequently locked 
 during the performance, and when the auditorium was 
 literally thronged with English people. You have prob- 
 ably not had my opportunities of comparing distant 
 lands; but I can assure you this has been long ago rec- 
 ognised as a mark of aristocratic government. Do you 
 suppose, in a country really self-governed, such abuses 
 could exist ? Your own intelligence, however unculti- 
 vated, tells you they could not. Take Austria, a country 
 even possibly more enslaved than England. I have my- 
 self conversed with one of the survivors of the Ring 
 Theatre, and though his colloquial German was not very 
 
 123
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 vjood, I succeeded in gathering a pretty clear idea of his 
 opinion of the case. But what will perhaps interest you 
 still more, here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna 
 newspaper, which I will now read to you, translating as 
 I go. You can see for yourselves ; it is printed in the 
 German character." And he held the cutting out for 
 verification, much as a conjurer passes a trick orange 
 along the front bench. 
 
 "Hullo, old gentleman! is this you?" said Michael, 
 laying his hand upon the orator's shoulder. 
 
 The figure turned with a convulsion of alarm, and 
 showed the countenance of Mr. Joseph Finsbury. 
 
 "You, Michael!" he cried. "There's no one with 
 you, is there ? " 
 
 "No," replied Michael, ordering a brandy and soda, 
 "there's nobody with me; whom do you expect?" 
 
 " I thought of Morris or John," said the old gentle- 
 man, evidently greatly relieved. 
 
 "What the devil would I be doing with Morris or 
 John ?" cried the nephew. 
 
 "There is something in that," returned Joseph. "And 
 I believe I can trust you. I believe you will stand by 
 me." 
 
 "I hardly know what you mean," said the lawyer, 
 "but if you are in need of money I am flush." 
 
 " It's not that, my dear boy," said the uncle, shaking 
 him by the hand. "I'll tell you all about it afterward." 
 
 " All right," responded the nephew. " I stand treat, 
 Uncle Joseph ; what will you have ? " 
 
 "In that case," replied the old gentleman, "I'll take 
 another sandwich. I dare say I surprise you," he went 
 on, " with my presence in a public-house; but the fact 
 
 124
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION [OP MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 is I act on a sound but little known principle of my 
 own " 
 
 "Oh, it's better known than you suppose," said Mi- 
 chael, sipping his brandy and soda. " I always act on 
 it myself when I want a drink." 
 
 The old gentleman, who was anxious to propitiate 
 Michael, laughed a cheerless laugh. "You have such a 
 flow of spirits," said he, "I am sure I often find it quite 
 amusing. But regarding this principle of which I was 
 about to speak. It is that of accommodating one's self 
 to the manners of any land (however humble) in which 
 our lot may be cast. Now, in France, for instance, 
 everyone goes to a cafe for his meals; in America to 
 what is called a ' two-bit house ' ; in England the peo- 
 ple resort to such an institution as the present for re- 
 freshment. With sandwiches, tea, and an occasional 
 glass of bitter beer, a man can live luxuriously in Lon- 
 don for fourteen pounds twelve shillings per annum." 
 
 "Yes, I know," returned Michael, "but that's not 
 including clothes, washing, or boots. The whole thing, 
 with cigars and occasional sprees, costs me over seven 
 hundred a year." 
 
 But this was Michael's last interruption. He listened 
 in good-humoured silence to the remainder of his uncle's 
 lecture, which speedily branched to political reform, 
 thence to the theory of the weather-glass, with an illus- 
 trative account of a bora in the Adriatic; thence again 
 to the best manner of teaching arithmetic to the deaf- 
 and-dumb; and with that, the sandwich being then no 
 more, explicuit valde feliciter. A moment later the pair 
 issued forth on the King's Road. 
 
 " Michael," said his uncle, " the reason that I am here 
 125
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 is because I cannot endure those nephews of mine. I 
 find them intolerable." 
 
 "I dare say you do," assented Michael, "I never 
 could stand them for a moment." 
 
 "They wouldn't let me speak," continued the old 
 gentleman, bitterly; "I never was allowed to get a 
 word in edgewise; I was shut up at once with some 
 impertinent remark. They kept me on short allowance 
 of pencils, when I wished to make notes of the most 
 absorbing interest; the daily newspaper was guarded 
 from me like a young baby from a gorilla. Now, you 
 know me, Michael. I live for my calculations; I live 
 for my manifold and ever-changing views of life ; pens 
 and paper and the productions of the popular press are 
 to me as important as food and drink; and my life was 
 growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion of 
 that fortunate railway accident at Browndean, I made 
 my escape. They must think me dead, and are trying 
 to deceive the world for the chance of the tontine." 
 
 " By the way, how do you stand for money ?" asked 
 Michael, kindly. 
 
 "Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich," returned the old 
 man, with cheerfulness. " I am living at present at the 
 rate of one hundred a year, with unlimited pens and 
 paper; the British Museum at which to get books; and 
 all the newspapers I choose to read. But it's extraor- 
 dinary how little a man of intellectual interest requires to 
 bother with books in a progressive age. The news- 
 papers supply all the conclusions." 
 
 "I'll tell you what," said Michael, "come and stay 
 with me." 
 
 "Michael," said the old gentleman, "it's very kind 
 
 136
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 of you, but you scarcely understand what a peculiar 
 position I occupy. There are some little financial com- 
 plications ; as a guardian my efforts were not altogether 
 blessed ; and not to put too fine a point upon the mat- 
 ter, I am absolutely in the power of that vile fellow, 
 Morris." 
 
 "You should be disguised," cried Michael, eagerly. 
 "I will lend you a pair of window-glass spectacles, and 
 some red side-whiskers." 
 
 "I had already canvassed that idea," replied the 
 old gentleman, "but feared to awaken remark in my 
 unpretentious lodgings. The aristocracy, I am well 
 aware " 
 
 "But see here," interrupted Michael, "how do you 
 come to have any money at all ? Don't make a stranger 
 of me, Uncle Joseph ; I know all about the trust, and 
 the hash you made of it, and the assignment you were 
 forced to make to Morris." 
 
 Joseph narrated his dealings with the bank. 
 
 "Oh, but I say, this won't do," cried the lawyer. 
 "You've put your foot in it. You had no right to do 
 what you did." 
 
 "The whole thing is mine, Michael," protested the 
 old gentleman. "I founded and nursed that business 
 on principles entirely of my own." 
 
 "That's all very fine," said the lawyer; "but you 
 made an assignment, you were forced to make it, too ; 
 even then your position was extremely shaky ; but now, 
 my dear sir, it means the dock." 
 
 " It isn't possible," cried Joseph ; "the law cannot be 
 so unjust as that?" 
 
 "And the cream of the thing," interrupted Michael, 
 127
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 with a sudden shout of laughter, "the cream of the 
 thing is this, that of course you've downed the leather 
 business! I must say, Uncle Joseph, you have strange 
 ideas of law, but I like your taste in humour." 
 
 "I see nothing to laugh at," observed Mr. Finsbury, 
 tartly. 
 
 "And talking of that, has Morris any power to sign 
 for the firm ? " asked Michael. 
 
 "No one but myself," replied Joseph. 
 
 "Poor devil of a Morris. Oh, poor devil of a Morris! " 
 cried the lawyer in delight. "And his keeping up the 
 farce that you're at home! Oh, Morris, the Lord has 
 delivered you into my hands! Let me see, Uncle 
 Joseph, what do you suppose the leather business 
 worth?" 
 
 "It was worth a hundred thousand," said Joseph, 
 bitterly, "when it was in my hands. But then there 
 came a Scotchman it is supposed he had a certain 
 talent it was entirely directed to book-keeping no 
 accountant in London could understand a word of any 
 of his books ; and then there was Morris, who is per- 
 fectly incompetent. And now it is worth very little. 
 Morris tried to sell it last year; and Pogram & Jarris 
 offered only four thousand." 
 
 "I shall turn my attention to leather," said Michael 
 with decision. 
 
 "You?" asked Joseph. " I advise you not. There 
 is nothing in the whole field of commerce more surpris- 
 ing than the fluctuations of the leather market. Its sen- 
 sitiveness may be described as morbid." 
 
 "And now, Uncle Joseph, what have you done with 
 all that money ? " asked the lawyer. 
 
 138
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 " Paid it into a bank and drew twenty pounds," an- 
 swered Mr. Finsbury promptly. "Why?" 
 
 "Very well," said Michael. "To-morrow I shall 
 send down a clerk with a cheque for a hundred, and he'll 
 draw out the original sum and return it to the Anglo- 
 Patagonian, with some sort of explanation which I will 
 try to invent for you. That will clear your feet, and as 
 Morris can't touch a penny of it without forgery, it will 
 do no harm to my little scheme." 
 
 " But what am I to do?" asked Joseph, "I cannot 
 live upon nothing." 
 
 "Don't you hear?" returned Michael. " I send you 
 a cheque for a hundred ; which leaves you eighty to go 
 along upon; and when that's done, apply to me again." 
 
 "I would rather not be beholden to your bounty all 
 the same," said Joseph, biting at his white moustache. 
 " I would rather live on my own money, since I have it" 
 
 Michael grasped his arm. " Will nothing make you 
 believe," he cried, "that I am trying to save you from 
 Dartmoor ? " 
 
 His earnestness staggered the old man. "I must 
 turn my attention to law," he said; "it will be a new 
 field ; for though of course I understand its general prin- 
 ciples, I have never really applied my mind to the details, 
 and this view of yours, for example, comes on me en- 
 tirely by surprise. But you may be right, and of course 
 at my time of life for I am no longer young any 
 really long term of imprisonment would be highly preju- 
 dicial. But, my dear nephew, I have no claim on you; 
 you have no call to support me." 
 
 " That's all right," said Michael; " I'll probably get it 
 out of the leather business. " 
 
 129
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 And having taken down the old gentleman's address, 
 Michael left him at the corner of a street. 
 
 "What a wonderful old muddler! " he reflected, " and 
 what a singular thing is life! I seem to be condemned 
 to be the instrument of Providence. Let me see ; what 
 have I done to-day ? Disposed of a dead body, saved 
 Pitman, saved my Uncle Joseph, brightened up Forsyth, 
 and drunk a devil of a lot of most indifferent liquor. 
 Let's top off with a visit to my cousins, and be the in- 
 strument of Providence in earnest. To-morrow I can 
 turn my attention to leather; to-night, I'll just make it 
 lively for 'em in a friendly spirit." 
 
 About a quarter of an hour later, as the clocks were 
 striking eleven, the instrument of Providence descended 
 from a hansom, and bidding the driver wait, rapped at 
 the door of No. 16 John Street. 
 
 It was promptly opened by Morris. 
 
 "Oh, it's you, Michael," hesaid, carefully blocking up 
 the narrow opening: "it's very late." 
 
 Michael without a word reached forth, grasped Morris 
 warmly by the hand, and gave it so extreme a squeeze 
 that the sullen householder fell back. Profiting by this 
 movement, the lawyer obtained a footing in the lobby 
 and marched into the dining-room, with Morris at his 
 heels. 
 
 "Where's my Uncle Joseph?" demanded Michael, 
 sitting down in the most comfortable chair. 
 
 "He's not been very well lately," replied Morris; 
 " he's staying at Browndean; John is nursing him; and 
 I am alone, as you see." 
 
 Michael smiled to himself. " I want to see him on 
 particular business," he said. 
 
 130
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 " You can't expect to see my uncle, when you won't 
 let me see your father," returned Morris. 
 
 "Fiddlestick," said Michael. "My father is my 
 father; but Joseph is just as much my uncle as he's 
 yours ; and you have no right to sequestrate his person." 
 
 "I do no such thing," said Morris, doggedly. " He 
 is not well; he is dangerously ill and nobody can see 
 him." 
 
 " I'll tell you what, then," said Michael. " I'll make 
 a clean breast of it. I have come down like the opos' 
 sum, Morris; I have come to compromise." 
 
 Poor Morris turned as pale as death, and then a flush 
 of wrath against the injustice of man's destiny dyed his 
 very temples. "What do you mean?" he cried. "I 
 don't believe a word of it!" And when Michael had 
 assured him of his seriousness, "Well, then," he cried, 
 with another deep flush, " I won't; so you can put that 
 in your pipe and smoke it." 
 
 ' ' Oho ! " said Michael, queerly. ' ' You say your uncle 
 is dangerously ill, and you won't compromise ? There's 
 something very fishy about that." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" cried Morris, hoarsely. 
 
 "I only say it's fishy," returned Michael, "that is, 
 pertaining to the finny tribe." 
 
 "Do you mean to insinuate anything ? " cried Morris, 
 stormily, trying the high hand. 
 
 "Insinuate?" repeated Michael. "Oh, don't let's 
 begin to use awkward expressions! Let us drown our 
 differences in a bottle, like two affable kinsmen. The 
 Two Affable Kinsmen, sometimes attributed to Shake- 
 speare," he added. 
 
 Morris' mind was labouring like a mill. "Does he
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 suspect ? or is this chance and stuff? Should I soap, or 
 should I bully ? Soap," he concluded. " It gains time. 
 Well, " said he aloud, and with rather a painful affectation 
 of heartiness, "it's long since we have had an evening 
 together, Michael; and though my habits (as you know) 
 are very temperate, I may as well make an exception. 
 Excuse me one moment, till I fetch a bottle of whisky 
 from the cellar." 
 
 "No whisky for me," said Michael; " a little of the 
 old still champagne or nothing." 
 
 For a moment Morris stood irresolute, for the wine 
 was very valuable; the next he had quitted the room 
 without a word. His quick mind had perceived his 
 advantage; in thus dunning him for the cream of the 
 cellar, Michael was playing into his hand. "One bot- 
 tle ? " he thought. " By George, I'll give him two ! this 
 is no moment for economy ; and once the beast is drunk, 
 it's strange if I don't wring his secret out of him." 
 
 With two bottles, accordingly, he returned. Glasses 
 were produced, and Morris filled them with hospitable 
 grace. 
 
 "I drink to you, cousin!" he cried, gayly. "Don't 
 spare the wine-cup in my house." 
 
 Michael drank his glass deliberately, standing at the 
 table ; filled it again, and returned to his chair, carrying 
 the bottle along with him. 
 
 ' ' The spoils of war ! " he said, apologetically. "The 
 weakest goes to the wall. Science, Morris, science." 
 Morris could think of no reply, and for an appreciable 
 interval silence reigned. But two glasses of the still 
 champagne produced a rapid change in Michael. 
 
 "There's a want of vivacity about you, Morris," he
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 observed. "You may be deep; but I'll be hanged if 
 you're vivacious!" 
 
 "What makes you think me deep?" asked Morris, 
 with an air of pleased simplicity. 
 
 " Because you won't compromise," said the lawyer. 
 "You're deep dog, Morris, very deep dog, not t' com- 
 promise remarkable deep dog. And a very good 
 glass of wine; it's the only respectable feature in the 
 Finsbury family, this wine; rarer thing than a title 
 much rarer. Now, a man with glass wine like this in 
 cellar, I wonder why won't compromise?" 
 
 " Well,^0w wouldn' compromise before, you know," 
 said the smiling Morris. " Turn about is fair play." 
 
 "I wonder why /wouldn' compromise? I wonder 
 why you wouldn'?" inquired Michael. "I wonder 
 why we each think the other wouldn' ? 'S quite a re- 
 marrable remarkable problem," he added, triumph- 
 ing over oral obstacles, not without obvious pride. 
 " Wonder what we each think don't you ? " 
 
 "What do you suppose to have been my reason?" 
 asked Morris, adroitly. 
 
 Michael looked at him and winked. "Tha's cool," 
 said he. "Next thing, you'll ask me to help you out 
 of the muddle. I know I'm emissary of Providence, 
 but not that kind ! You get out of it yourself, like /Esop 
 and the other fellow. Must be dreadful muddle for 
 young orphan o' forty ; leather business and all ! " 
 
 " I am sure I don't know what you mean," said Morris. 
 
 " Not sure I know myself," said Michael. " This is ex- 
 c'lent vintage, sir exc'Ient vintage. Nothing against the 
 tipple. Only thing; here's a valuable uncle disappeared. 
 Now, what I want to know: where's valuable uncle ?" 
 
 133
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "I have told you: he is at Browndean," answered 
 Morris, furtively wiping his brow, for these repeated 
 hints began to tell upon him cruelly. 
 
 "Very easy say Brown Browndee no' so easy 
 after all!" cried Michael. "Easy say; any thing's easy 
 say, when you can say it. What I don' like's total dis- 
 appearance of an uncle. Not business-like." And he 
 wagged his head. 
 
 "It is all perfectly simple," returned Morris, with la- 
 borious calm. "There is no mystery. He stays at 
 Browndean, where he got a shake in the accident." 
 
 "Ah!" said Michael, "got devil of a shake?" 
 
 "Why do you say that?" cried Morris, sharply. 
 
 " Best possible authority. Told me so yourself," said 
 the lawyer. " But if you tell me contrary now, of course 
 I'm bound to believe either the one story or the other. 
 Point is I've upset this bottle, still champagne's ex- 
 c'lent thing carpet point is, is valuable uncle dead 
 an' bury?" 
 
 Morris sprang from his seat. "What's that you 
 say ?" he gasped. 
 
 "I say it's exc'lent thing carpet," replied Michael, 
 rising. "Exc'lent thing promote healthy action of the 
 skin. Well, it's all one, anyway. Give my love to 
 Uncle Champagne." 
 
 " You're not going away ?" said Morris. 
 
 " Awf 'ly sorry, ole man. Got to sit up sick friend," 
 said the wavering Michael. 
 
 "You shall not go till you have explained your hints," 
 returned Morris, fiercely. "What do you mean ? What 
 brought you here ? " 
 
 "No offence, I trust," said the lawyer, turning round 
 
 H4
 
 GLORIOUS CONCLUSION OF MICHAEL FINSBURY'S HOLIDAY 
 
 as he opened the door; "only doing my duty as shem- 
 ishery of Providence." 
 
 Groping his way to the front-door, he opened it with 
 some difficulty, and descended the steps to the hansom. 
 The tired driver looked up as he approached, and asked 
 where he was to go next. 
 
 Michael observed that Morris had followed him to the 
 steps; a brilliant inspiration came to him. "Anything 
 t' give pain," he reflected. . . . "Drive Shcotlan' 
 Yard," he added aloud, holding to the wheel to steady 
 himself; "there's something devilish fishy, cabby, about 
 those cousins. Mush' be cleared up ! Drive Shcotlan' 
 Yard." 
 
 "You don't mean that, sir," said the man, with the 
 ready sympathy of the lower orders for an intoxicated 
 gentleman. " I had better take you home, sir; you can 
 go to Scotland Yard to-morrow." 
 
 " Is it as friend or as perfessional man you advise me 
 not to go Shcotlan' Yard t'night ? " inquired Michael. 
 "All righ', never min' Shcotlan' Yard, drive Gaiety 
 bar." 
 
 "The Gaiety bar is closed," said the man. 
 
 "Then home," said Michael, with the same cheerful- 
 ness. 
 
 "Whereto, sir?" 
 
 "I don't remember, I'm sure," said Michael, entering 
 the vehicle, " drive Shcotlan' Yard and ask." 
 
 " But you'll have a card," said the man, through the 
 little aperture in the top, "give me your card-case." 
 
 "Whatimagi imagination in a cabby!" cried the 
 lawyer, producing his card-case, and handing it to the 
 driver.
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 The man read it by the light of the lamp. " Mr. Mi- 
 chael Finsbury, 233 King's Road, Chelsea. Is that it, 
 sir?" 
 
 " Right you are," cried Michael, " drive there if you 
 can see way. "
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 THE reader has perhaps read that remarkable work, 
 W bo Put Back the Clock ? by E. H. B., which appeared 
 for several days upon the railway bookstalls and then 
 vanished entirely from the fac2 of the earth. Whether 
 eating Time makes the chief of his diet out of old edi- 
 tions ; whether Providence has passed a special enact- 
 ment on behalf of authors ; or whether these last have 
 taken the law into their own hand, bound themselves 
 into a dark conspiracy with a password, which I would 
 die rather than reveal, and night after night sally forth 
 under some vigorous leader, such as Mr. James Payn or 
 Mr. Walter Besant, on their task of secret spoliation cer- 
 tain it is, at least, that the old editions pass, giving place 
 to new. To the proof, it is believed there are now only 
 three copies extant of Wbo Put Back the Clock ? one in 
 the British Museum, successfully concealed by a wrong 
 entry in the catalogue ; another in one of the cellars 
 (the cellar where the music accumulates) of the Advo- 
 cates' Library in Edinburgh; and a third, bound in mo- 
 rocco, in the possession of Gideon Forsyth. To account 
 for the very different fate attending this third exemplar, 
 the readiest theory is to suppose that Gideon admired 
 the tale. How to explain that admiration might ap- 
 
 37
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 pear (to those who have perused the work) more diffi- 
 cult; but the weakness of a parent is extreme, and 
 Gideon (and not his uncle, whose initials he had humor- 
 ously borrowed) was the author of Wbo Put Back the 
 Clock ? He had never acknowledged it, or only to some 
 intimate friends while it was still in proof ; after its ap- 
 pearance and alarming failure, the modesty of the nov- 
 elist had become more pressing, and the secret was now 
 likely to be better kept than that of the authorship of 
 Wa-oerley. 
 
 A copy of the work (for the date of my tale is already 
 yesterday) still figured in dusty solitude in the bookstall 
 at Waterloo ; and Gideon, as he passed with his ticket 
 for Hampton Court, smiled contemptuously at the crea- 
 ture of his thoughts. What an idle ambition was the 
 author's ! How far beneath him was the practice of that 
 childish art! With his hand closing on his first brief, 
 he felt himself a man at last; and the muse who presides 
 over the police romance, a lady presumably of French 
 extraction, fled his neighbourhood, and returned to join 
 the dance round the springs of Helicon, among her 
 Grecian sisters. 
 
 Robust, practical reflection still cheered the young 
 barrister upon his journey. Again and again he se- 
 lected the little country house in its islet of great oaks, 
 which he was to make his future home. Like a pru- 
 dent householder, he projected improvements as he 
 passed; to one he added a stable, to another a tennis 
 court, a third he supplied with a becoming, rustic boat- 
 house. 
 
 "How little a while ago," he could not but reflect, 
 ' I was a careless young dog with no thought but to 
 
 138
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 be comfortable! I cared for nothing but boating and 
 detective novels. I would have passed an old-fashioned 
 country house with large kitchen-garden, stabling, boat- 
 house, and spacious offices, without so much as a look, 
 and certainly would have made no inquiry as to the 
 drains. How a man ripens with the years ! " 
 
 The intelligent reader will perceive the ravages of 
 Miss Hazeltine. Gideon had carried Julia straight to 
 Mr. Bloomfield's house; and that gentleman, having 
 been led to understand she was the victim of oppression, 
 had noisily espoused her cause. He worked himself 
 into a fine breathing heat; in which, to a man of his 
 temperament, action became needful. 
 
 " I do not know which is the worse," he cried, "the 
 fraudulent old villain or the unmanly young cub. I 
 will write to the Pall Matt and expose them. Nonsense, 
 sir; they must be exposed! It's a public duty. Did 
 you not tell me the fellow was a tory ? Oh, the uncle 
 is a radical lecturer, is he ? No doubt, the uncle has 
 been grossly wronged. But of course, as you say, 
 that makes a change; it becomes scarce so much a 
 public duty." 
 
 And he sought and instantly found a fresh outlet for 
 his alacrity. Miss Hazeltine (he now perceived) must 
 be kept out of the way ; his houseboat was lying ready 
 he had returned but a day or two before from his 
 usual cruise ; there was no place like a houseboat for 
 concealment; and that very morning, in the teeth of the 
 easterly gale, Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield and Miss Julia 
 Hazeltine had started forth on their untimely voyage. 
 Gideon pled in vain to be allowed to join the party. 
 "No, Gid," said his uncle. "You will be watched; 
 
 "39
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 you must keep away from us." Nor had the barrister 
 ventured to contest this strange illusion ; for he feared 
 if he rubbed off any of the romance, that Mr. Bloom- 
 field might weary of the whole affair. And his dis- 
 cretion was rewarded; for the Squirradical, laying a 
 heavy hand upon his nephew's shoulder, had added 
 these notable expressions: "I see what you are after, 
 Gid. But if you're going to get the girl, you have to 
 work, sir." 
 
 These pleasing sounds had cheered the barrister all 
 day, as he sat reading in chambers ; they continued to 
 form the ground-base of his manly musings as he was 
 whirled to Hampton Court; even when he landed at the 
 station, and began to pull himself together for his delicate 
 interview, the voice of Uncle Ned and the eyes of Julia 
 were not forgotten. 
 
 But now it began to rain surprises: in all Hampton 
 Court, there was no Kurnaul Villa, no Count Tarnow, 
 and no count. This was strange; but viewed in the 
 light of the incoherency of his instructions, not perhaps 
 inexplicable; Mr. Dickson had been lunching, and he 
 might have made some fatal oversight in the address. 
 What was the thoroughly prompt, manly, and busi- 
 ness-like step ? thought Gideon ; and he answered him- 
 self at once: "A telegram, very laconic." Speedily, the 
 wires were flashing the following very important mis- 
 sive: "Dickson, Langham Hotel. Villa and persons 
 both unknown here, suppose erroneous address ; follow 
 self next train. Forsyth." And at the Langham Hotel, 
 sure enough, with a brow expressive of despatch and 
 intellectual effort, Gideon descended not long after from 
 a smoking hansom. 
 
 MO
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 I do not suppose that Gideon will ever forget the 
 Langham Hotel. No Count Tarnow was one thing; no 
 John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite another. 
 How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered 
 brain ; from every centre of what we playfully call the 
 human intellect, incongruous messages were tele- 
 graphed ; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite 
 subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously 
 for his chambers. There was at least a cave of refuge; 
 it was at least a place to think in ; and he climbed the 
 stair, put his key in the lock and opened the door, with 
 some approach to hope. 
 
 It was ill dark within, for the night had some time 
 fallen; but Gideon knew his room, he knew where the 
 matches stood on the end of the chimney piece; and he 
 advanced boldly, and in so doing dashed himself against 
 a heavy body, where (slightly altering the expressions of 
 the song) no heavy body should have been. There had 
 been nothing there when Gideon went out, he had locked 
 the door behind him, he had found it locked on his re- 
 turn, no one could have entered, the furniture could not 
 have changed its own position. And yet undeniably 
 there was a something there. He thrust out his hands 
 in the darkness. Yes, there was something, something 
 large, something smooth, something cold. 
 
 "Heaven forgive me!" said Gideon, "it feels like a 
 piano." 
 
 And the next moment he remembered the vestas in 
 his waistcoat pocket and had struck a light. 
 
 It was indeed a piano that met his doubtful gaze; a 
 vast and costly instrument, stained with the" rains of the 
 afternoon and defaced with recent scratches. The light
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 of the vesta was reflected from the varnished sides, like 
 a star in quiet water; and in the farther end of the room, 
 the shadow of that strange visitor loomed bulkily and 
 wavered on the wall. 
 
 Gideon let the match burn to his fingers, and the 
 darkness close once more on his bewilderment. Then 
 with trembling hands he lit the lamp and drew near. 
 Near or far, there was no doubt of the fact : the thing 
 was a piano. There, where by all the laws of God 
 and man it was impossible that it should be there the 
 thing impudently stood. Gideon threw open the key- 
 board and struck a chord. Not a sound disturbed the 
 quiet of the room. ' ' Is there anything wrong with me ? " 
 he thought, with a pang; and drawing in a seat, obsti- 
 nately persisted in his attempts to ravish silence, now 
 with sparkling arpeggios, now with a sonata of Bee- 
 thoven's which (in happier days) he knew to be one of 
 the loudest pieces of that powerful composer. Still not 
 a sound. He gave the Broadwood two great bangs with 
 his clenched fists. All was still as the grave. 
 
 The young barrister started to his feet. 
 
 " I am stark-staring mad, " he cried aloud, " and no one 
 knows it but myself. God's worst curse has fallen on me. " 
 
 His fingers encountered his watch-chain; instantly he 
 had plucked forth his watch and held it to his ear. He 
 could hear it ticking. 
 
 " I am not deaf," he said aloud. " I am only insane. 
 My mind has quitted me forever." 
 
 He looked uneasily about the room, and gazed with 
 lack-lustre eyes at the chair in which Mr. Dickson had 
 installed himself. The end of a cigar lay near it on the 
 fender. 
 
 143
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 1 ' No, " he thought, ' ' I don't believe that was a dream ; 
 but God knows my mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be 
 hungry, for instance; it's probably another hallucination. 
 Still I might try. I shall have one more good meal; I 
 shall go to the Cafe Royal, and may possibly be removed 
 from there direct to the asylum." 
 
 He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended 
 the stairs, how he would first betray his terrible condi- 
 tion would he attack a waiter? or eat glass? and 
 when he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man 
 drive to Nichol's with a lurking fear that there was no 
 such place. 
 
 The flaring, gassy entrance of the cafe speedily set his 
 mind at rest; he was cheered besides to recognise his 
 favourite waiter; his orders appeared to be coherent; the 
 dinner, when it came, was quite a sensible meal, and 
 he ate it with enjoyment. "Upon my word," he re- 
 flected, " I am about tempted to indulge a hope. Have 
 I been hasty ? Have I done what Robert Skill would 
 have done ? " Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention) 
 was the name of the principal character in Who Put 
 Back the Clock? It had occurred to the author as a 
 brilliant and probable invention ; to readers of a critical 
 turn, Robert appeared scarce upon a level with his sur- 
 name; but it is the difficulty of the police romance, that 
 the reader is always a man of such vastly greater inge- 
 nuity than the writer. In the eyes of his creator, how- 
 ever, Robert Skill was a word to conjure with; the 
 thought braced and spurred him; what that brilliant 
 creature would have done, Gideon would do also. This 
 frame of mind is not uncommon : the distressed general, 
 the baited divine, the hesitating author, decide severally 
 
 M3
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 to do what Napoleon, what St Paul, what Shakespeare 
 would have done; and there remains only the minor 
 question, What is that? In Gideon's case, one thing 
 was clear: Skill was a man of singular decision, he 
 would have taken some step (whatever it was) at once; 
 and the only step that Gideon could think of was to re- 
 turn to his chambers. 
 
 This being achieved, all further inspiration failed him, 
 and he stood pitifully staring at the instrument of his 
 confusion. To touch the keys again was more than he 
 durst venture on; whether they had maintained their 
 former silence, or responded with the tones of the last 
 trump, it would have equally dethroned his resolution. 
 "It may be a practical jest," he reflected, "though it 
 seems elaborate and costly. And yet what else can it 
 be ? It must be a practical jest" And just then his eye 
 fell upon a feature which seemed corroborative of that 
 view; The pagoda of cigars which Michael had erected 
 ere he left the chambers. "Why that?" reflected 
 Gideon. " It seems entirely irresponsible." And draw- 
 ing near, he gingerly demolished it "A key," he 
 thought "Why that? And why so conspicuously 
 placed ? " He made the circuit of the instrument, and 
 perceived the keyhole at the back. " Aha ! this is what 
 the key is for," said he. " They wanted me to look in- 
 side. Stranger and stranger." And with that, he 
 turned the key and raised the lid. 
 
 In what antics of agony, in what fits of flighty resolu- 
 tion, in what collapses of despair, Gideon consumed 
 the night, it would be ungenerous to inquire too closely. 
 
 That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of 
 London welcome the approach of day, found him limp 
 
 144 

 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still va- 
 cant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly 
 on blinded windows, an empty street, and the grey day- 
 light dotted with the yellow lamps. There are morn- 
 ings when the city seems to awake with a sick head- 
 ache; this was one of them; and still the twittering re- 
 veille of the sparrows stirred in Gideon's spirit. 
 
 " Day here," he thought, " and I still helpless! This 
 must come to an end." And he locked up the piano, 
 put the key in his pocket, and set forth in quest of coffee. 
 As he went, his mind trudged for the hundredth time a 
 certain mill-road of terrors, misgivings, and regrets. To 
 call in the police, to give up the body, to cover London 
 with handbills describing John Dickson and Ezra 
 Thomas, to fill the papers with paragraphs, Mysterious 
 Occurrence in the Temple Mr. Forsytb admitted to bail, 
 this was one course, an easy course, a safe course ; but 
 not, the more he reflected on it, not a pleasant one. 
 For, was it not to publish abroad a number of singular 
 facts about himself? A child ought to have seen through 
 the story of these adventures, and he had gaped and 
 swallowed it. A barrister of the least self-respect should 
 have refused to listen to clients who came before him in 
 a manner so irregular, and he had listened. And oh, 
 if he had only listened; but he had gone upon their 
 errand he, a barrister, uninstructed even by the 
 shadow of a solicitor upon an errand fit only for a 
 private detective; and alas! and for the hundredth 
 time, the blood surged to his brow he had taken their 
 money! "No," said he, "the thing is as plain as St. 
 Paul's. I shall be dishonoured! I have smashed my 
 career for a five-pound note." 
 
 <45
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Between the possibility of being hanged in all inno- 
 cence, and the certainty of a public and merited disgrace, 
 no gentleman of spirit could long hesitate. After three 
 gulps of that hot, snuffy, and muddy beverage, that 
 passes on the streets of London for a decoction of the 
 coffee berry, Gideon's mind was made up. He would 
 do without the police. He must face the other side of 
 the dilemma, and be Robert Skill in earnest. What 
 would Robert Skill have done ? How does a gentleman 
 dispose of a dead body, honestly come by ? He remem- 
 bered the inimitable story of the hunchback ; reviewed 
 its course, and dismissed it for a worthless guide. It 
 was impossible to prop a corpse on the corner of Totten- 
 ham Court Road, without arousing fatal curiosity in the 
 bosoms of the passers by ; as for lowering it down a 
 London chimney, the physical obstacles were insur- 
 mountable. To get it on board a train and drop it out, 
 or on the top of an omnibus and drop it off, were equally 
 out of the question. To get it on a yacht and drop it 
 overboard, was more conceivable; but for a man of 
 moderate means, it seemed extravagant. The hire of 
 the yacht was in itself a consideration ; the subsequent 
 support of the whole crew (which seemed a necessary 
 consequence) was simply not to be thought of. His 
 uncle and the houseboat here occurred in very luminous 
 colours to his mind. A musical composer (say, of the 
 name of Jimson) might very well suffer, like Hogarth's 
 musician before him, from the disturbances of London. 
 He might very well be pressed for time to finish an 
 opera say the comic opera Orange Pekoe Orange 
 Pekoe, music by Jimson " this young maestro, one of 
 the most promising of our recent English school " vig- 
 
 146
 
 GIDEON FORSYTH AND THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 orous entrance of the drums, etc. the whole character 
 of Jimson and his music arose in bulk before the mind 
 of Gideon. What more likely than Jimson's arrival 
 with a grand piano (say, at Padwick), and his residence 
 in a houseboat alone with the unfinished score of Orange 
 Pekoe? His subsequent disappearance, leaving noth- 
 ing behind but an empty piano case, it might be more 
 difficult to account for. And yet even that was sus- 
 ceptible of explanation. For, suppose Jimson had gone 
 mad over a fugal passage, and had thereupon destroyed 
 the accomplice of his infamy, and plunged into the wel- 
 come river ? What end, on the whole, more probable 
 for a modern musician ? 
 
 " By jove, I'll do it," cried Gideon. "Jimson is the 
 boy!"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 MR. EDWARD HUGH BLOOMFIELD having announced his 
 intention to stay in the neighbourhood of Maidenhead, 
 what more probable than that the Maestro Jimson should 
 turn his mind toward Padwick ? Near this pleasant 
 riverside village, he remembered to have observed an 
 ancient, weedy houseboat lying moored beside a tuft of 
 willows. It had stirred in him, in hjs careless hours, as 
 he pulled down the river under a more familiar name, a 
 certain sense of the romantic; and when the nice con- 
 trivance of his story was already complete in his mind, 
 he had come near pulling it all down again, like an un- 
 grateful clock, in order to introduce a chapter in which 
 Robert Skill (who was always being decoyed some- 
 where) should be decoyed on board that lonely hulk by 
 Lord Bellew and the American desperado Gin Sling. 
 It was fortunate he had not done so, he reflected ; since 
 the hulk was now required for very different purposes. 
 
 Jimson, a man of inconspicuous costume, but insin- 
 uating manners, had little difficulty in finding the hire- 
 ling who had charge of the houseboat, and still less in 
 persuading him to resign his care. The rent was almost 
 nominal, the entry immediate, the key was exchanged 
 against a suitable advance in money; and Jimson re- 
 
 148
 
 THE MAfiSTRO JIMSON 
 
 turned to town by the afternoon train to see about des- 
 patching his piano. 
 
 "I will be down to-morrow," he had said, reassur- 
 ingly. "My opera is waited for with such impatience, 
 you know." 
 
 And, sure enough, about the hour of noon on the fol- 
 lowing day, Jimson might have been observed ascend- 
 ing the riverside road that goes from Pad wick to Great 
 Haverham, carrying in one hand a basket of provisions, 
 and under the other arm a leather case containing (it is 
 to be conjectured) the score of Orange Pekoe. It was 
 October weather; the stone-grey sky was full of larks, 
 the leaden mirror of the Thames brightened with au- 
 tumnal foliage, and the fallen leaves of the chestnuts 
 chirped under the composer's footing. There is no 
 time of the year in England more courageous; and Jim- 
 son, though he was not without his troubles, whistled 
 as he went. 
 
 A little above Padwick, the river lies very solitary. 
 On the opposite shore the trees of a private park inclose 
 the view, the chimneys of the mansion just pricking 
 forth above their clusters ; on the near side, the path is 
 bordered by willows. Close among these lay the house- 
 boat, a thing so soiled by the tears of the overhanging 
 willows, so grown upon with parasites, so decayed, so 
 battered, so neglected, such a haunt of rats, so adver- 
 tised a storehouse of rheumatic agonies, that the heart 
 of an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, 
 by way of flying drawbridge, joined it to the shore. 
 And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled 
 this after him and found himself alone on this unwhole- 
 some fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in 
 
 '49
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 the abhorred interior ; the key cried among the wards like 
 a thing in pain; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and 
 smelt strong of bilge-water. It could not be called a 
 cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed in beloved 
 toil; how much less for a young gentleman, haunted by 
 alarms and awaiting the arrival of a corpse! 
 
 He sat down, cleared away a piece of the table, and 
 attacked the cold luncheon in his basket. In case of 
 any subsequent inquiry into the fate of Jimson, it was 
 desirable he should be little seen; in other words, 
 that he should spend the day entirely in the house ; to 
 this end, and further to corroborate his fable, he had 
 brought in the leather case not only writing materials, 
 but a ream of large-size music paper, such as he con- 
 sidered suitable for an ambitious character like Jimson's. 
 
 " And now to work," said he, when he had satisfied 
 his appetite. "We must leave traces of the wretched 
 man's activity." And he wrote in bold characters: 
 
 ORANGE PEKOE 
 
 op. 17 
 
 J. B. JIMSON 
 
 Vocal and />. /. score 
 
 "I suppose they never do begin like this," reflected 
 Gideon; " but then it's quite out of the question for me 
 'to tackle a full score, and Jimson was so unconventional. 
 A dedication would be found convincing, I believe. 
 ' Dedicated to ' (let me see) ' to William E wart Gladstone, 
 by his obedient servant the composer.' And now some 
 music : I had better avoid the overture, it seems to pre- 
 sent difficulties. Let's give an air for the tenor: Key 
 
 150
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 O, something modern ! seven sharps. " And he made 
 a business-like signature across the staves, and then 
 paused and browsed for a while on the handle of his 
 pen. Melody, with no better inspiration than a sheet 
 of paper, is not usually found to spring unbidden in the 
 mind of the amateur; nor is the key of seven sharps a 
 place of much repose to the untried. He cast away that 
 sheet. " It will help to build up the character of Jim- 
 son," Gideon remarked; and again waited on the muse, 
 in various keys and on divers sheets of paper, but all 
 with results so inconsiderable that he stood aghast. 
 "It's very odd," thought he. "I seem to have less 
 fancy than I thought ; or this is an off-day with me ; yet 
 Jimson must leave something. " And again he bent him- 
 self to the task. 
 
 Presently the penetrating chill of the houseboat began 
 to attack the very seat of life. He desisted from his un- 
 remunerative trial; and to the audible annoyance of the 
 rats, walked briskly up and down the cabin. Still he 
 was cold. "This is all nonsense," said he. "I don't 
 care about the risk, but I will not catch a catarrh. I 
 must get out of this den." 
 
 He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his 
 embarcation, looked for the first time up the river. He 
 started. Only a few hundred yards above another 
 houseboat lay moored among the willows. It was very 
 spick and span, an elegant canoe hung at the stern, the 
 windows were concealed by snowy curtains; a flag 
 floated from a staff. The more Gideon looked at it the 
 more there mingled with his disgust a sense of impotent 
 surprise. It was very like his uncle's houseboat; it was 
 exceedingly like, it was identical. But for two circum- 
 
 5'
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 stances he could have sworn it was the same. The 
 first, that his uncle had gone to Maidenhead, might be 
 explained away by that flightiness of purpose which is 
 so common a trait among the more than usually manly. 
 The second, however, was conclusive. It was not in 
 the least like Mr. Bloomfield to display a banner on his 
 floating residence; and if he ever did, it would certainly 
 be dyed in hues of emblematical propriety. Now the 
 Squirradical, like the vast majority of the more manly, 
 had drawn knowledge at the wells of Cambridge he 
 was wooden spoon in the year 1850; and the flag upon 
 the houseboat streamed on the afternoon air with the 
 colours of that seat of Toryism, that cradle of Puseyism, 
 that home of the inexact and the effete Oxford. 
 
 Still it was strangely like, thought Gideon. 
 
 And as he thus looked and thought, the door opened, 
 and a young lady stepped forth on deck. The barrister 
 dropped and fled into his cabin; it was Julia Hazeltine! 
 Through the window he watched her draw in the canoe, 
 get on board of it, cast off, and come dropping down 
 stream in his direction. 
 
 " Well, all is up now," said he, and he fell on a seat. 
 
 "Good-afternoon, miss," said a voice on the water. 
 Gideon knew it for the voice of his landlord. 
 
 "Good-afternoon," replied Julia, "but I don't know 
 who you are ; do I ? Oh, yes, I do though. You are 
 the nice man that gave us leave to sketch from the old 
 houseboat" 
 
 Gideon's heart leaped with fear. 
 
 ' ' Thafs it, " returned the man. "And what I wanted 
 to say was as you couldn't do it any more. You see 
 I've let it"
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 4 'Let it!" cried Julia. 
 
 " I et it for a month," said the man. "Seems strange, 
 don't it ? Can't see what the party wants with it! " 
 
 " It seems very romantic of him, I think," said Julia. 
 " What sort of a person is he ? " 
 
 Julia in her canoe, the landlord in his wherry, were 
 close alongside, and holding on by the gunwale of the 
 houseboat; so that not a word was lost on Gideon. 
 
 "He's a music man," said the landlord, "or at least 
 that's what he told me, miss; come down here to write 
 an op'ra." 
 
 " Really! " cried Julia, " I never heard of anything so 
 delightful ! Why, we shall be able to slip down at night 
 and hear him improvise! What is his name ?" 
 
 "Jimson," said the man. 
 
 "Jimson ?" repeated Julia, and interrogated her mem- 
 ory in vain. But indeed our rising school of English 
 music boasts so many professors that we rarely hear of 
 one till he is made a baronet. " Are you sure you have 
 it right ? " 
 
 "Made him spell it to me," replied the landlord. 
 "J-I-M-S-O-N Jimson; and hisop'ra's called some 
 kind of tea." 
 
 "Some kind of tea ! " cried the girl. " What a very 
 singular name for an opera! What can it be about?" 
 And Gideon heard her pretty laughter flow abroad. 
 " We must try to get acquainted with this Mr. Jimson ; 
 I feel sure he must be nice." 
 
 " Well, miss, I'm afraid I must be going on. I've got 
 to be at Haverham, you see." 
 
 "Oh, don't let me keep you, you kind man!" said 
 Julia. ' ' Good-afternoon. " 
 
 '53
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Good-afternoon to you, miss." 
 
 Gideon sat in the cabin a prey to the most harrowing 
 thoughts. Here he was anchored to a rotting houseboat, 
 soon to be anchored to it still more emphatically by the 
 presence of the corpse ; and here was the country buzz- 
 ing about him, and young ladies already proposing plea- 
 sure parties to surround his house at night. Well, that 
 meant the gallows; and much he cared for that. What 
 troubled him now was Julia's indescribable levity. That 
 girl would scrape acquaintance with anybody; she had 
 no reserve, none of the enamel of the lady. She was 
 familiar with a brute like his landlord ; she took an im- 
 mediate interest (which she lacked even the delicacy to 
 conceal) in a creature like Jimson ! He could conceive her 
 asking Jimson to have tea with her! And it was for a girl 
 like this that a man like Gideon Down, manly heart! 
 
 He was interrupted by a sound that sent him whip- 
 ping behind the door in a trice. Miss Hazeltine had 
 stepped on board the houseboat. Her sketch was 
 promising; judging from the stillness she supposed 
 Jimson not yet come; and she had decided to seize oc- 
 casion and complete the work of art. Down she sat 
 therefore in the bow, produced her block and water- 
 colours, and was soon singing over (what used to be 
 called) the ladylike accomplishment. Now and then 
 indeed her song was interrupted, as she searched in her 
 memory for some of the odious little receipts by means 
 of which the game is practised or used to be practised 
 in the brave days of old ; they say the world, and those 
 ornaments of the world, young ladies, are become more 
 sophisticated now; but Julia had probably studied under 
 Pitman, and she stood firm in the old ways. 
 
 154
 
 THE MAfiSTRO JIMSON 
 
 Gideon, meanwhile, stood behind the door, afraid to 
 move, afraid to breathe, afraid to think of what must 
 follow, racked by confinement and borne to the ground 
 with tedium. This particular phase, he felt with grati- 
 tude, could not last forever; whatever impended (even 
 the gallows, he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflect- 
 ed) could not fail to be a relief. To calculate cubes oc- 
 curred to him as an ingenious and even profitable refuge 
 from distressing thoughts, and he threw his manhood 
 into that dreary exercise. 
 
 Thus, then, were these two young persons occupied, 
 Gideon attacking the perfect number with resolution; 
 Julia vigorously stippling incongruous colours on her 
 block, when Providence despatched into these waters 
 a steam launch asthmatically panting up the Thames. 
 All along the banks the water swelled and fell, and the 
 reeds rustled. The houseboat itself, that ancient sta- 
 tionary creature, became suddenly imbued with life, and 
 rolled briskly at her moorings, like a sea-going ship 
 when she begins to smell the harbour bar. The wash 
 had nearly died away, and the quick panting of the 
 launch sounded already faint and far off, when Gideon 
 was startled by a cry from Julia. Peering through the 
 window, he beheld her staring disconsolately down 
 stream at the fast-vanishing canoe. The barrister 
 (whatever were his faults) displayed on this occasion a 
 promptitude worthy of his hero, Robert Skill; with one 
 effort of his mind he foresaw what was about to follow ; 
 with one movement of his body he dropped to the floor 
 and crawled under the table. 
 
 Julia, on her part, was not yet alive to her position. 
 She saw she had lost the canoe, and she looked forward 
 
 <55
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 with something less than avidity to her next interview 
 with Mr. Bloomfield; but she had no idea that she was 
 imprisoned, for she knew of the plank bridge. 
 
 She made the circuit of the house, and found the door 
 open and the bridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, 
 that Jimson must have come; plain, too, that he must 
 be on board. He must be a very shy man to have 
 suffered this invasion of his residence, and made no 
 sign ; and her courage rose higher at the thought. He 
 must come now, she must force him from his privacy, 
 for the plank was too heavy for her single strength ; so 
 she tapped upon the open door. Then she tapped 
 again. 
 
 " Mr. Jimson," she cried, "Mr. Jimson! here, come! 
 you must come, you know, sooner or later, for I can't 
 get off without you. Oh, don't be so exceedingly silly! 
 Oh, please, come! " 
 
 Still there was no reply. 
 
 "If he is here he must be mad," she thought with 
 a little fear. And the next moment she remembered 
 he had probably gone abroad like herself in a boat. In 
 that case, she might as well see the houseboat, and 
 she pushed open the door and stepped in. Under the 
 table, where he lay smothered with dust, Gideon's 
 heart stood still. 
 
 There were the remains of Jimson's lunch. ' ' He likes 
 rather nice things to eat," she thought. "Oh, I am 
 sure he is quite a delightful man. I wonder if he is as 
 good-looking as Mr. Forsyth, Mrs. Jimson I don't 
 believe it sounds as nice as Mrs. Forsyth; but then 
 ' Gideon ' is so really odious ! And here is some of his 
 music too; this is delightful. Orange Pekoe Oh, 
 
 156
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 that's what he meant by some kind of tea." And she 
 trilled with laughter. " Adagio molto expressive, sempre 
 legato, ' ' she read next. (For the literary part of a com- 
 poser's business Gideon was well equipped.) "How 
 very strange to have all these directions, and only three 
 or four notes! Oh, here's another with some more. 
 Andante patetico. ' ' And she began to glance over the 
 music. " O dear me," she thought, "he must be ter- 
 ribly modern! It all seems discords to me. Let's try 
 the air. It is very strange, it seems familiar." She 
 began to sing it, and suddenly broke off with laughter. 
 " Why, it's Tommy make room for your Uncle! " she 
 cried aloud, so that the soul of Gideon was filled with 
 bitterness. " Andante patetico, indeed! The man 
 must be a mere impostor." 
 
 And just at this moment there came a confused, scuf- 
 fling sound from underneath the table; a strange note, 
 like that of a barn-door fowl, ushered in a most explo- 
 sive sneeze ; the head of the sufferer was at the same 
 time brought smartly in contact with the boards above; 
 and the sneeze was followed by a hollow groan. 
 
 Julia fled to the door, and there, with the salutary in- 
 stinct of the brave, turned and faced the danger. There 
 was no pursuit. The sounds continued; below the 
 table a crouching figure was indistinctly to be seen 
 jostled by the throes of a sneezing fit; and that was 
 all. 
 
 "Surely," thought Julia, "this is most unusual be- 
 haviour. He cannot be a man of the world! " 
 
 Meanwhile the dust of years had been disturbed by 
 the young barrister's convulsions; and the sneezing fit 
 was succeeded by a passionate access of coughing. 
 
 "55
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Julia began to feel a certain interest. "I am afraid 
 you are really quite ill," she said, drawing a little nearer. 
 " Please don't let me put you out, and do not stay under 
 that table, Mr. Jimson. Indeed it cannot be good for 
 you." 
 
 Mr. Jimson only answered by a distressing cough; 
 and the next moment the girl was on her knees and 
 their faces had almost knocked together under the table. 
 
 "Oh, my gracious goodness!" exclaimed Miss Ha- 
 zeltine, and sprang to her feet. "Mr. Forsyth gone 
 mad!" 
 
 "I am not mad," said the gentleman ruefully, extri- 
 cating himself from his position. " Dearest Miss Hazel- 
 tine, I vow to you upon my knees I am not mad! " 
 
 "You are not! " she cried, panting. 
 
 "I know," he said, "that to a superficial eye my 
 conduct may appear unconventional." 
 
 "If you are not mad, it was no conduct at all," cried 
 the girl, with a flash of colour, "and showed you did 
 not care one penny for my feelings! " 
 
 "This is the very devil and all. I know I admit 
 that," cried Gideon, with a great effect of manly candour. 
 
 "It was abominable conduct! " said Julia, with energy. 
 
 "I know it must have shaken your esteem," said the 
 barrister. "But, dearest Miss Hazeltine, I beg of you 
 to hear me out; my behaviour, strange as it may seem, 
 is not unsusceptible of explanation; and I positively 
 cannot and will not consent to continue to try to exist 
 without without the esteem of one whom I admire 
 the moment is ill-chosen, I am well aware of that; but 
 I repeat the expression one whom I admire.'' 
 
 A touch of amusement appeared on Miss Hazeitine's 
 158
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 face. " Very well," said she, "come out of this dread- 
 fully cold place, and let us sit down on deck." The 
 barrister dolefully followed her. "Now," said she, 
 making herself comfortable against the end of the house, 
 "go on. I will hear you out." And then seeing him 
 stand before her with so much obvious disrelish to the 
 task, she was suddenly overcome with laughter. Julia's 
 laugh was a thing to ravish lovers; she rolled her mirth- 
 ful descant with the freedom and the melody of a black- 
 bird's song upon the river, and repeated by the echoes 
 of the further bank, it seemed a thing in its own place 
 and a sound native to the open air. There was only 
 one creature who heard it without joy, and that was 
 her unfortunate admirer. 
 
 "Miss Hazeltine," he said, in a voice that tottered 
 with annoyance, "I speak as your sincere well-wisher, 
 but this can only be called levity." 
 
 Julia made great eyes at him. 
 
 " I can't withdraw the word," he said; " already the 
 freedom with which I heard you hobnobbing with a 
 boatman gave me exquisite pain. Then there was a 
 want of reserve about Jimson " 
 
 "But Jimson appears to be yourself," objected Julia. 
 
 "I am far from denying that, " cried the barrister, "but 
 you did not know it at the time. What could Jimson 
 be to you ? Who was Jimson ? Miss Hazeltine, it cut 
 me to the heart." 
 
 " Really this seems to me to be very silly," returned 
 Julia, with severe decision. "You have behaved in the 
 most extraordinary manner; you pretend you are able to 
 explain your conduct, and instead of doing so you be- 
 gin to attack me."
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "I am well aware of that," replied Gideon. "I 1 
 will make a clean breast of it. When you know all the 
 circumstances you will be able to excuse me." 
 
 And sitting down beside her on the deck, he poured 
 forth his miserable history. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Forsyth," she cried, when he had done. 
 "I am so sorry! I wish I hadn't laughed at you 
 only you know you really were so exceedingly funny. 
 But I wish I hadn't, and I wouldn't either if I had only 
 known." And she gave him her hand. 
 
 Gideon kept it in his own. "You do not think the 
 worse of me for this ? " he asked, tenderly. 
 
 "Because you have been so silly and got into such 
 dreadful trouble? you poor boy, no! " cried Julia; and 
 in the warmth of the moment, reached him her other 
 hand; "you may count on me," she added. 
 
 "Really?" said Gideon. 
 
 " Really and really! " replied the girl. 
 
 " I do then, and I will," cried the young man, " I ad- 
 mit the moment is not well chosen ; but I have no friends 
 to speak of." 
 
 "No more have I," said Julia. " But don't you think 
 it's perhaps time you gave me back my hands ? " 
 
 "La ci darem la mano," said the barrister, "the 
 merest moment more! I have so few friends," he 
 added. 
 
 " I thought it was considered such a bad account of 
 a young man to have no friends," observed Julia. 
 
 "Oh, but I have crowds of friends! " cried Gideon. 
 "That's not what I mean. I feel the moment is ill 
 chosen ; but oh, Julia, if you could only see yourself ! " 
 
 "Mr. Forsyth " 
 
 160
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 "Don't call me by that beastly name!" cried the 
 youth. ' ' Call me Gideon ! " 
 
 "Oh, never that!" from Julia. "Besides, we have 
 known each other such a short time." 
 
 "Not at all!" protested Gideon. "We met at 
 Bournemouth ever so long ago. I never forgot you 
 since. Say you never forgot me. Say you never forgot 
 me, and call me Gideon ! " 
 
 ' ' Isn't this rather a want of reserve about Jimson ? " 
 inquired the girl. 
 
 "Oh, I know I am an ass," cried the barrister, "and 
 I don't care a half-penny! I know I'm an ass, and you 
 may laugh at me to your heart's delight." And as Ju- 
 lia's lips opened with a smile, he once more dropped 
 into music. "There's the Land of Cherry Isle!" he 
 sang, courting her with his eyes. 
 
 " It's like an opera," said Julia, rather faintly. 
 
 "What should it be?" said Gideon. "Am I not 
 Jimson ? It would be strange if I did not serenade my 
 love. Oh, yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and I mean 
 to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a 
 penny of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and 
 yet I mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, 
 and tell me no!" 
 
 She looked at him ; and whatever her eyes may have 
 told him, it is to be supposed he took a pleasure in the 
 message, for he read it a long while. 
 
 "And Uncle Ned will give us some money to go on 
 upon in the meanwhile," he said, at last. 
 
 "Well, I call that cool! " said a cheerful voice at his 
 elbow. 
 
 Gideon and Julia sprang apart with wonderful alac- 
 
 161
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 rity ; the latter annoyed to observe that although they 
 had never moved since they sat down, they were nov, 
 quite close together; both presenting faces of a very 
 heightened colour to the eyes of Mr. Edward Hugh 
 Bloomfield. That gentleman, coming up the river in his 
 boat, had captured the truant canoe, and divining what 
 had happened, had thought to steal a march on Miss 
 Hazeltine at her sketch. He had unexpectedly brought 
 down two birds with one stone; and as he looked upon 
 the pair of flushed and breathless culprits, the pleasant 
 human instinct of the match-maker softened his heart 
 
 "Well, I call that cool," he repeated; "you seem 
 to count very securely upon Uncle Ned. But look here, 
 Gid, I thought I had told you to keep away ? " 
 
 "To keep away from Maidenhead," replied Gid. 
 "But how should I expect to find you here ?" 
 
 "There is something in that," Mr. Bloomfield admit- 
 ted. " You see I thought it better that even you should 
 be ignorant of my address; those rascals, the Fins- 
 burys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to 
 put them off the scent I hoisted these abominable col- 
 ours. But that is not all, Gid; you promised me to 
 work, and here I find you playing the fool at Pad- 
 wick." 
 
 "Please, Mr.- Bloomfield, you must not be hard on 
 Mr. Forsyth," said Julia. " Poor boy, he is in dreadful 
 straits:" 
 
 " What's this, Gid ? " inquired the uncle. " Have you 
 been fighting ? or is it a bill ? " 
 
 These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the 
 two misfortunes incident to gentlemen ; and indeed both 
 were culled from his own career. He had once put his 
 
 162
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 name (as a matter of form) on a friend's paper; it had 
 cost him a cool thousand ; and the friend had gone about 
 with the fear of death upon him ever since, and never 
 turned a corner without scouting in front of him for Mr. 
 Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for fighting, the 
 Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, 
 when (in the character of president of a radical club) he 
 had cleared out the hall of his opponents, things had 
 gone even further. Mr. Holtum, the conservative can- 
 didate, who lay so long on the bed of sickness, was pre- 
 pared to swear to Mr. Bloomfield. " I will swear to it 
 in any court it was the hand of that brute that struck 
 me down," he was reported to have said; and when he 
 was thought to be sinking, it was known that he had 
 made an ante-mortem statement in that sense. It was 
 a cheerful day for the Squirradical when Holtum was 
 restored to his brewery. 
 
 "It's much worse than that," said Gideon, "a com- 
 bination of circumstances really providentially unjust 
 a in fact, a syndicate of murderers seem to have per- 
 ceived my latent ability to rid them of the traces of their 
 crime. It's a legal study, after all, you see ! " And 
 with these words, Gideon, for the second time that 
 day, began to describe the adventures of the Broad wood 
 Grand. 
 
 "I must write to The Times/' cried Mr. Bloomfield. 
 
 " Do you want to get me disbarred ? " asked Gideon. 
 
 " Disbarred! Come, it can't be as bad as that," said 
 his uncle. "It's a good, honest, liberal government 
 that's in, and they would certainly move at my request. 
 Thank God, the days of tory jobbery are at an end." 
 
 "It wouldn't do, Uncle Ned," said Gideon. 
 .63
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " But you're not mad enough," cried Mr. Bloomfield, 
 "to persist in trying to dispose of it yourself?" 
 
 "There is no other path open to me," said Gideon. 
 
 "It's not common-sense, and I will not hear of it," 
 cried Mr. Bloomfield. "I command you, positively, 
 Gid, to desist from this criminal interference." 
 
 "Very well, then, I hand it over to you," said Gid- 
 eon, "and you can do what you like with the dead 
 body." 
 
 "God forbid! " ejaculated the president of the radical 
 club, " I'll have nothing to do with it." 
 
 "Then you must allow me to do the best I can," re- 
 turned his nephew. "Believe me, I have a distinct 
 talent for this sort of difficulty." 
 
 "We might forward it to that pest-house, the Con- 
 servative Club," observed Mr. Bloomfield. "It might 
 damage them in the eyes of their constituents ; and it 
 could be profitably worked up in the local journal. " 
 
 "If you see any political capital in the thing," said 
 Gideon, "you may have it for me." 
 
 "No, no, Gid no, no, I thought you might. I will 
 have no hand in the thing. On reflection, it's highly 
 undesirable that either I or Miss Hazeltine should linger 
 here. We might be observed," said the president, 
 looking up and down the river; "and in my public po- 
 sition, the consequences would be painful for the party. 
 And at any rate, it's dinner time. " 
 
 "What?" cried Gideon, plunging for his watch. 
 "And so it is! Great heaven, the piano should hav 
 been here hours ago ! " 
 
 Mr. Bloomfield was clambering back into his boat; 
 but at these words he paused. 
 
 164
 
 THE MAESTRO JIMSON 
 
 " I saw it arrive myself at the station; I hired a car- 
 rier man ; he had a round to make, but he was to be 
 here by four at the latest," cried the barrister. "No 
 doubt the piano is open, and the body found." 
 
 "You must fly at once," cried Mr. Bloomfield, "it's 
 the only manly step." 
 
 " But suppose it's all right ? " wailed Gideon. " Sup- 
 pose the piano comes, and I am not here to receive it ? 
 I shall have hanged myself by my cowardice. No, 
 Uncle Ned, inquiries must be made in Padwick; I dae 
 not go, of course ; but you may, you could hang about 
 the police office, don't you see ? " 
 
 "No, Gid no, my dear nephew," said Mr. Bloom- 
 field, with the voice of one on the rack. "I regard you 
 with the most sacred affection ; and I thank God I am 
 an Englishman and all that. But not not the police, 
 Gid." 
 
 " Then you desert me ? " said Gideon. ' ' Say it plainly. " 
 
 " Far from it! far from it! " protested Mr. Bloomfield. 
 " I only propose caution. Common-sense, Gid, should 
 always be an Englishman's guide." 
 
 "Will you let me speak ? " said Julia. " I think Gid- 
 eon had better leave this dreadful houseboat, and wait 
 among the willows over there. If the piano comes, 
 then he could step out and take it in ; and if the police 
 come, he could slip into our houseboat, and there 
 needn't be any more Jimson at all. He could go to bed, 
 and we could burn his clothes (couldn't we?) in the 
 steam launch ; and then really it seems as if it would be 
 all right. Mr. Bloomfield is so respectable, you know, 
 and such a leading character, it would be quite impos~ 
 sible even to fancy that he could be mixed up with it"
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "This young lady has strong common-sense," said 
 the SquirradicaL 
 
 "Oh, I don't think I'm at all a fool," said Julia, with 
 conviction. 
 
 " But what if neither of them come ? " asked Gideon ; 
 " what shall I do then ? " 
 
 "Why, then," said she, "you had better go down 
 to the village after dark; and I can go with you, and 
 then I am sure you could never be suspected ; and even 
 if you were, I could tell them it was altogether a mis- 
 take." 
 
 " I wfll not permit that I will not suffer Miss Hazel- 
 line to go," cried Mr. Bloomfield. 
 
 "Why?" asked Julia. 
 
 Mr. Bloomfield had not the least desire to tell her why, 
 tbr it was simply a craven fear of being drawn himself 
 into the imbroglio; but with the usual tactics of a man 
 who is ashamed of himself, he took the high hand. 
 "God forbid, my dear Miss Hazeltine, that I should dic- 
 tate to a lady on the question of propriety " he began. 
 
 "Oh, is that all?" interrupted Julia. "Then we 
 must go all three." 
 
 " Caught! " thought the SquirradicaL 
 
 166
 
 CHAPTER XI! 
 
 POSITIVELY THE LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOO 
 GRAND 
 
 ENGLAND is supposed to be unmusical; but without 
 dwelling on the patronage extended to the organ-grinder, 
 without seeking to found any argument on the preva- 
 lence of the Jew's trump, there is surely one instrument 
 that may be said to be national in the fullest acceptance 
 of the word. The herdboy in the broom, already musi- 
 cal in the days of Father Chaucer, startles (and perhaps 
 pains) the lark with this exiguous pipe; and in the 
 hands of the skilled bricklayer, 
 
 The thing becomes a trumpet, whence he blows 
 
 (as a general rule) either The British Grenadiers, or 
 Cherry Ripe. The latter air is indeed the shibboleth 
 and diploma piece of the penny whistler; I hazard a 
 guess it was originally composed for this instrument. 
 It is singular enough that a man should be able to gair> 
 a livelihood, or even to tide over a period of unem- 
 ployment, by the display of his proficiency upon the 
 penny whistle; still more so, that the professional should 
 almost invariably confine himself to Cherry Ripe. But 
 indeed, singularities surround the subject, thick like 
 
 .67
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 blackberries. Why, for instance, should the pipe be 
 called a penny whistle ? I think no one ever bought it 
 for a penny. Why should the alternative name be tin 
 whistle ? I am grossly deceived if it be made of tin. 
 Lastly, in what deaf catacomb, in what earless desert, 
 does the beginner pass the excruciating interval of his 
 apprenticeship ? We have all heard people learning the 
 piano, the fiddle, and the cornet; but the young of the 
 penny whistler (like that of the salmon) is occult from 
 observation; he is never heard until proficient; and 
 providence (perhaps alarmed by the works of Mr. Mai- 
 lock) defends human hearing from his first attempts 
 upon the upper octave. 
 
 A really noteworthy thing was taking place in a green 
 lane, not far from Padwick. On the bench of a carrier's 
 cart there sat a tow-headed, lanky, modest-looking 
 youth; the reins were on his lap; the whip lay behind 
 him in the interior of the cart; the horse proceeded 
 without guidance or encouragement; the carrier (or the 
 carrier's man) wrapt into a higher sphere than that of 
 his daily occupations, his looks dwelling on the skies, 
 devoted himself wholly to a brand new D penny whistle, 
 whence he diffidently endeavoured to elicit that pleas- 
 ing melody The Ploughboy. To any observant person 
 who should have chanced to saunter in that lane, the 
 hour would have been thrilling. "Here at last," he 
 would have said, "is the beginner." 
 
 The tow-headed youth (whose name was Marker) 
 had just encored himself for the nineteenth time, when 
 he was struck into the extreme of confusion by the dis- 
 covery that he was not alone. 
 
 "There you have it!" cried a manly voice from the 
 1 68
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 side of the road. "That's as good as I want to hear. 
 Perhaps a leetle oilier in the run," the voice suggested, 
 with meditative gusto. " Give it us again." 
 
 Harker glanced, from the depths of his humiliation, 
 at the speaker. He beheld a powerful, sun-brown, 
 clean-shaven fellow, about forty years of age, striding 
 beside the cart with a non-commissioned military bear- 
 ing, and (as he strode) spinning in the air a cane. The 
 fellow's clothes were very bad, but he looked clean and 
 self-reliant. 
 
 " I'm only a beginner," gasped the blushing Harker, 
 "I didn't think anybody could hear me." 
 
 " Well, I like that! " returned the other. "You're a 
 pretty old beginner. Come, I'll give you a lead myself. 
 Give us a seat here beside you." 
 
 The next moment the military gentleman was perched 
 on the cart, pipe in hand. He gave the instrument a 
 knowing rattle on the shaft, mouthed it, appeared to 
 commune for a moment with the muse, and dashed 
 into The Girl I left behind Me. He was a great, rather 
 than a fine, performer; he lacked the bird-like richness; 
 he could scarce have extracted all the honey out of 
 Cherry Ripe; he did not fear he even ostentatiously 
 displayed and seemed to revel in the shrillness of the 
 instrument; but in fire, speed, precision, evenness, and 
 fluency; in linked agility of jimmy a technical expres- 
 sion, by your leave, answering to warblers on the bag- 
 pipe ; and perhaps, above all, in that inspiring side-glance 
 of the eye, with which he followed the effect and (as by 
 a human appeal) eked out the insufficiency of his per- 
 formance: in these, the fellow stood without a rival. 
 Harker listened : The Girl I left behind Me filled him with 
 
 169
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 despair; The Soldier's Joy carried him beyond jealousy 
 into generous enthusiasm. 
 
 "Turn about," said the military gentleman, offering 
 the pipe. 
 
 "Oh, not after you!" cried Harker; "you're a pro- 
 fessional." 
 
 "No, "said his companion; "an amatyure like your- 
 self. That's one style of play, yours is the other, and 
 I like it best. But I began when I was a boy, you see, 
 before my taste was formed. When you're my age 
 you'll play that thing like a cornet-a-piston. Give us 
 that air again ; how does it go ? " and he affected to en- 
 deavour to recall The Ploughboy. 
 
 A timid, insane hope sprang in the breast of Harker. 
 Was it possible ? Was there something in his playing? 
 It had, indeed, seemed to him at times as if he got a 
 kind of a richness out of it. Was he a genius ? Mean- 
 time the military gentleman stumbled over the air. 
 
 "No, "said the unhappy Harker, ''that's not quite it. 
 It goes this way just to show you." 
 
 And, taking the pipe between his lips, he sealed his 
 doom. When he had played the air, and then a second 
 time, and a third ; when the military gentleman had tried 
 it once more, and once more failed; when it became 
 clear to Harker that he, the blushing debutant, was ac- 
 tually giving a lesson to this full-grown flutist and the 
 flutist under his care was not very brilliantly progress- 
 ing how am I to tell what floods of glory brightened 
 the autumnal countryside ; how, unless the reader were 
 an amateur himself, describe the heights of idiotic 
 vanity to which the carrier climbed ? One significant 
 fact shall paint the situation : thenceforth it was Harker 
 
 170
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 who played, and the military gentleman listened and 
 approved. 
 
 As he listened, however, he did not forget the habit 
 of soldierly precaution, looking both behind and before. 
 He looked behind and computed the value of the car- 
 rier's load, divining the contents of the brown paper 
 parcels and the portly hamper, and briefly setting down 
 the grand piano in the brand new piano-case as "diffi- 
 cult to get rid of." He looked before, and spied at the 
 corner of the green lane a little country public-house 
 embowered in roses. " I'll have a shy at it," concluded 
 the military gentleman, and roundly proposed a glass. 
 
 "Well, I'm not a drinking man," said Harker. 
 
 "Look here, now," cut in the other, "I'll tell you 
 who I am: I'm Colour-sergeant Brand of the Blankth. 
 That'll tell you if I'm a drinking man or not." It might 
 and it might not, thus a Greek chorus would have in- 
 tervened, and gone on to point out how very far it fell 
 short of telling why the sergeant was tramping a coun- 
 try lane in tatters; or even to argue that he must have 
 pretermitted some while ago his labours for the general 
 defence, and (in the interval) possibly turned his atten- 
 tion to oakum. But there was no Greek chorus present ; 
 and the man of war went on to contend that drinking 
 was one thing and a friendly glass another. 
 
 In the Blue Lion, which was the name of the country 
 public-house, Colour-sergeant Brand introduced his new 
 friend, Mr. Harker, to a number of ingenious mixtures, 
 calculated to prevent the approaches of intoxication. 
 These he explained to be "rekisite" in the service, so 
 that a self-respecting officer should always appear upon 
 parade in a condition honourable to his corps. The
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 most efficacious of these devices was to lace a pint of 
 mild ale with twopence worth of London gin. I am 
 pleased to hand in this recipe to the discerning reader, 
 who may find it useful even in civil station; for its 
 effect upon Mr. Marker was revolutionary. He must 
 be helped on board his own wagon, where he proceeded 
 to display a spirit entirely given over to mirth and 
 music, alternately hooting with laughter, to which the 
 sergeant hastened to bear chorus, and incoherently 
 tootling on the pipe. The man of war, meantime, un- 
 ostentatiously possessed himself of the reins. It was 
 plain he had a taste for the secluded beauties of an 
 English landscape; for the cart, although it wandered 
 under his guidance for some time, was never observed 
 to issue on the dusty highway, journeying between 
 hedge and ditch, and for the most part under over- 
 hanging boughs. It was plain, besides, he had an eye 
 to the true interests of Mr. Harker; for though the cart 
 drew up more than once at the doors of public-houses, 
 it was only the sergeant who set foot to ground, and 
 being equipped himself with a quart bottle, once more 
 proceeded on his rural drive. 
 
 To give any idea of the complexity of the sergeant's 
 course, a map of that part of Middlesex would be re- 
 quired, and my publisher is averse from the expense. 
 Suffice it, that a little after the night had closed, the cart 
 was brought to a standstill in a woody road ; where the 
 sergeant lifted from among the parcels, and tenderly 
 deposited upon the wayside, the inanimate form of 
 Harker. 
 
 "If you come to before daylight," thought the ser- 
 geant, " I shall be surprised for one."
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 From the various pockets of the slumbering carrier, he 
 gently collected the sum of seventeen shillings and 
 eightpence sterling; and getting once more into the 
 cart, drove thoughtfully away. 
 
 "If I was exactly sure of where I was, it would be a 
 good job," he reflected. "Anyway, here's a corner." 
 
 He turned it, and found himself upon the riverside. A 
 little above him the lights of a houseboat shone cheer- 
 fully ; and already close at hand, so close that it was im- 
 possible to avoid their notice, three persons, a lady and 
 two gentlemen, were deliberately drawing near. The 
 sergeant put his trust in the convenient darkness of the 
 night, and drove on to meet them. One of the gentle- 
 men, who was of a portly figure, walked in the midst 
 of the fairway and presently held up a staff by way of 
 signal. 
 
 "My man, have you seen anything of a carrier's 
 cart?" he cried. 
 
 Dark as it was, it seemed to the sergeant as though 
 the slimmer of the two gentlemen had made a motion to 
 prevent the other speaking, and (finding himself too 
 late) had skipped aside with some alacrity. At another 
 season, Sergeant Brand would have paid more attention 
 to the fact; but he was then immersed in the perils of 
 his own predicament. 
 
 " A carrier's cart ? " said he, with a perceptible uncer- 
 tainty of voice. "No, sir." 
 
 " Ah! " said the portly gentleman, and stood aside to 
 let the sergeant pass. The lady appeared to bend for- 
 ward and study the cart with every mark of sharpened 
 curiosity; the slimmer gentleman still keeping in the 
 rear. 
 
 173
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "I wonder what the devil they would be at," thought 
 Sergeant Brand; and looking fearfully back, he saw the 
 trio standing together in the midst of the way, like folk 
 consulting. The bravest of military heroes are not al- 
 ways equal to themselves as to their reputation; and 
 fear, on some singular provocation, will find a lodge- 
 ment in the most unfamiliar bosom. The word " de- 
 tective " might have been heard to gurgle in the ser- 
 geant's throat; and vigorously applying the whip, he 
 fled up the riverside road to Great Haverham, at the 
 gallop of the carrier's horse. The lights of the house- 
 boat flashed upon the flying wagon as it passed ; the 
 beat of hoofs and the rattle of the vehicle gradually coa- 
 lesced and died away ; and presently, to the trio on the 
 riverside, silence had redescended. 
 
 ' ' It's the most extraordinary thing, " cried the slimmer 
 of the two gentlemen, "but that's the cart! " 
 
 " And I know I saw a piano," said the girl. 
 
 "Oh, it's the cart, certainly; and the extraordinary 
 thing is, it's not the man," added the first. 
 
 "It must be the man, Gid, it must be," said the portly 
 one. 
 
 "Well, then, why is he running away ?" asked Gideon. 
 
 " His horse bolted, I suppose," said the Squirradical. 
 
 " Nonsense! I heard the whip going like a flail," said 
 Gideon. " It simply defies the human reason." 
 
 "I'll tell you," broke in the girl, "he came round 
 that corner. Suppose we went and what do they call 
 it in books? followed his trail? There may be a 
 house there, or somebody who saw him, or something." 
 
 "Well, suppose we did, for the fun of the thing,' 
 said Gideon. 
 
 '74
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 The fun of the thing (it would appear) consisted in the 
 extremely close juxtaposition of himself and Miss Ha- 
 zeltine. To Uncle Ned, who was excluded from these 
 simple pleasures, the excursion appeared hopeless from 
 the first; and when a fresh perspective of darkness 
 opened up, dimly contained between park palings on 
 the one side and a hedge and ditch upon the other, the 
 whole without the smallest signal of human habitation, 
 the Squirradical drew up. 
 
 "This is a wild-goose chase," said he. 
 
 With the cessation of the footfalls, another sound 
 smote upon their ears. 
 
 " Oh, what's that?" cried Julia. 
 
 "I can't think," said Gideon. 
 
 The Squirradical had his stick presented like a sword. 
 "Gid," he began, " Gid, I " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Forsyth ! " cried the girl. "Oh! don't go 
 forward, you don't know what it might be it might 
 be something perfectly horrid." 
 
 " It may be the devil itself," said Gideon, disengag- 
 ing himself, "but I am going to see it." 
 
 " Don't be rash, Gid," cried his uncle. 
 
 The barrister drew near to the sound, which was cer- 
 tainly of a portentous character. In quality, it appeared 
 to blend the strains of the cow, the fog-horn, and the mos- 
 quito ; and the startling manner of its enunciation added 
 incalculably to its terrors. A dark object, not unlike the 
 human form divine, appeared on the brink of the ditch. 
 
 "It's a man," said Gideon, "it's only a man; he 
 seems to be asleep and snoring. Hullo," he added, a 
 moment after, "there must be something wrong with 
 him, he won't waken." 
 
 75
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 Gideon produced his vestas, struck one, and by its 
 light recognised the tow-head of Harker. 
 
 "This is the man," said he, "as drunk as BeliaL I 
 see the whole story ; " and to his two companions, who 
 had now ventured to rejoin him, he set forth a theory of 
 the divorce between the carrier and his cart, which was 
 not unlike the truth. 
 
 " Drunken brute! " said Uncle Ned, " let's get him to 
 a pump and give him what he deserves." 
 
 "Not at all! " said Gideon. "It is highly undesira- 
 ble he should see us together; and really, do you know, 
 I am very much obliged to him, for this is about the 
 luckiest thing that could have possibly occurred. It 
 seems to me Uncle Ned, I declare to heaven it seems 
 to me I'm clear of it! " 
 
 " Clear of what ? " asked the Squirradical. 
 
 " The whole affair! " cried Gideon. " That man has 
 been ass enough to steal the cart and the dead body; 
 what he hopes to do with it, I neither know nor care. 
 My hands are free, Jimson ceases; down with Jimson. 
 Shake hands with me, Uncle Ned Julia, darling girl, 
 Julia, I " 
 
 "Gideon, Gideon!" said his uncle. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right, uncle, when we're going to be 
 married so soon," said Gideon. " You know you said 
 so yourself in the houseboat" 
 
 "Did I ?" said Uncle Ned, "I am certain I said no 
 such thing." 
 
 " Appeal to him, tell him he did, get on his soft side," 
 cried Gideon. " He's a real brick if you get on his soft 
 side." 
 
 "Dear Mr. Bloomfield," said Julia, "I know Gideon 
 176
 
 LAST APPEARANCE OF THE BROADWOOD GRAND 
 
 will be such a very good boy, and he has promised me 
 to do such a lot of law, and I will see that he does too. 
 And you know it is so very steadying to young men, 
 everybody admits that ; though, of course, I know I have 
 no money, Mr. Bloomfield," she added. 
 
 " My dear young lady, as this rapscallion told you to- 
 day on the boat, Uncle Ned has plenty," said the Squir- 
 radical, "and I can never forget that you have been 
 shamefully defrauded. So as there's nobody looking, 
 you had better give your Uncle Ned a kiss. There, you 
 rogue," resumed Mr. Bloomfield, when the ceremony 
 had been daintily performed, "this very pretty young 
 lady is yours, and a vast deal more than you deserve. 
 But now, let us get back to the houseboat, get up steam 
 on the launch, and away back to town." 
 
 "That's the thing !" cried Gideon; " and to-morrow, 
 there will be no houseboat, and no Jimson, and no car- 
 rier's cart, and no piano; and when Harker awakes on 
 the ditch side, he may tell himself the whole affair has 
 been a dream." 
 
 "Aha!" said Uncle Ned, "but there's another man 
 who will have a different awakening. That fellow in 
 the cart will find he has been too clever by half." 
 
 " Uncle Ned and Julia," said Gideon, " I am as happy 
 as the King of Tartary, my heart is like a threepenny bit, 
 my heels are like feathers ; I am out of all my troubles, 
 Julia's hand is in mine. Is this a time for anything but 
 handsome sentiments ? Why, there's not room in me 
 for anything that's not angelic! And when I think of 
 that poor unhappy devil in the cart, I stand here in the 
 night and cry with a single heart God help him!" 
 
 "Amen," said Uncle Ned. 
 77
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND 
 
 IN a really polite age of literature, I would have scorned 
 to cast my eye again on the contortions of Morris. But 
 the study is in the spirit of the day ; it presents, besides, 
 features of a high, almost a repulsive morality; and if it 
 should prove the means of preventing any respectable 
 and inexperienced gentleman from plunging light-heart- 
 edly into crime, even political crime, this work will not 
 have been penned in vain. 
 
 He rose on the morrow of his night with Michael, rose 
 from the leaden slumber of distress, to find his hand 
 tremulous, his eyes closed with rheum, his throat 
 parched, and his digestion obviously paralysed. "Lord 
 knows it's not from eating! " Morris thought; and as he 
 dressed he reconsidered his position under several heads. 
 Nothing will so well depict the troubled seas in which 
 he was now voyaging as a review of these various anxi- 
 eties. I have thrown them (for the reader's convenience) 
 into a certain order; but in the mind of one poor human 
 equal, they whirled together like the dust of hurricanes. 
 With the same obliging preoccupation, I have put a name 
 to each of his distresses; and it will be observed with 
 pity that every individual item would have graced and 
 commended the cover of a railway novel. 
 
 78
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND 
 
 Anxiety the First : Where is tbe Body ? or, the Mystery 
 of Bent Pitman. It was now manifestly plain that Bent 
 Pitman (as was to be looked for from his ominous ap- 
 pellation) belonged to the darker order of the criminal 
 class. An honest man would not have cashed the bill; 
 a humane man would not have accepted in silence the 
 tragic contents of the water-butt; a man, who was not 
 already up to the hilts in gore, would have lacked the 
 means of secretly disposing them. This process of 
 reasoning left a horrid image of the monster, Pitman. 
 Doubtless he had long ago disposed of the body 
 dropping it through a trap-door in his back kitchen, 
 Morris supposed, with some hazy recollection of a pic- 
 ture in a penny dreadful; and doubtless the man now 
 lived in wanton splendor on the proceeds of the bill. 
 So far, all was peace. But with the profligate habits of 
 a man like Bent Pitman (who was no doubt a hunch- 
 back in the bargain), eight hundred pounds could be 
 easily melted in a week. When they were gone, what 
 would he be likely to do next? A hell-like voice in 
 Morris's own bosom gave the answer: "Blackmail 
 me." 
 
 Anxiety the Second : Tbe Fraud of the Tontine; or, Is 
 my Uncle Dead? This, on which all Morris's hopes 
 depended, was yet a question. He had tried to bully 
 Teena; he had tried to bribe her; and nothing came of 
 it. He had his moral conviction still; but you cannot 
 blackmail a sharp lawyer on a moral conviction. And 
 besides, since his interview with Michael, the idea wore 
 a less attractive countenance. Was Michael the man to 
 be blackmailed ? and was Morris the man to do it ? 
 Grave considerations. " It's not that I am afraid of 
 
 179
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 him," Morris so far condescended to reassure himself; 
 "but I must be very certain of my ground, and the 
 deuce of it is, I see no way. How unlike is life to 
 novels! I wouldn't have even begun this business in 
 a novel, but what I'd have met a dark, slouching fellow 
 in the Oxford Road, who'd have become my accom- 
 plice, and known all about how to do it, and probably 
 broken into Michael's house at night and found nothing 
 but a wax-work image; and then blackmailed or mur- 
 dered me. But here, in real life, I might walk the streets 
 till I dropped dead, and none of the criminal classes 
 would look near me. Though, to be sure, there is 
 always Pitman," he added, thoughtfully. 
 
 Anxiety the Third: The Cottage at Browndean ; or, 
 The Underpaid Accomplice. For he had an accomplice, 
 and that accomplice was blooming unseen in a damp 
 cottage in Hampshire with empty pockets. What could 
 be done about that ? He really ought to have sent him 
 something; if it was only a post-office order for five- 
 bob, enough to prove that he was kept in mind, enough 
 to keep him in hope, beer, and tobacco. " But what 
 would you have ? " thought Morris ; and ruefully poured 
 into his hand a half-crown, a florin, and eightpence in 
 small change. For a man in Morris's position, at war 
 with all society, and conducting, with the hand of in- 
 experience, a widely ramified intrigue, the sum was 
 already a derision. John would have to be doing; no 
 mistake of that. " But then," asked the hell-like voice, 
 "how long is John likely to stand it ?" 
 
 Anxiety the Fourth : The Leather Business ; or, The 
 Shutters at Last ; a Tale of the City. On this head, 
 Morris had no news. He had not yet dared to visit the 
 
 180
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND 
 
 family concern ; yet he knew he must delay no longer, 
 and if anything had been wanted to sharpen this con- 
 viction, Michael's references of the night before rang 
 ambiguously in his ear. Well and good. To visit the 
 city might be indispensable; but what was he to do 
 when he was there? He had no right to sign in his 
 own name; and with all the will in the world, he 
 seemed to lack the art of signing with his uncle's. 
 Under these circumstances, Morris could do nothing to 
 procrastinate the crash ; and when it came, when pry- 
 ing eyes began to be applied to every joint of his be- 
 haviour, two questions could not fail to be addressed, 
 sooner or later, to a speechless and perspiring insolvent. 
 Where is Mr. Joseph Finsbury ? and how about your 
 visit to the bank? Questions, how easy to put! ye 
 gods, how impossible to answer! The man to whom 
 they should be addressed went certainly to gaol, and 
 eh! what was this ? possibly to the gallows. Morris 
 was trying to shave when this idea struck him, and he 
 laid the razor down. Here (in Michael's words) was 
 the total disappearance of a valuable uncle; here was a 
 time of inexplicable conduct on the part of a nephew 
 who had been in bad blood with the old man any time 
 these seven years; what a chance for a judicial blunder! 
 " But no," thought Morris, "they cannot, they dare not 
 make it murder. Not that. But honestly, and speak- 
 ing as a man to a man, I don't see any other crime in 
 the calendar (except arson) that I don't seem somehow 
 to have committed. And yet I'm a perfectly respecta- 
 ble man, and wished nothing but my due. Law is a 
 pretty business." 
 With this conclusion firmly seated in his mind, Mor- 
 
 181
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 ris Finsbury descended to the hall of the house in John 
 Street, still half shaven. There was a letter in the box; 
 he knew the handwriting: John at last. 
 
 "Well, I think I might have been spared this," he 
 said bitterly, and tore it open. 
 
 "Dear Morris," it ran, "what the dickens do you mean 
 by it? I'm in an awful hole down here; I have to go 
 on tick, and the parties on the spot don't cotton to the 
 idea; they couldn't, because it is so plain I'm in a stait 
 of Destitution. I've got no bed-clothes, think of that, 
 I must have coins, the hole thing's a Mockry, I won't 
 stand it, nobody would. I would have come away be- 
 fore, only I have no money for the railway fair. Don't 
 be a lunatic, Morris, you don't seem to understand my 
 dredful situation. I have to get the stamp on tick. A 
 fact. Ever your affte. Brother, J. Finsbury." 
 
 "Can't even spell! " Morris reflected, as he crammed 
 the letter in his pocket, and left the house. " What can 
 I do for him ? I have to go to the expense of a barber, 
 I'm so shattered ! How can I send anybody coins ? It's 
 hard lines, I dare say; but does he think I'm living on 
 hot muffins? One comfort," was his grim reflection, 
 "he can't cut and run : he's got to stay, he's as helpless 
 as the dead." And then he broke forth again: " Com- 
 plains, does he ? and he's never even heard of Bent Pit- 
 man! If he had what I have on my mind, he might 
 complain with a good grace." 
 
 But these were not honest arguments, or not wholly 
 honest; there was a struggle in the mind of Morris; he 
 could not disguise from himself that his brother John 
 was miserably situated at Browndean, without news, 
 without money, without bed-clothes, without society 
 
 182
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS : PART THE SECOND 
 
 or any entertainment; and by the time he had been 
 shaved and picked a hasty breakfast at a coffee-tavern, 
 Morris had arrived at a compromise. 
 
 "Poor Johnnie," he said to himself, " he's in an aw- 
 ful box. I can't send him coins; but I'll tell you what 
 I'll do, I'll send him the Pink Un, it'll cheer John up; and 
 besides, it'll do his credit good getting anything by post. " 
 
 Accordingly, on his way to the leather business, 
 whither he proceeded (according to his thrifty habit) on 
 foot, Morris purchased and despatched a single copy of 
 that enlivening periodical, to which (in a sudden pang 
 of remorse) he added at random the Athenaeum, the 
 Revivalist, and the Penny Piftorial Weekly. So there 
 was John set up with literature, and Morris had laid 
 balm upon his conscience. 
 
 As if to reward him, he was received in his place of 
 business with good news. Orders were pouring in; 
 there was a run on some of the back stock, and the fig- 
 ure had gone up; even the manager appeared elated. 
 As for Morris, who had almost forgotten the meaning 
 of good news, he longed to sob like a little child ; he 
 could have caught the manager (a pallid man with 
 startled eyebrows) to his bosom ; he could have found 
 it in his generosity to give a check (for a small sum) to 
 every clerk in the counting-house. As he sat and opened 
 his letters, a chorus of airy vocalists sang in his brain, 
 to most exquisite music, "This old concern may be 
 profitable yet, profitable yet, profitable yet." 
 
 To him, in this sunny moment of relief, enter a Mr. 
 Rodgerson, a creditor, but not one who was expected 
 to be pressing, for his connection with the firm was old 
 and regular. 
 
 183
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Oh, Finsbury, " said he, not without embarrassment, 
 "it's of course only fair to let you know the fact 
 is, money is a trifle tight I have some paper out 
 for that matter, every one's complaining and in 
 short " 
 
 " It has never been our habit, Rodgerson," said Mor- 
 ris, turning pale. "But give me time to turn round, 
 and I'll see what I can do; I dare say we can let you 
 have something on account." 
 
 "Well, that's just where it is," replied Rodger- 
 son. "I was tempted, I've let the credit out of my 
 hands." 
 
 "Out of your hands?" repeated Morris. "That's 
 playing rather fast and loose with us, Mr. Rodgerson." 
 
 " Well, I got cent for cent for it," said the other, "on 
 the nail, in a certified cheque." 
 
 " Cent for cent! " cried Morris. " Why, that's some- 
 thing like thirty per cent, bonus; a singular thing! 
 Who's the party ? " 
 
 " Don't know the man," was the reply. "Name of 
 Moss." 
 
 ' ' A Jew, " Morris reflected, when his visitor was gone. 
 And what could a Jew want with a claim of he veri- 
 fied the amount in the books a claim of three five 
 eight, nineteen, ten, against the house of Finsbury ? 
 And why should he pay cent for cent? The figure 
 proved the loyalty of Rodgerson, even Morris admitted 
 that. But it proved unfortunately something else : the 
 eagerness of Moss. The claim must have been wanted 
 instantly, for that day, for that morning even. Why ? 
 The mystery of Moss promised to be a fit pendant to 
 the mystery of Pitman. " And just when all was look- 
 
 84
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND 
 
 ing well, too! " cried Morris, smiting his hand upon the 
 desk. And almost at the same moment, Mr. Moss was 
 announced. 
 
 Mr. Moss was a radiant Hebrew, brutally handsome 
 and offensively polite. He was acting (it appeared) for 
 a third party; he understood nothing of the circum- 
 stances ; his client desired to have his position regular- 
 ised; but he would accept an antedated cheque ante- 
 dated by two months, if Mr. Finsbury chose. 
 
 " But I don't understand this," said Morris. "What 
 made you pay cent per cent for it to-day ? " 
 
 Mr. Moss had no idea; only his orders. 
 
 " The whole thing is thoroughly irregular," said Mor- 
 ris. " It is not the custom of the trade to settle at this 
 time of the year. What are your instructions if I re- 
 fuse?" 
 
 "I am to see Mr. Joseph Finsbury, the head of the 
 firm," said Mr. Moss. "I was directed to insist on that; 
 it was implied you had no status here the expressions 
 are not mine." 
 
 "You cannot see Mr. Joseph; he is unwell," said 
 Morris. 
 
 " In that case I was to place the matter in the hands 
 of a lawyer let me see " said Mr. Moss, opening a 
 pocketbook, with perhaps suspicious care, at the right 
 place "Yes of Mr. Michael Finsbury. A relation, 
 perhaps ? In that case, I presume, the matter will be 
 pleasantly arranged." 
 
 To pass into the hands of Michael was too much for 
 Morris ; he struck his colours : a cheque at two months 
 was nothing, after all. In two months he would prob- 
 ably be dead, or in a gaol at any rate. He bade the 
 
 185
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 manager give Mr. Moss a chair and the paper. " I'm 
 going over to get a cheque signed by Mr. Finsbury," 
 said he, "who is lying ill at John Street." 
 
 A cab there and a cab back, here were inroads on his 
 wretched capital! He counted the cost; when he was 
 done with Mr. Moss, he would be left with twelve-pence 
 half-penny in the world. What was even worse, he 
 had now been forced to bring his uncle up to Blooms- 
 bury. "No use for poor Johnnie in Hampshire now," 
 he reflected. "And how the farce is to be kept up 
 completely passes me. At Browndean it was just pos- 
 sible; in Bloomsbury it seems beyond human ingenuity 
 though I suppose it's what Michael does. But then 
 he has accomplices, that Scotchman and the whole 
 gang. Ah, if I had accomplices! " 
 
 Necessity is the mother of the arts ; under a spur so 
 immediate Morris surprised himself by the neatness and 
 despatch of his new forgery; and within three-fourths 
 of an hour had handed it to Mr. Moss. 
 
 "That is very satisfactory," observed that gentleman, 
 rising. " I was to tell you it will not be presented, but 
 you had better take care." 
 
 The room swam round Morris. "What what's 
 that!" he cried, grasping the table; he was miserably 
 conscious, the next moment, of his shrill tongue and 
 ashen face. "What do you mean it will not be pre- 
 sented? Why am I to take care? What is all this 
 mummery?" 
 
 "I have no idea, Mr. Finsbury," replied the smiling 
 Hebrew. "It was a message I was to deliver; the ex- 
 pressions were put into my mouth." 
 
 "What is your client's name?" asked Morris. 
 186
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND 
 
 "That is a secret for the moment," answered Mr. 
 Moss. 
 
 Morris bent toward him. "It's not the bank?" he 
 asked, hoarsely. 
 
 "I have no authority to say more, Mr. Finsbury," re- 
 turned Mr. Moss. " I will wish you a good-morning, 
 if you please." 
 
 "Wish me a good-morning!" thought Morris; and 
 the next moment, seizing his hat, he fled from his place 
 of business like a madman. Three streets away he 
 stopped and groaned. "Lord! I should have bor- 
 rowed from the manager! " he cried. " But it's too late 
 now; it would look dicky to go back; I'm penniless 
 simply penniless like the unemployed." 
 
 He went home and sat in the dismantled dining-room 
 with his head in his hands. Newton never thought 
 harder than this victim of circumstance, and yet no 
 clearness came. ' ' It may be a defect in my intelligence, " 
 he cried, rising to his feet, "but I cannot see that I am 
 fairly used. The bad luck I've had is a thing to write 
 to The Times about ; it's enough to breed a revolution. 
 And the plain English of the whole thing is that I must 
 have money at once. I'm done with all morality now; 
 I'm long past that stage; money I must have, and the 
 only chance I see is Bent Pitman. Bent Pitman is a 
 criminal, and therefore his position's weak. He must 
 have some of that eight hundred left; if he has I'll force 
 him to go shares; and even if he hasn't, I'll tell him the 
 tontine affair, and with a desperate man like Pitman at 
 my back, it'll be strange if I don't succeed." 
 
 Well and good. But how to lay hands upon Bent 
 Pitman, except by advertisement, was not so clear. 
 
 87
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 And even so, in what terms to ask a meeting ? on what 
 grounds ? and where ? Not at John Street, for it would 
 never do to let a man like Bent Pitman know your real 
 address; nor yet at Pitman's house, some dreadful place 
 in Holloway, with a trap-door in the back kitchen; a 
 house which you might enter in a light summer over- 
 coat and varnished boots, to come forth again piece- 
 meal in a market-basket. That was the drawback of 
 a really efficient accomplice, Morris felt, not without a 
 shudder. " I never dreamed I should come to actually 
 covet such society," he thought. And then a brilliant 
 idea struck him. Waterloo Station, a public place, 
 yet at certain hours of the day a solitary; a place, be- 
 sides, the very name of which must knock upon the 
 heart of Pitman, and at once suggest a knowledge of 
 the latest of his guilty secrets. Morris took a piece of 
 paper and sketched his advertisement. 
 
 " WILLIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye 
 of, he win hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE at the 
 far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo 
 Station, 2 to 4 P.M., Sunday next" 
 
 Morris reperused this literary trifle with approbation. 
 "Terse," he reflected. "Something to his advantage 
 is not strictly true; but if s taking and original, and a 
 man is not on oath in an advertisement. An that I re- 
 quire now is the ready cash for my own meals and for 
 the advertisement, and no, I can't lavish money upon 
 John, but IH give him some more papers. How to 
 raise the wind?" 
 
 He approached his cabinet of signets, and the collector 
 suddenly revolted in his blood "I will not!" he cried, 
 " nothing shall induce me to massacre my collection 
 
 188
 
 THE TRIBULATIONS OF MORRIS: PART THE SECOND 
 
 rather theft!" And dashing upstairs to the drawing- 
 room, he helped himself to a few of his uncle's curiosi- 
 ties: a pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a 
 water-cooler, a musket guaranteed to have been seized 
 from an Ephesian bandit, and a pocketful of curious but 
 incomplete sea-shells.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WILLIAM BENT PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS 
 ADVANTAGE 
 
 ON the morning of Sunday, William Dent Pitman rose 
 at his usual hour, although with something more than 
 the usual reluctance. The day before (it should be ex- 
 plained) an addition had been made to his family in the 
 person of a lodger. Michael Finsbury had acted spon- 
 sor in the business, and guaranteed the weekly bill; on 
 the other hand, no doubt with a spice of his prevailing 
 jocularity, he had drawn a depressing portrait of the 
 lodger's character. Mr. Pitman had been led to under- 
 stand his guest was not good company; he had ap- 
 proached the gentleman with fear, and had rejoiced to 
 find himself the entertainer of an angel. At tea he had 
 been vastly pleased; till hard on one in the morning he 
 had sat entranced by eloquence and progressively forti- 
 fied with information in the studio ; and now, as he re- 
 viewed over his toilet the harmless pleasures of the 
 evening, the future smiled upon him with revived at- 
 tractions. "Mr. Finsbury is, indeed, an acquisition," 
 he remarked to himself; and as he entered the little 
 parlour, where the table was already laid for breakfast, 
 the cordiality of his greeting would have befitted an 
 acquaintanceship already old. 
 
 "I am delighted to see you, sir" these were his 
 expressions "and I trust vou have slept well."
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 "Accustomed as I have been for so long to a life of 
 almost perpetual change," replied the guest, "the dis- 
 turbance so often complained of by the more sedentary, 
 as attending their first night in (what is called) a new 
 bed is a complaint from which I am entirely free." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it," said the drawing-master 
 warmly. "But I see I hav? interrupted you over the 
 paper." 
 
 ' ' The Sunday paper is one of the features of the age, " 
 said Mr. Finsbury. "In America, I am told, it super- 
 sedes all other literature, the bone and sinew of the na- 
 tion finding their requirements catered for; hundreds of 
 columns will be occupied with interesting details of the 
 world's doings, such as water-spouts, elopements, con- 
 flagrations, and public entertainments ; there is a corner 
 for politics, ladies' work, chess, religion, and even lit- 
 erature; and a few spicy editorials serve to direct the 
 course of public thought. It is difficult to estimate the 
 part played by such enormous and miscellaneous re- 
 positories in the education of the people. But this 
 (though interesting in itself) partakes of the nature of a 
 digression ; and what I was about to ask you was this : 
 Are you yourself a student of the daily press ? " 
 
 "There is not much in the papers to interest an 
 artist x " returned Pitman. 
 
 "In that case," resumed Joseph, "an advertisement 
 which has appeared the last two days in various jour- 
 nals, and reappears this morning, may possibly have 
 failed to catch your eye. The name, with a trifling va- 
 riation, bears a strong resemblance to your own. Ah, 
 here it is. If you please, I will read it to you. 
 
 " 'WILLIAM BENT PITMAN, if this should meet the eye 
 
 1QI
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 of, he will hear of SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE at the 
 far end of the main line departure platform, Waterloo 
 Station, 2 to 4 p. M. to-day.' ' 
 
 "Is that in print?" cried Pitman. "Let me see it! 
 Bent ? It must be Dent ! Something to my advantage ? 
 Mr. Finsbury, excuse me offering a word of caution ; I 
 am aware how strangely this must sound in your ears, 
 but there are domestic reasons why this little circum- 
 stance might perhaps be better kept between ourselves. 
 Mrs. Pitman my dear sir, I assure you there is nothing 
 dishonourable in my secrecy ; the reasons are domestic, 
 merely domestic; and I may set your conscience at rest 
 when I assure you all the circumstances are known to 
 our common friend, your excellent nephew, Mr. Michael, 
 who has not withdrawn from me his esteem." 
 
 "A word is enough, Mr. Pitman," said Joseph, with 
 one of his oriental reverences. 
 
 Half an hour later, the drawing-master found Michael 
 in bed and reading a book, the picture of good-humour 
 and repose. 
 
 "Hillo, Pitman," he said, laying down his book, 
 "what brings you here at this inclement hour ? Ought 
 to be in church, my boy ! " 
 
 "I have little thought of church to-day, Mr. Fins- 
 bury," said the drawing-master. "I am on the brink 
 of something new, sir." And he presented the adver- 
 tisement. 
 
 "Why, what is this?" cried Michael, sitting sud- 
 denly up. He studied it for half a minute with a frown. 
 " Pitman, I don't care about this document a particle," 
 said he. 
 
 "It will have to be attended to, however, " said Pitman. 
 
 102
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 "I thought you'd had enough of Waterloo," returned 
 the lawyer. "Have you started a morbid craving? 
 You've never been yourself anyway since you lost that 
 beard. I believe now it was where you kept your 
 senses." 
 
 "Mr. Finsbury," said the drawing-master, "I have 
 tried to reason this matter out, and, with your permis- 
 sion, I should like to lay before you the results." 
 
 " Fire away," said Michael; "but please, Pitman, re- 
 member it's Sunday, and let's have no bad language." 
 
 "There are three views open to us," began Pitman. 
 " First, this may be connected with the barrel; second, 
 it may be connected with Mr. Semitopolis' statue ; and 
 third, it may be from my wife's brother, who went to 
 Australia. In the first case, which is of course possible, 
 I confess the matter would be best allowed to drop." 
 
 "The court is with you there, Brother Pitman," said 
 Michael. 
 
 "In the second," continued the other, "it is plainly 
 my duty to leave no stone unturned for the recovery of 
 the lost antique." 
 
 "My dear fellow, Semitopolis has come down like a 
 trump; he has pocketed the loss and left you the profit. 
 What more would you have ? " inquired the lawyer. 
 
 " I conceive, sir, under correction, that Mr. Semitopo- 
 lis' generosity binds me to even greater exertion," said 
 the drawing-master. "The whole business was un- 
 fortunate; it was I need not disguise it from you it 
 was illegal from the first: the more reason that I should 
 try to behave like a gentleman," concluded Pitman, 
 flushing. 
 
 " I have nothing to say to that," returned the lawyer. 
 
 19?
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " I have sometimes thought I should like to try to behave 
 like a gentleman myself; only it's such a one-sided busi- 
 ness, with the world and the legal profession as they 
 are." 
 
 "Then, in the third," resumed the drawing-master, 
 "if it's Uncle Tim, of course, our fortune's made." 
 
 "It's not Uncle Tim, though," said the lawyer. 
 
 "Have you observed that very remarkable expres- 
 sion: Something to bis advantage? " inquired Pitman, 
 shrewdly. 
 
 "You innocent mutton," said Michael, "it's the 
 seediest commonplace in the English language, and only 
 proves the advertiser is an ass. Let me demolish your 
 house of cards for you at once. Would Uncle Tim make 
 that blunder in your name? in itself, the blunder is 
 delicious, a huge improvement on the gross reality, and 
 I mean to adopt it in the future; but is it like Uncle 
 Tim?" 
 
 "No, it's not like him," Pitman admitted. " But his 
 mind may have become unhinged at Ballarat." 
 
 "If you come to that, Pitman," said Michael, "the 
 advertiser may be Queen Victoria, fired with the desire 
 to make a duke of you. I put it to yourself if that's prob- 
 able ; and yet it's not against the laws of nature. But 
 we sit here to consider probabilities ; and with your gen- 
 teel permission, I eliminate her Majesty and Uncle Tim 
 on the threshold. To proceed, we have your second 
 idea, that this has some connection with the statue. 
 Possible ; but in that case who is the advertiser ? Not 
 Ricardi, for he knows your address; not the person who 
 got the box, for he doesn't know your name. The van- 
 man, I hear you suggest, in a lucid interval. He might 
 
 94
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 have got your name, and got it incorrectly, at the sta- 
 tion; and he might have failed to get your address. I 
 grant the van-man. But a question : Do you really wish 
 to meet the van-man ? " 
 
 "Why should I not?" asked Pitman. 
 
 "If he wants to meet you," replied Michael, "observe 
 this: It is because he has found his address-book, has 
 been to the house that got the statue, and mark my 
 words! is moving at the instigation of the murderer." 
 
 "I should be very sorry to think so," said Pit- 
 man; "but I still consider it my duty to Mr. Semi- 
 topolis ..." 
 
 "Pitman," interrupted Michael, "this will not do. 
 Don't seek to impose on your legal adviser; don't try 
 to pass yourself off for the Duke of Wellington, for that 
 is not your line. Come, I wager a dinner I can read 
 your thoughts. You still believe it's Uncle Tim." 
 
 "Mr. Finsbury," said the drawing-master, colouring, 
 "you are not a man in narrow circumstances, and you 
 have no family. Guendolen is growing up, a very prom- 
 ising girl she was confirmed this year ; and I think you 
 will be able to enter into my feelings as a parent, when 
 I tell you she is quite ignorant of dancing. The boys are 
 at the board-school, which is all very well in its way; 
 at least, I am the last man in the world to criticise the 
 institutions of my native land. But 1 had fondly hoped 
 that Harold might become a professional musician ; and 
 little Otho shows a quite remarkable vocation for the 
 Church. I am not exactly an ambitious man ..." 
 
 "Well, well," interrupted Michael. "Be explicit; 
 you think it's Uncle Tim." 
 
 "It might be Uncle Tim," insisted Pitman, "and if 
 
 95
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 it were, and I neglected the occasion, how could I ever 
 look my children in the face ? I do not refer to Mrs. 
 Pitman ..." 
 
 "No, you never do," said Michael. 
 
 " . . . but in the case of her own brother returning 
 from Ballarat ..." continued Pitman. 
 
 ". . . with his mind unhinged, " put in the lawyer. 
 
 " . . . returning from Ballarat with a large fortune, 
 her impatience may be more easily imagined than de- 
 scribed," concluded Pitman. 
 
 "All right," said Michael, "be it so. And what do 
 you propose to do ? " 
 
 "I am going to Waterloo," said Pitman, "in dis- 
 guise." 
 
 " All by your little self? " inquired the lawyer. "Well, 
 I hope you think it safe. Mind and send me word from 
 the police cells." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Finsbury, I had ventured to hope per- 
 haps you might be induced to to make one of us," 
 faltered Pitman. 
 
 ' ' Disguise myself on Sunday ? " cried Michael. " Hotf 
 little you understand my principles! " 
 
 "Mr. Finsbury, I have no means of showing you my 
 gratitude; but let me ask you one question," said Pit- 
 man. " If I were a very rich client, would you not take 
 the risk ? " 
 
 " Diamond, Diamond, you know not what you do! " 
 cried Michael. "Why, man, do you suppose I make a 
 practice of cutting about London with my clients in dis- 
 guise ? Do you suppose money would induce me to 
 touch this business with a stick ? I give you my word 
 of honor, it would not. But I own I have a real curi-
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 ositv to see how you conduct this interview that 
 tempts me; it tempts me, Pitman, more than gold it 
 should be exquisitely rich." And suddenly Michael 
 laughed. " Well, Pitman," said he, " have all the truck 
 ready in the studio. I'll go." 
 
 About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, 
 the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the 
 temple of a dead religion, silent and deserted. Here 
 and there, at one of the platforms, a train lay becalmed ; 
 here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab- 
 horses outside stamped with startling reverberations on 
 the stones : or from the neighbouring wilderness of rail- 
 way an engine snorted forth a whistle. The main lir.e 
 departure platform slumbered like the rest ; the booking- 
 hutches closed ; the backs of Mr. Haggard's novels, with 
 which upon a week-day the book-stall shines embla- 
 zoned, discreetly hidden behind dingy shutters; the 
 rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the 
 customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman 
 with the ulster and the handbag, fled to more congenial 
 scenes. As in the inmost dells of some small tropic 
 island the throbbing of me ocean lingers, so here a faint 
 pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner ot 
 surrounding London. 
 
 At the hour already named, persons acquainted with 
 John Dickson, of Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the 
 United States of America, would have been cheered to 
 behold them enter through the booking-office. 
 
 "What names are we to take ?" inquired the latter, 
 anxiously adjusting the window-glass spectacles which 
 he had been suffered on this occasion to assume. 
 
 "There's no choice for you, my boy," returned Mi-
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 chael. " Bent Pitman or nothing. As for me, I think I 
 look as if I might be called Appleby; something agree- 
 ably old-world about Appleby breathes of Devonshire 
 cider. Talking of which, suppose you wet your whistle ? 
 the interview is likely to be trying." 
 
 " I think I'll wait till afterward," returned Pitman, 
 " on the whole, I think I'll wait till the thing's over. I 
 don't know if it strikes you as it does me ; but the place 
 seems deserted and silent, Mr. Finsbury, and filled with 
 very singular echoes. " 
 
 "Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?" inquired Mi- 
 chael, "as if all these empty trains might be filled with 
 policemen waiting for a signal ? and Sir Charles Warren 
 perched among the girders with a silver whistle to his 
 lips ? It's guilt, Pitman." 
 
 In this uneasy frame of mind they walked nearly the 
 whole length of the departure platform, and at the 
 western extremity became aware of a slender figure 
 standing backed against a pillar. The figure was plainly 
 sunk into a deep abstraction ; he was not aware of their 
 approach, but gazed far abroad over the sunlit station. 
 Michael stopped. 
 
 "Holloa!" said he, "can that be your advertiser? If 
 so, I'm done with it" And then, on second thoughts: 
 " Not so, either," he resumed, more cheerfully. " Here, 
 turn your back a moment So. Give me the specs." 
 
 "But you agreed I was to have them," protested Pit- 
 man. 
 
 "Ah, but that man knows me," said Michael 
 
 "Does he? what's his name?" cried Pitman. 
 
 "Oh, he took me into his confidence," returned the 
 lawyer. " But I may say one thing: If he's your ad- 
 
 198
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 vertiser (and he may be, for he seems to have been 
 seized with criminal lunacy )you can go ahead with a clear 
 conscience, for I hold him in the hollow of my hand." 
 
 The change effected, and Pitman comforted with this 
 good news, the pair drew near to Morris. 
 
 "Are you looking for Mr. William Bent Pitman?" 
 inquired the drawing-master. " I am he." 
 
 Morris raised his head. He saw before him, in the 
 speaker, a person of almost indescribable insignificance, 
 in white spats and a shirt cut indecently low. A little 
 behind a second and more burly figure offered little to 
 criticism, except ulster, whiskers, spectacles, and deer- 
 stalker hat. Since he had decided to call up devils from 
 the underworld of London, Morris had pondered deeply 
 on the probabilities of their appearance. His first emo- 
 tion, like that of Charoba when she beheld the sea, was 
 one of disappointment; his second did more justice to 
 the case. Never before had he seen a couple dressed 
 like these ; he had struck a new stratum. 
 
 " I must speak with you alone," said he. 
 
 "You need not mind Mr. Appleby," returned Pit- 
 man. " He knows all." 
 
 " All ? Do you know what I am here to speak of?" 
 inquired Morris. "The barrel." 
 
 Pitman turned pale, but it was with manly indigna- 
 tion. "You are the man!" he cried. "You very 
 wicked person ! " 
 
 "Am I to speak before him?" asked Morris, disre- 
 garding these severe expressions. 
 
 "He has been present throughout," said Pitman. 
 "He opened the barrel; your guilty secret is already 
 known to him, as well as to your Maker and myself." 
 
 199
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Well, then," said Morris, "what have you done 
 with the money ? " 
 
 "I know nothing about any money," said Pitman. 
 
 "You needn't try that on," said Morris. "I have 
 tracked you down; you came to the station sacrile- 
 giously disguised as a clergyman, procured my barrel, 
 opened it, rifled the body, and cashed the bill. I have 
 been to the bank, I tell you ! I have followed you step 
 by step, and your denials are childish and absurd." 
 
 "Come, come, Morris, keep your temper," said Mr. 
 Appleby. 
 
 " Michael! " cried Morris, " Michael here too! " 
 
 "Here too," echoed the lawyer, "here and every- 
 where, my good fellow ; every step you take is counted ; 
 trained detectives follow you like your shadow ; they 
 report to me every three-quarters of an hour; no ex- 
 pense is spared." 
 
 Morris's face took on a hue of dirty gray. " Well, 1 
 don't care; I have the less reserve to keep," he cried. 
 " That man cashed my bill; it's a theft, and I want the 
 money back." 
 
 "Do you think I would lie to you, Morris?" asked 
 Michael. 
 
 "I don't know," said his cousin. "I want my 
 money." 
 
 "It was I alone who touched the body," began 
 Michael. 
 
 " You ? Michael! " cried Morris, starting back. "Then 
 why haven't you declared the death ? " 
 
 "What the devil do you mean ?" asked Michael. 
 
 " Am I mad ? or are you ? " cried Morris. 
 
 "I think it must be Pitman," said Michael.
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 The three men stared at each other, wild-eyed. 
 
 "This is dreadful, "said Morris, "dreadful. I do not 
 understand one word that is addressed to me." 
 
 " I give you my word of honor, no more do I," said 
 Michael. 
 
 " And in God's name, why whiskers ? " cried Morris, 
 pointing in a ghastly manner at his cousin. *' Does my 
 brain reel ? How whiskers ? " 
 
 "Oh, that's a matter of detail," said Michael. 
 
 There was another silence, during which Morris ap- 
 peared to himself to be shot in a trapeze as high as St. 
 Paul's, and as low as Baker Street Station. 
 
 " Let us recapitulate," said Michael, "unless it's really 
 a dream, in which case I wish Teena would call me for 
 breakfast. My friend Pitman, here, received a barrel 
 which, it now appears, was meant for you. The barrel 
 contained the body of a man. How or why you killed 
 him . . ." 
 
 "I never laid a hand on him," protested Morris. 
 "This is what I have dreaded all along. But think, 
 Michael! I'm not that kind of man; with all my faults, 
 I wouldn't touch a hair of anybody's head, and it was 
 all dead loss to me. He got killed in that vile accident." 
 
 Suddenly Michael was seized by mirth so prolonged 
 and excessive that his companions supposed beyond a 
 doubt his reason had deserted him. Again and again 
 he struggled to compose himself, and again and again 
 laughter overwhelmed him like a tide. In all this mad- 
 dening interview there had been no more spectral feature 
 than this of Michael's merriment; and Pitman and Mor- 
 ris, drawn together by the common fear, exchanged 
 glances of anxiety. 
 
 301
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Morris," gasped the lawyer, when he was at last 
 able to articulate, "hold on, I see it all now. I can 
 make it all clear in one word. Here's the key: / never 
 guessed it was Uncle Josepb till this moment. ' ' 
 
 This remark produced an instant lightening of the 
 tension for Morris; for Pitman, it quenched the last ray 
 of hope and daylight. Uncle Joseph, whom he had left 
 an hour ago in Norfolk Street, pasting newspaper cut- 
 tings? it? the dead body? then who was he, Pit- 
 man ? and was this Waterloo Station or Colney Hatch ? 
 
 "To be sure!" cried Morris; "it was badly smashed, 
 I know. How stupid not to think of that. Why, then, 
 all's clear; and, my dear Michael, I'll tell you what 
 we're saved, both saved. You get the tontine I don't 
 grudge it you the least and I get the leather business, 
 which is really beginning to look up. Declare the death 
 at once, don't mind me in the smallest, don't consider 
 me; declare the death, and we're all right." 
 
 "Ah, but I can't declare it," said Michael. 
 
 "Why not?" cried Morris. 
 
 "I can't produce the corpus, Morris. I've lost it," 
 said the lawyer. 
 
 " Stop a bit," ejaculated the leather merchant. " How 
 is this ? It's not possible. I lost it." 
 
 "Well, I've lost it too, my son," said Michael, with 
 extreme serenity. "Not recognising it, you see, and 
 suspecting something irregular in its origin, I got rid 
 of what shall we say ? got rid of the proceeds at 
 once." 
 
 "You got rid of the body? What made you do 
 that?" wailed Morris. "But you can get it again? 
 You know where it is ?"
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 " I wish I did, Morris, and you may believe me there, 
 for it would be a small sum in my pocket; but the fact 
 is, I don't," said Michael. 
 
 "Good Lord," said Morris, addressing heaven and 
 earth, " good Lord, I've lost the leather business." 
 
 Michael was once more shaken with laughter. 
 
 "Why do you laugh, you fool?" cried his cousin, 
 "you lose more than I. You've bungled it worse than 
 even I did. If you had a spark of feeling, you would be 
 shaking in your boots with vexation. But I'll tell you 
 one thing I'll have that eight hundred pound I'll 
 have that and go to Swan River that's mine, anyway, 
 and your friend must have forged to cash it. Give me 
 the eight hundred, here, upon this platform, or I go 
 straight to Scotland Yard and turn the whole disreputa- 
 ble story inside out." 
 
 "Morris," said Michael, laying his hand upon his 
 shoulder, " hear reason. It wasn't us, it was the other 
 man. We never even searched the body." 
 
 " The other man ? " repeated Morris. 
 
 " Yes, the other man. We palmed Uncle Joseph off 
 upon another man," said Michael. 
 
 "You what? You palmed him off? That's surely 
 a singular expression," said Morris. 
 
 " Yes, palmed him off for a piano," said Michael, with 
 perfect simplicity. "Remarkably full, rich tone," he 
 added. 
 
 Morris carried his hand to his brow and looked at it; 
 it was wet with sweat. " Fever," said he. 
 
 "No, it was a Broad wood grand," said Michael. 
 " Pitman here will tell you if it was genuine or not." 
 
 " Eh ? Oh ! Oh, yes, I believe it was a genuine Broad- 
 203
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 wood; I have played upon it several times myself, "said 
 Pitman. "The three-letter E was broken." 
 
 ' ' Don't say anything more about pianos, " said Morris, 
 with a strong shudder; " I'm not the man I used to be! 
 This this other man let's come to him, if I can only 
 manage to follow. Who is he ? Where can I get hold 
 of him?" 
 
 "Ah, that's the rub," said Michael. "He's been in 
 possession of the desired article, let me see since 
 Wednesday, about four o'clock, and is now, I should 
 imagine, on his way to the isles of Javan and Godire." 
 
 " Michael," said Morris, pleadingly, " I am in a very 
 weak state, and I beg your consideration for a kinsman. 
 Say it slowly again, and be sure you are correct. When 
 did he get it ? " 
 
 Michael repeated his statement. 
 
 " Yes, that's the worst thing yet," said Morris, draw- 
 ing in his breath. 
 
 "What is ?" asked the lawyer. 
 
 "Even the dates are sheer nonsense," said the leather 
 merchant. ' ' The bill was cashed on Tuesday. There's 
 not a gleam of reason in the whole transaction." 
 
 A young gentleman, who had passed the trio and 
 suddenly started and turned back, at this moment laid 
 a heavy hand on Michael's shoulder. 
 
 "Aha, so this is Mr. Dickson ?" said he. 
 
 The trump of judgment could scarce have rung with 
 a more dreadful note in the ears of Pitman and the law- 
 yer. To Morris this erroneous name seemed a legiti- 
 mate enough continuation of the nightmare in which he 
 had so long been wandering. And when Michael, with 
 his brand-new bushy whiskers, broke from the grasp 
 
 204
 
 PITMAN HEARS OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE 
 
 of the stranger and turned to run, and the weird little 
 shaven creature in the low-necked shirt followed his 
 example with a bird-like screech, and the stranger (find- 
 ing the rest of his prey escape him) pounced with a 
 rude grasp on Morris himself, that gentleman's frame ot 
 mind might be very nearly expressed in the colloquial 
 phrase: " I told you so !" 
 
 " I have one of the gang," said Gideon Forsyth. 
 
 "I do not understand," said Morris, dully. 
 
 "Oh, I will make you understand," returned Gideon, 
 grimly. 
 
 "You will be a good friend to me if you can make 
 me understand anything," cried Morris, with a sudden 
 energy of conviction. 
 
 "I don't know you personally, do I ? " continued Gid- 
 eon, examining his unresisting prisoner. ' ' Never mind, 
 I know your friends. They are your friends, are they 
 not ? " 
 
 "I do not understand you," said Morris. 
 
 " You had possibly something to do with a piano ?" 
 suggested Gideon. 
 
 "A piano!" cried Morris, convulsively clasping Gid- 
 eon by the arm. ' ' Then you're the other man ! Where 
 is it ? Where is the body ? And did you cash the 
 draft?" 
 
 " Where is the body ? This is very strange," mused 
 Gideon. " Do you want the body ? " 
 
 "Want it?" cried Morris. "My whole fortune de- 
 pends upon it! I lost it. Where is it? Take me to 
 itl" 
 
 "Oh, you want it, do you? And the other man, 
 Dickson does he want it?" inquired Gideon.
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 " Who do you mean by Dickson ? Oh, Michael Fins- 
 bury ! Why, of course he does ! He lost it too. If he 
 had it he'd have won the tontine to-morrow. " 
 
 "Michael Finsbury! Not the solicitor?" cried Gid- 
 eon. 
 
 "Yes, the solicitor," said Morris. "But where is 
 the body?" 
 
 " Then that is why he sent the brief ! What is Mr. 
 Finsbury's private address ? " asked Gideon. 
 
 "233 King's Road. What brief? Where are you 
 going ? Where is the body ? " cried Morris, clinging to 
 Gideon's arm. 
 
 "1 have lost it myself," returned Gideon, and ran out 
 of the station.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE GREAT VANCE 
 
 MORRIS returned from Waterloo in a frame of mind 
 that baffles description. He was a modest man ; he had 
 never conceived an overweening notion of his own 
 powers ; he knew himself unfit to write a book, turn a 
 table napkin-ring, entertain a Christmas party with 
 legerdemain grapple (in short) any of those conspic- 
 uous accomplishments that are usually classed under the 
 head of genius. He knew he admitted his parts 
 to be pedestrian, but he had considered them (until 
 quite lately) fully equal to the demands of life. And to- 
 day he owned himself defeated: life had the upper 
 hand ; if there had been any means of flight or place to 
 flee to, if the world had been so ordered that a man 
 could leave it like a place of entertainment, Morris 
 would have instantly resigned all further claim on its 
 rewards and pleasures, and, with inexpressible content- 
 ment, ceased to be. As it was, one aim shone before 
 him : he could get home. Even as the sick dog crawls 
 under the sofa, Morris could shut the door of John Street 
 and be alone. 
 
 The dusk was falling when he drew near this place 
 of refuge ; and the first thing that met his eyes was the 
 figure of a man upon the step, alternately plucking at 
 
 207
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 the bell-handle and pounding on the panels. The man 
 had no hat, his clothes were hideous with filth, he had 
 the air of a hop-picker. Yet Morris knew him; it was 
 John. 
 
 The first impulse of flight was succeeded, in the elder 
 brother's bosom, by the empty quiescence of despair. 
 "What does it matter now?" he thought, and draw- 
 ing forth his latch-key ascended the steps. 
 
 John turned about; his face was ghastly with weari- 
 ness, and dirt and fury; and as he recognised the head 
 of his family, he drew in a long rasping breath, and 
 his eyes glittered. 
 
 "Open that door," he said, standing back. 
 
 "I am going to," said Morris, and added, mentally, 
 "he looks like murder!" 
 
 The brothers passed into the hall, the door closed be- 
 hind them; and suddenly John seized Morris by the 
 shoulders and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. 
 "You mangy little cad," he said, " I'd serve you right 
 to smash your skull ! " And shook him again, so that 
 his teeth rattled and his head smote upon the wall. 
 
 " Don't be violent, Jotinny," said Morris. "It can't 
 do any good now." 
 
 "Shut your mouth," said John, "your time's come 
 to listen." 
 
 He strode into the dining-room, fell into the easy- 
 chair, and taking off one of his burst walking-shoes, 
 nursed for a while his foot like one in agony. "I'm 
 lame for life," he said. " What is there for dinner?" 
 
 "Nothing, Johnny," said Morris. 
 
 " Nothing ? What do you mean by that ? " inquired 
 the Great Vance. " Don't set up your chat to me! " 
 
 28
 
 THE RETURN OF THE GREAT VANCE 
 
 " I mean simply nothing," said his brother. " I have 
 nothing to eat, and nothing to buy it with. I've only 
 had a cup of tea and a sandwich all this day myself." 
 
 "Only a sandwich ?" sneered Vance. "I suppose 
 you're going to complain next. But you had better 
 take care: I've had all I mean to take; and I can tell 
 you what it is, I mean to dine and to dine well. Take 
 your signets and sell them." 
 
 " I can't to-day," objected Morris, " it's Sunday." 
 
 "I tell you I'm going to dine!" cried the younger 
 brother. 
 
 "But if it's not possible, Johnny?" pleaded the 
 other. 
 
 ' ' You nincompoop ! " cried Vance. "Ain't we house- 
 holders ? Don't they know us at that hotel where Uncle 
 Parker used to come? Be off with you; and if you 
 ain't back in half an hour, and if the dinner ain't good, 
 first I'll lick you till you don't want to breathe, and then 
 I'll go straight to the police and blow the gaff. Do you 
 understand that, Morris Finsbury ? Because if you do 
 you had better jump." 
 
 The idea smiled even upon the wretched Morris, who 
 was sick with famine. He sped upon his errand, and 
 returned to find John still nursing his foot in the arm- 
 chair. 
 
 "What would you like to drink, Johnny?" he in- 
 quired, soothingly. 
 
 " Fizz," said John. " Some of the poppy stuff from 
 the end bin; a bottle of the old port that Michael liked, 
 to follow; and see and don't shake the port. And look 
 here, light the fire and the gas, and draw down the 
 blinds ; it's cold and it's getting dark. And then you 
 
 209
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 can lay the cloth. And, I say here, you! bring me 
 down some clothes." 
 
 The room looked comparatively habitable by the time 
 the dinner came; and the dinner itself was good: strong 
 gravy soup, filets of sole, mutton chops and tomato 
 sauce, roast beef done rare with roast potatoes, cabinet 
 pudding, a piece of Chester cheese, and some early cel- 
 ery: a meal uncompromisingly British, but supporting. 
 
 "Thank God! " said John, his nostrils sniffing wide, 
 surprised by joy into the unwonted formality of grace. 
 "Now I'm going to take this chair with my back to the 
 fire there's been a strong frost these two last nights, 
 and I can't get it out of my bones; the celery will be 
 just the ticket I'm going to sit here, and you are go- 
 ing to stand there, Morris Finsbury, and play butler." 
 
 "But, Johnny, I'm so hungry myself," pleaded Morris. 
 
 "You can have what I leave," said Vance. "You're 
 just beginning to pay your score, my daisy ; I owe you 
 one pound ten; don't you rouse the British lion!" 
 There was something indescribably menacing in the 
 face and voice of the Great Vance as he uttered these 
 words, at which the soul of Morris withered. ' ' There ! " 
 resumed the feaster, "give us a glass of the fizz to start 
 with. Gravy soup! And I thought I didn't like gravy 
 soup! Do you know how I got here ? " he asked, with 
 another explosion of wrath. 
 
 "No, Johnny, how could I?" said the obsequious 
 Morris. 
 
 "I walked on my ten toes!" cried John; "tramped 
 the whole way from Browndean ; and begged ! I would 
 like to see you beg. It's not so easy as you might sup- 
 pose. I played it on being a shipwrecked mariner from 
 
 210
 
 THE RETURN OF THE GREAT VANCE 
 
 Blytb ; I don't know where Blyth is, do you ? but I 
 thought it sounded natural. I begged from a little beast 
 of a school-boy, and he forked out a bit of twine, and 
 asked me to make a clove-hitch; I did, too, I know I 
 did, but he said it wasn't, he said it was a granny's 
 knot, and I was a what d'ye call em, and he would 
 give me in charge. Then I begged from a naval officer 
 
 he never bothered me with knots, but he only gave 
 me a tract ; there's a nice account of the British navy ! 
 
 and then from a widow woman that sold lollipops, 
 and I got a hunch of bread from her. Another party I 
 fell in with said you could generally always get bread ; 
 and the thing to do was to break a plate-glass window 
 and get into gaol ; seemed rather a brilliant scheme. Pass 
 the beef." 
 
 "Why didn't you stay at Browndean ?" Morris ven- 
 tured to inquire. 
 
 " Skittles ! " said John. "On what ? The Pink Un 
 and a measly religious paper ? I had to leave Brown- 
 dean ; I had to, I tell you. I got tick at a public, and 
 set up to be the Great Vance; so would you, if you were 
 leading such a beastly existence! And a card stood me 
 a lot of ale and stuff, and we got swipey, talking about 
 music-halls and the piles of .tin I got for singing; and 
 then they got me on to sing ' Around her splendid form 
 I weaved the magic circle,' and then he said I couldn't 
 be Vance, and I stuck to it like grim death I was. It 
 was rot of me to sing, of course, but I thought I could 
 brazen it out with a set of yokels. It settled my hash 
 at the public," said John, with a sigh. " And then the 
 last thing was the carpenter " 
 
 "Our landlord?" inquired Morris, 
 an
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "That's the party," said John. "He came nosing 
 about the place, and then wanted to know where the 
 water-butt was, and the bed-clothes. I told him to go 
 to the devil; so would you too, when there was no pos- 
 sible thing to say! And then he said I had pawned 
 them, and did I know it was felony ? Then I made a 
 pretty neat stroke. I remembered he was deaf, and 
 talked a whole lot of rot, very politely, just so low he 
 couldn't hear a word. ' I don't hear you,' says he. ' I 
 know you don't, my buck, and I don't mean you to,' 
 says I, smiling away like a haberdasher. ' I'm hard of 
 hearing,' he roars. ' I'd be in a pretty hot corner if you 
 weren't,' says I, making signs as if I was explaining 
 everything. It was tip-top as long as it lasted. ' Well,' 
 he said, ' I'm deaf, worse luck, but I bet the constable 
 can hear you.' And off he started one way, and I the 
 other. They got a spirit-lamp, and the Pink Un, and 
 that old religious paper, and another periodical you sent 
 me. I think you must have been drunk it had a 
 name like one of those spots that Uncle Joseph used to 
 hold forth at, and it was all full of the most awful 
 swipes about poetry and the use of the globes. It was 
 the kind of thing that nobody could read out of a lunatic 
 asylum. The Atbceneum, that was the name! Golly, 
 what a paper! " 
 
 "Athenceum, you mean," said Morris. 
 
 "I don't care what you call it," said John, " so as I 
 don't require to take it in ! There, I feel better. Now 
 I'm going to sit by the fire in the easy chair; pass me 
 the cheese, and the celery, and the bottle of port no, 
 a champagne glass, it holds more. And now you can 
 pitch in, there's some of the fish left, and a chop, and
 
 THE RETURN OF THE GREAT VANCE 
 
 some fizz. Ah," sighed tue refreshed pedestrian, "Mi- 
 chael was right about that port; there's old and vatted 
 for you! Michael's a man I like; he's clever and reads 
 books, and the Atbceneum, and all that; but he's not 
 dreary to meet, he don't talk Atbceneum like the other 
 parties ; why, the most of them would throw a blight 
 over a skittle alley 1 Talking of Michael, I ain't bored 
 myself to put the question, because of course I knew it 
 from the first. You've made a hash of it, eh ? " 
 
 "Michael made a hash of it," said Morris, flushing 
 dark. 
 
 "What have we got to do with that?" inquired 
 John. 
 
 " He has lost the body, that's what we have to do 
 with it," cried Morris. " He has lost the body, and the 
 death can't be established." 
 
 " Hold on," said John. ' I thought you didn't want 
 to?" 
 
 "Oh, we're far past that," said his brother. "It's 
 not the tontine now, it's the leather business, Johnny ; 
 it's the clothes upon our back." 
 
 "Stow the slow music," said John, "and tell your 
 story from beginning to end." 
 
 Morris did as he was bid. 
 
 "Well, now, what did I tell you?" cried the Great 
 Vance, when the other had done. " But I know one 
 thing; I'm not going to be humbugged out of my 
 property." 
 
 "I should like to know what you mean to do," said 
 Morris. 
 
 "I'll tell you that," responded John, with extreme 
 decision. " I'm going to put my interests in the hands
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 of the smartest lawyer in London; and whether you go 
 to quod or not is a matter of indifference to me." 
 
 "Why, Johnny, we're in the same boat! " expostu- 
 lated Morris. 
 
 "Are we?" cried his brother. "I bet we're not! 
 Have I committed forgery ? have I lied about Uncle Jo- 
 seph? have I put idiotic advertisements in the comic 
 papers ? have I smashed other people's statues ? I like 
 your cheek, Morris Finsbury. No, I've let you run my 
 affairs too long; now they shall go to Michael I like 
 Michael, anyway; and it's time I understood my situa- 
 tion." 
 
 At this moment the brethren were interrupted by a 
 ring at the bell, and Morris going timorously to the 
 door, received from the hands of a commissionnaire a 
 letter addressed in the hand of Michael Its content; 
 ran as follows: 
 
 "Mows FnsMfltr, if this should meet the eye of, be wffl hear of 
 SOMETHOC TO MS AovAVTAGE at my office, m Qunooy Lane, at 10 A.M 
 
 to- rr. enow. 
 
 "MICHAEL FBSMKY." 
 
 So utter was Morris's subjection that he did not wait 
 to be asked, but handed the note to John as soon as he 
 had glanced at it himself. 
 
 4 ' That's the way to write a letter, " cried John. * ' No- 
 body but Michael could have written that" 
 
 And Morris did not even claim the credit of priority.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEATHER BUSINESS 
 
 FINSBURY brothers were ushered, at ten the next morn- 
 ing, into a large apartment in Michael's office ; the Great 
 Vance, somewhat restored from yesterday's exhaustion, 
 but with one foot in a slipper; Morris, not positively 
 damaged, but a man ten years older than he who had 
 left Bournemouth eight days before, his face ploughed 
 full of anxious wrinkles, his dark hair liberally grizzled 
 at the temples. 
 
 Three persons were seated at a table to receive them : 
 Michael in the midst, Gideon Forsyth at his right hand, 
 on his left an ancient gentleman with spectacles and 
 silver hair. 
 
 "Byjings, it's Uncle Joe!" cried John. 
 
 But Morris approached his uncle with a pale counte- 
 nance and glittering eyes. 
 
 "I'll tell you what you did!" he cried. "You ab- 
 sconded! " 
 
 "Good-morning, Morris Finsbury," returned Joseph, 
 with no less asperity; "you are looking seriously ill." 
 
 "No use making trouble now," remarked Michael. 
 "Look the facts in the face. Your uncle, as you see, 
 was not so much as shaken in the accident; a man of 
 your humane disposition ought to be delighted." 
 
 215
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Then, if that's so," Morris broke forth, "how about 
 the body? You don't mean to insinuate that thing I 
 schemed and sweated for, and colported with my own 
 hands, was the body of a total stranger?" 
 
 "Oh, no, we can't go as far as that," said Michael, 
 soothingly; "you may have met him at the club." 
 
 Morris fell into a chair. " I would have found it out 
 if it had come to the house," he complained. "And 
 why didn't it ? why did it go to Pitman ? what right 
 had Pitman to open it ? " 
 
 "If you come to that, Morris, what have you done 
 with the colossal Hercules ? " asked Michael. 
 
 " He went through it with the meat-axe," said John. 
 "It's all in spillikens in the back garden." 
 
 "Well, there's one thing," snapped Morris; "there's 
 my uncle again, my fraudulent trustee. He's mine, 
 anyway. And the tontine, too. I claim the tontine; I 
 claim it now. I believe Uncle Masterman's dead." 
 
 "I must put a stop to this nonsense," said Michael, 
 " and that forever. You say too near the truth. In one 
 sense your uncle is dead, and has been so long; but not 
 in the sense of the tontine, which it is even on the cards 
 he may yet live to win. Uncle Joseph saw him this 
 morning; he will tell you he still lives, but his mind is 
 in abeyance." 
 
 "He did not know me," said Joseph; to do him jus- 
 tice, not without emotion. 
 
 "So you're out again there, Morris," said John. "My 
 eye, what a fool you've made of yourself ! " 
 
 " And that was why you wouldn't compromise," said 
 Morris. 
 
 "As for the absurd position in which you and Uncle
 
 FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEATHER BUSINESS 
 
 Joseph have been making yourselves an exhibition," re- 
 sumed Michael, " it is more than time it came to an end. 
 I have prepared a proper discharge in full, which you 
 shall sign as a preliminary." 
 
 "What!" cried Morris, "and lose my seven thou- 
 sand eight hundred pounds, and the leather business, 
 and the contingent interest, and get nothing ? Thank 
 you ! " 
 
 "It's like you to feel gratitude, Morris," began 
 Michael. 
 
 "Oh, I know it's no good appealing to you, you 
 sneering devil!" cried Morris. " But there's a stranger 
 present, I can't think why, and I appeal to him. I was 
 robbed of this money when I was an orphan, a mere 
 child, at a commercial academy. Since then I've never 
 had a wish but to get back my own. You may hear a 
 lot of stuff about me; and there's no doubt at times I 
 have been ill-advised. But it's the pathos of my situa- 
 tion; that's what I want to show you." 
 
 "Morris," interrupted Michael, "I do wish you would 
 let me add one point, for I think it will affect your judg- 
 ment. It's pathetic too since that's your taste in lit- 
 erature." 
 
 "Well, what is it?" said Morris. 
 
 " It's only the name of one of the persons who's to 
 witness your signature, Morris, " replied Michael. " His 
 name's Moss, my dear." 
 
 There was a long silence. " I might have been sure 
 it was you! " cried Morris. 
 
 "You'll sign, won't you ?" said Michael. 
 
 "Do you know what you're doing?" cried Morris. 
 "You're compounding a felony." 
 
 317
 
 THE WRONG BOX 
 
 "Very well, then, we won't compound it, Morris," 
 returned Michael. "See how little I understood the 
 sterling integrity of your character! I thought you 
 would prefer it so." 
 
 "Look here, Michael," said John, "this is all very fine 
 and large; but how about me? Morris is gone up, I 
 see that; but I'm not. And I was robbed too, mind 
 you; and just as much an orphan, and at the blessed 
 same academy as himself." 
 
 "Johnnie," said Michael, "don't you think you'd 
 better leave it to me ? " 
 
 "I'm your man," said John. "You wouldn't de- 
 ceive a poor orphan, I'll take my oath. Morris, you 
 sign that document, or I'll start in and astonish your 
 weak mind." 
 
 With a sudden alacrity, Morris proffered his willing- 
 ness; clerks were brought in; the discharge was exe- 
 cuted; and there was Joseph a free man once more. 
 
 "And now," said Michael, "hear what I propose to 
 do. Here, John and Morris, is the leather business 
 made over to the pair of you in partnership; I have 
 valued it at the lowest possible figure, Pogram and 
 Jarris's. And here is a cheque for the balance of your 
 fortune. Now you see, Morris, you start fresh from the 
 Commercial Academy; and as you said yourself the 
 leather business was looking up, I suppose you'll prob- 
 ably marry before long. Here's your marriage present; 
 from a Mr. Moss." 
 
 Morris bounded on his check with a crimsoned coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 "I don't understand the performance," remarked 
 John. " It seems too good to be true." 
 
 218
 
 FINAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEATHER BUSINESS 
 
 "It's simply a re-adjustment/' Michael explained. 
 "I take up Uncle Joseph's liabilities; and if he gets the 
 tontine, it's to be mine. If my father gets it, it's mine 
 anyway, you see. So that I'm rather advantageously 
 placed." 
 
 "Morris, my unconverted friend, you've got left," 
 was John's comment. 
 
 "And now, Mr. Forsyth," resumed Michael, turning 
 to his silent guest, "here are all the criminals before 
 you, except Pitman. I really didn't like to interrupt 
 his scholastic career; but you can have him arrested at 
 the Seminary : 1 know his hours. Here we are, then ; 
 we're not pretty to look at; what do you propose to do 
 with us?" 
 
 "Nothing in the world, Mr. Finsbury," returned Gid- 
 eon. "I seem to understand that this gentleman" 
 indicating Morris " is the fons et origo of the trouble; 
 and from what I gather, he has already paid through 
 the nose. And really, to be quite frank, I do not see 
 who is to gain by any scandal; not I, at least. And 
 besides, I have to thank you for that brief." 
 
 Michael blushed. " It was the least I could do to let 
 you have some business," he said. "But there's one 
 thing more. I don't want you to misjudge poor Pit- 
 man, who is the most harmless being upon earth; I 
 wish you would dine with me to-night, and see the 
 creature on his native heath say, at Verrey's?" 
 
 "I have no engagement, Mr. Finsbury," replied Gid- 
 eon. "I shall be delighted. But subject to your 
 judgment can we do nothing for the man in the cart? 
 I have qualms of conscience." 
 
 "Nothing but sympathise," said Michael. 
 219
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 A TRIO AND QUARTETTE 
 
 WMTTW m COLLABORATION WITH LLOYD OSBOURHF 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE TRIO
 
 Copyright, 1893, by 
 
 ROBERT LOUJS STEVENSO*' AND 
 
 LLOYD OSBOURNI.
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 THROUGHOUT the island world of the Pacific, 
 scattered men of many European races and from 
 almost every grade of society carry activity and dis- 
 seminate disease. Some prosper, some vegetate. Some 
 have mounted the steps of thrones and owned islands 
 and navies. Others, again, must marry for a livelihood; 
 a strapping, merry, chocolate-coloured dame supports 
 them in sheer idleness; and dressed like natives, but 
 still retaining some foreign element of gait or attitude, 
 still perhaps with some relic (such as a single eye-glass) 
 of the officer and gentleman, they sprawl in palm-leaf 
 verandas, and entertain an island audience with memoirs 
 of the music-hall. And there are still others, less pli- 
 able, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps less base, who 
 continue, even in these isles of plenty, to lack bread. 
 
 At the far end of the town of Papeete, three such men 
 were seated on the beach, under a purao tree. 
 
 It was late. Long ago the band had broken up and 
 marched musically home, a motley troop of men and 
 
 52}
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 women, merchant-clerks and navy officers dancing in 
 its wake, arms about waist and crowned with garlands. 
 Long ago darkness and silence had gone from house to 
 house about the tiny pagan city. Only the street lamps 
 shone on, making a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous 
 alleys, or drawing a tremulous image on the waters of 
 the port. A sound of snoring ran among the piles of 
 lumber by the Government pier. It was wafted ashore 
 from the graceful, clipper-bottomed schooners, where 
 they lay moored close in like dinghies, and their crews 
 were stretched upon the deck, under the open sky, or 
 huddled in a rude tent amidst the disorder of merchan- 
 dise. 
 
 But the men under the purao had no thought of sleep. 
 The same temperature in England would have passed 
 without remark in summer; but it was bitter cold for 
 the South Seas. Inanimate nature knew it, and the 
 bottle of cocoanut oil stood frozen in every bird-cage 
 house about the island; and the men knew it, and shiv- 
 ered. They wore flimsy cotton clothes, the same they 
 had sweated in by day and run the gantlet of the tropic 
 showers; and to complete their evil case, they had had 
 no breakfast to mention, less dinner, and no supper at 
 all. 
 
 In the telling South Sea phrase, these three men were 
 on the beach. Common calamity had brought them 
 acquainted, as the three most miserable English-speak- 
 ing creatures in Tahiti; and beyond their misery, they 
 knew next to nothing of each other, not even their true 
 names. For each had made a long apprenticeship in 
 going downward; and, each at some stage of the de- 
 scent, had been shamed into the adoption of an alias. 
 
 224
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 And yet not one of them had figured in a court of jus- 
 tice. Two were men of kindly virtues; and one, as he 
 sat and shivered under the purao, had a tattered Virgil 
 in his pocket. 
 
 Certainly, if money could have been raised upon the 
 book, Robert Herrick would long ago have sacrificed 
 that last possession. But the demand for literature, 
 which is so marked a feature in some parts of the South 
 Seas, extends not so far as the dead tongues; and the 
 Virgil, which he could not exchange against a meal, 
 had often consoled him in his hunger. He would study 
 it, as he lay with tightened belt on the floor of the old 
 calaboose, seeking favourite passages, and finding new 
 ones only less beautiful because they lacked the conse- 
 cration of remembrance. Or he would pause on random 
 country walks, sit on the pathside, gazing over the sea, 
 on the mountains of Eimeo, and dip into the y^neid, 
 seeking sorter. And if the oracle (as is the way of 
 oracles) replied with no very certain or encouraging 
 voice, visions of England, at least, would throng upon 
 the exile's memory, the busy schoolroom; the green 
 playing-fields ; holidays at home, and the perennial roar 
 of London ; and the fireside, and the white head of his 
 father. For it is the destiny of those grave, restrained, 
 and classic writers, with whom we make enforced and 
 often painful acquaintanceship at school, to pass into the 
 blood and become native in the memory; so that a 
 phrase of Virgil speaks not so much of Mantua or Au- 
 gustus, but of English places and the student's own ir- 
 revocable youth. 
 
 Robert Herrick was the son of an intelligent, active, 
 and ambitious man, small partner in a considerable Lon- 
 
 325
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 don house. Hopes were conceived of the boy ; he was 
 sent to a good school, gained there an Oxford scholar- 
 ship, and proceeded in course to the Western university. 
 With all his talent and taste (and he had much of both) 
 Robert was deficient in consistency and intellectual man- 
 hood, wandered in by-paths of study, worked at music 
 or at metaphysics when he should have been at Greek, 
 and took at last a paltry degree. Almost at the same 
 time the London house was disastrously wound up ; Mr. 
 Herrick must begin the world again as a clerk in a 
 strange office, and Robert relinquish his ambitions, and 
 accept with gratitude a career that he detested and de- 
 spised. He had no head for figures, no interest in af- 
 fairs, detested the constraint of hours, and despised the 
 aims and the success of merchants. To grow rich was 
 none of his ambitions; rather to do well. A worse or 
 a more bold young man would have refused the destiny; 
 perhaps tried his fortune with his pen ; perhaps enlisted. 
 Robert, more prudent, possibly more timid, consented 
 to embrace that way of life in which he could most 
 readily assist his family. But he did so with a mind di- 
 vided; fled the neighbourhood of former comrades, and 
 chose, out of several positions placed at his disposal, a 
 clerkship in New York. 
 
 His career thenceforth was one of unbroken shame. 
 He did not drink, he was exactly honest, he was never 
 rude to his employers, yet was everywhere discharged. 
 Bringing no interest to his duties, he brought no atten- 
 tion ; his day was a tissue of things neglected and things 
 done amiss ; and from place to place, and from town to 
 town, he carried the character of one thoroughly incom- 
 petent. No man can hear the word applied to him 
 
 226
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 without some flush of colour, as indeed there is none 
 other that so emphatically slams in a man's face the door 
 of self-respect. And to Herrick, who was conscious of 
 talents and acquirements, who looked down upon those 
 humble duties in which he was found wanting, the pain 
 was the more exquisite. Early in his fall he had ceased 
 to be able to make remittances ; shortly after, having 
 nothing but failure to communicate, he ceased writing 
 home; and about a year before his tale begins, turned 
 suddenly upon the streets of San Francisco by a vulgar 
 and infuriated German Jew, he had broken the last bonds 
 of self-respect, and upon a sudden impulse, changed his 
 name, and invested his last dollar in a passage on the 
 mail brigantine, the City of Papeete. With what ex- 
 pectation he had trimmed his flight for the South Seas, 
 Herrick perhaps scarcely knew. Doubtless there were 
 fortunes to be made in pearl and copra; doubtless others, 
 not more gifted than himself, had climbed in the island 
 world to be queens' consorts and kings' ministers. But 
 if Herrick had gone there with any manful purpose, he 
 would have kept his father's name; the alias betrayed 
 his moral bankruptcy ; he had struck his flag; he enter- 
 tained no hope to reinstate himself or help his strait- 
 ened family ; and he came to the islands (where he knew 
 the climate to be soft, bread cheap, and manners easy) a 
 skulker from life's battle and his own immediate duty. 
 Failure, he had said, was his portion ; let it be a pleasant 
 failure. 
 
 It is fortunately not enough to say, " I will be base." 
 Herrick continued in the islands his career of failure; 
 but in the new scene, and under the new name, he 
 suffered no less sharply than before. A place was got, 
 
 227
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 it was lost in the old style. From the long-suffering of 
 the keepers of restaurants, he fell to more open charity 
 upon the wayside; as time went on, good nature be- 
 came weary, and, after a repulse or two, Herrick be- 
 came shy. There were women enough who would 
 have supported a far worse and a far uglier man; Her- 
 rick never met or never knew them ; or if he did both, 
 some manlier feeling would revolt, and he preferred 
 starvation. Drenched with rains, broiling by day, 
 shivering by night, a disused and ruinous prison for a 
 bedroom, his diet begged or pilfered out of rubbish 
 heaps, his associates two creatures equally outcast with 
 himself, he had drained for months the cup of penitence. 
 He had known what it was to be resigned, what it was 
 to break forth in a childish fury of rebellion against 
 fate, and what it was to sink into the coma of despair. 
 The time had changed him. He told himself no longer 
 tales of an easy and perhaps agreeable declension ; he 
 read his nature otherwise; he had proved himself in- 
 capable of rising, and he now learned by experience 
 that he could not stoop to fall. Something that was 
 scarcely pride or strength, that was perhaps only refine- 
 ment, withheld him from capitulation; but he looked 
 on upon his own misfortune with a growing rage, and 
 sometimes wondered at his patience. 
 
 It was now the fourth month completed, and still 
 there was no change or sign of change. The moon, 
 racing through a world of flying clouds of every size 
 and shape and density, some black as inkstains, some 
 delicate as lawn, threw the marvel of her Southern 
 brightness over the same lovely and detested scene, 
 the island mountains crowned with the perennial island 
 
 228
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 cloud, the embowered city studded with rare lamps, 
 the masts in the harbour, the smooth mirror of the lagoon, 
 and the mole of the barrier-reef on which the breakers 
 whitened. The moon shone, too, with bull's-eye 
 sweeps, on his companions, on the stalwart frame 
 of the American who called himself Brown, and was 
 known to be a master-mariner in some disgrace; and 
 on the dwarfish person, the pale eyes, and toothless 
 smile of a vulgar and bad-hearted cockney clerk. Here 
 was society for Robert Herrick! The Yankee skipper 
 was a man at least ; he had sterling qualities of tender- 
 ness and resolution ; he was one whose hand you could 
 take without a blush. But there was no redeeming grace 
 about the other, who called himself sometimes Hay and 
 sometimes Tomkins, and laughed at the discrepancy; 
 who had been employed in every store in Papeete, for 
 the creature was able in his way; who had been dis- 
 charged from each in turn, for he was wholly vile ; who 
 had alienated all his old employers, so that they passed 
 him in the street as if he were a dog, and all his old 
 comrades, so that they shunned him as they would a 
 creditor. 
 
 Not long before, a ship from Peru had brought an in- 
 fluenza, and it now raged in the island, and particularly 
 in Papeete. From all round the purao arose and fell a 
 dismal sound of men coughing, and strangling as they 
 coughed. The sick natives, with the islander's impa- 
 tience of a touch of fever, had crawled from their houses 
 to be cool, and, squatting on the shore or on the beached 
 canoes, painfully expected the new day. Even as the 
 crowing of cocks goes about the country in the night, 
 from farm to farm, accesses of coughing arose, and spread, 
 
 729
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 and died in the distance, and sprang up again. Each 
 miserable shiverer caught the suggestion from his neigh- 
 bour, was torn for some minutes by that cruel ecstasy, 
 and left spent and without voice or courage when it 
 passed. If a man had pity to spend, Papeete Beach, on 
 that cold night and in that infected season, was a place 
 to spend it on. And of all the sufferers, perhaps the 
 least deserving, but surely the most pitiable, was the 
 London clerk. He was used to another life, to houses, 
 beds, nursing, and the dainties of the sick-room ; he lay 
 here now, in the cold open, exposed to the gusting of 
 the wind, and with an empty belly. He was besides 
 infirm ; the disease shook him to the vitals ; and his com- 
 panions watched his endurance with surprise. A pro- 
 found commiseration filled them, and contended with 
 and conquered their abhorrence. The disgust attendant 
 on so ugly a sickness magnified this dislike; at the same 
 time, and with more than compensating strength, shame 
 for a sentiment so inhuman bound them the more straitly 
 to his service ; and even the evil they knew of him swelled 
 their solicitude, for the thought of death is always least 
 supportable when it draws near to the merely sensual 
 and selfish. Sometimes they held him up; sometimes, 
 with mistaken helpfulness, they beat him between the 
 shoulders ; and when the poor wretch lay back, ghastly 
 and spent, after a paroxysm of coughing, they would 
 sometimes peer into his face, doubtfully exploring it for 
 any mark of life. There is no one but has some virtue ; 
 that of the clerk was courage, and he would make haste 
 to reassure them in a pleasantry not always decent. 
 
 "I'm all right, pals," he gasped once; "this is the 
 thing to strengthen the muscles of the larynx."
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 " Well, you take the cake! " cried the captain. 
 
 "Oh, I'm good-plucked enough," pursued the suf- 
 ferer, with a broken utterance; "but it do seem bloom- 
 in' 'ard to me that I should be the only party to be down 
 with this form of vice, and the only one to do the funny 
 business. I think one of you other parties might walk 
 up. Tell a fellow something." 
 
 "The trouble is, we've nothing to tell, my son," re- 
 turned the captain. 
 
 "I'll tell you, if you like, what I was thinking, "said 
 Herrick. 
 
 " Tell us anything," said the clerk. " I only want to 
 be reminded that I ain't dead." 
 
 Herrick took up his parable, lying on his face, and 
 speaking slowly and scarce above his breath ; not like a 
 man who has anything to say, but like one talking 
 against time. 
 
 "Well, I was thinking this," he began. "I was 
 thinking 1 lay on Papeete Beach one night, all moon 
 and squalls, and fellows coughing, and I was cold 
 and hungry, and down in the mouth, and was about 
 ninety years of age, and had spent about two hundred 
 and twenty of them on Papeete Beach. And I was 
 thinking I wished I had a ring to rub, or had a fairy 
 godmother, or could raise Beelzebub. And I was try- 
 ing to remember how you did it. I knew you made a 
 ring of skulls, for I had seen that in the ' Freischutz ' ; 
 and that you took off your coat and turned up your 
 sleeves, for I had seen Formes do that when he was 
 playing Kaspar, and you could see, by the way he went 
 about it, it was a business he had studied; and that you 
 ought to have something to kick up a smoke and a bad 
 
 aji
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 smell, I daresay a cigar might do, and that you 
 ought to say the Lord's Prayer backward. Well, I 
 wondered if I could do that; it seemed rather a feat, 
 you see. And then I wondered if I could say it forward, 
 and I thought I did. Well, no sooner had I got to 
 ' world without end ' than I saw an old man in a pariu, 
 and with a mat under his arm, come along the beach 
 from the town. He was rather a hard-favoured old 
 party, and he limped and crippled, and all the time he 
 kept coughing. At first I didn't cotton to his looks, I 
 thought, and then I got sorry for the old soul because 
 he coughed so hard. I remembered we had some of 
 that cough mixture the American consul gave the cap- 
 tain for Hay. It never did Hay a ha'p'orth of service, 
 but I thought it might do the old gentleman's business 
 for him, and stood up. 'Yorana ! ' said I. 'Yorana! ' 
 says he. 'Look here,' I said, 'I've got some first-rate 
 stuff in a bottle; it'll fix your cough, savvy ? Harry 
 my, 1 and I'll measure you out a tablespoonful in the palm 
 of my hand, for all our plate is at the banker's.' So I 
 thought the old party came up, and the nearer he came 
 the less I took to him. But I had passed my word, you 
 see." 
 
 " Wot is this bloomin' drivel ? " interrupted the clerk. 
 " It's like the rot there is in tracts." 
 
 "It's a story. I used to tell them to the kids at 
 home," said Herrick. "If it bores you, I'll drop it." 
 
 "Oh, cut along!" returned the sick man irritably 
 "It's better than nothing." 
 
 "Well," continued Herrick, "I had no sooner given 
 him the cough mixture than he seemed to straighten up 
 
 1 Come here.
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 and change, and I saw he wasn't a Tahitian after all, 
 but some kind of an Arab, and had a long beard on his 
 chin. 'One good turn deserves another,' says he. 'I 
 am a magician out of the Arabian Nights, and this mat 
 that I have under my arm is the original carpet of Mo- 
 hammed Ben Somebody-or-other. Say the word and 
 you can have a cruise upon the carpet.' 'You don't 
 mean to say this is the Travelling Carpet?' I cried. 
 ' You bet 1 do,' said he. You've been to America since 
 last I read the Arabian Nights,' said I, a little suspicious. 
 'I should think so,' said he. 'Been everywhere. A 
 man with a carpet like this isn't going to moulder in a 
 semi-detached villa.' Well, that struck me as reason- 
 able. 'All right,' I said, 'and do you mean to tell me 
 I can get on that carpet and go straight to London, 
 England ? ' I said, ' London, England,' captain, because 
 he seemed to have been so long in your part of the 
 world. ' In the crack of a whip,' said he. I figured up 
 the time. What is the difference between Papeete and 
 London, captain ? " 
 
 "Taking Greenwich and Point Venus, nine hours, 
 odd minutes and seconds," replied the mariner. 
 
 "Well, that's about what I made it," resumed Her- 
 rick; "about nine hours. Calling this three in the 
 morning, I made out I would drop into London about 
 noon, and the idea tickled me immensely. 'There's 
 only one bother,' I said, 'I haven't a copper cent. It 
 would be a pity to go to London and not buy the morn- 
 ing Standard. ' ' Oh ! ' said he, ' you don't realise the 
 conveniences of this carpet. You see this pocket? 
 You've only got to stick your hand in, and you pull it 
 out filled with sovereigns.' " 
 
 233
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "Double-eagles, wasn't it?" inquired the captain. 
 
 "That was what it was ! " cried Herrick. ' ' I thought 
 they seemed unusually big, and I remember now I had 
 to go to the money changers at Charing Cross and get 
 English silver." 
 
 "Oh, you went then?" said the clerk. "Wot did 
 you do ? Bet you had a B. and S. ! " 
 
 "Well, you see, it was just as the old boy said, like 
 the cut of a whip," said Herrick. "The one minute I 
 was here on the beach at three in the morning, the next 
 I was in front of the Golden Cross at midday. At first 
 I was dazzled, and covered my eyes, and there didn't 
 seem the smallest change; the roar of the Strand and 
 the roar of the reef were like the same; hark to it now, 
 and you can hear the cabs and the 'busses rolling and 
 the streets resound! And then at last I would look 
 about, and there was the old place and no mistake, with 
 the statues in the square, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, 
 and the bobbies, and the sparrows, and the hacks; and 
 I can't tell you what I felt like. I felt like crying, I be- 
 lieve, or dancing, or jumping clean over the Nelson col- 
 umn. I was like a fellow caught up out of hell and 
 flung down into the dandiest part of heaven. Then I 
 spotted for a hansom with a spanking horse. ' A shil- 
 ling for yourself if you're there in twenty minutes,' 
 said I to the jarvey. He went a good pace, though, of 
 course, it was a trifle to the carpet; and in nineteen 
 minutes and a half I was at the door." 
 
 "What door?" asked the captain. 
 
 "Oh, a house I know of," returned Herrick. 
 
 "Bet it was a public house!" cried the clerk 
 only these were not his words. "And w'y didn't 
 
 234
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 you take the carpet there instead of trundling in a 
 growler?" 
 
 " I didn't want to startle a quiet street," said the nar- 
 rator. "Bad form. And besides, it was a hansom." 
 
 "Well, and what did you do next?" inquired the 
 captain. 
 
 "Oh, I went in," said Herrick. 
 
 "The old folks ?" asked the captain. 
 
 "That's about it," said the other, chewing a grass. 
 
 "Well, I think you are about the poorest 'and at a 
 yarn!" cried the clerk. "Crikey, it's like 'Ministering 
 Children.' I can tell you there would be more beer and 
 skittles about my little jaunt. I would go and have a 
 B. and S. for luck. Then I would get a big ulster with 
 astrakhan fur, and take my cane, and do the la-de-da 
 down Piccadilly. Then I would go to a slap-up res- 
 taurant, and have green peas and a bottle of fizz and a 
 chump chop Oh! and I forgot, I'd 'ave some devilled 
 w'itebait first, and green gooseberry tart, and 'ot coffee, 
 and some of that form of vice in big bottles with a seal 
 Benedictine that's the bloomin' nyme! Then I'd 
 drop into a theatre, and pal on with some chappies, and 
 do the dancing-rooms and bars and that, and wouldn't 
 go 'ome till morning, till d'ylight doth appear. And the 
 next d'y I'd 'ave water-creases, 'am, muffin, and fresh 
 butter; wouldn't I just ? Oh, my!" 
 
 The clerk was interrupted by a fresh attack of 
 coughing. 
 
 "Well, now, I'll tell you what I would do," said the 
 captain. " I would have none of your fancy rigs with 
 the man driving from the mizzen cross-trees, but a plain 
 fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered tonnage. 
 
 235
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a 
 turkey and a sucking pig. Then I'd go to a wine mer- 
 chant's and get a dozen of champagne and a dozen of 
 some sweet wine, rich and sticky and strong, some- 
 thing in the port or Madeira line, the best in the store. 
 Then I'd bear up for a toy store, and lay out twenty dol- 
 lars in assorted toys for the piccaninnies ; and then to a 
 confectioner's and take in cakes and pies and fancy 
 bread, and that stuff with the plums in it; and then to 
 a news agency, and buy all the papers all the picture 
 ones for the kids, and all the story papers for the old 
 girl : about the Earl discovering himself to Anna Maria^ 
 and the escape of the Lady Maude from the Private Mad- 
 house; and then I'd tell the fellow to drive home." 
 
 "There ought to be some syrup for the kids," sug- 
 gested Herrick. "They like syrup." 
 
 ' Yes, syrup for the kids, red syrup at that! " said the 
 captain. "And those things they pull at and go pop, 
 and have measly poetry inside. And then I tell you 
 we'd have a Thanksgiving Day and Christmas tree com- 
 bined. Great Scott, but I would like to see the kids ! 
 I guess they would light right out of the house when 
 they saw daddy driving up. My little Adar " 
 
 The captain stopped sharply. 
 
 "Well, keep it up," said the clerk. 
 
 "The damned thing is, I don't know if they are n't 
 starving!" cried the captain. 
 
 " They can't be worse off than we are, and that's one 
 comfort, " returned the clerk. " I defy the devil to make 
 me worse off." 
 
 It seemed as if the devil heard him. The light of the 
 moon had been some time cut off, and they had talked 
 
 236
 
 NIGHT ON THE BEACH 
 
 in darkness. Now there was heard a roar, which drew 
 impetuously nearer; the face of the lagoon was seen to 
 whiten, and, before they had staggered to their feet, a 
 squall burst in rain upon the outcasts. The rage and 
 volume of that avalanche, one must have lived in the 
 tropics to conceive; a man panted in its assault as he 
 might pant under a shower bath ; and the world seemed 
 whelmed in night and water. 
 
 They fled, groping for their usual shelter it might 
 be almost called their home in the old calaboose ; came 
 drenched into its empty chambers, and lay down, three 
 sops of humanity, on the cold coral floors. And pres- 
 ently, when the squall was overpassed, the others could 
 hear in the darkness the chattering of the clerk's teeth. 
 
 "I say, you .ellows," he wailed, "for God's sake lie 
 up and try to warm me. I'm blymed if I don't think 
 I'll die else!" 
 
 So the three crept together into one wet mass, and 
 lay until day came, shivering and dozing off, and contin- 
 ually reawakened to wretchedness by the coughing of 
 the clerk.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH. THE THREE LETTERS 
 
 THE clouds were all fled, the beauty of the tropic day 
 was spread upon Papeete; and the wall of breaking 
 seas upon the reef, and the palms upon the islet, already 
 trembled in the heat. A French man-of-war was going 
 out that morning, homeward bound ; she lay in the mid- 
 dle distance of the port, an ant-heap for activity. In the 
 night a schooner had come in, and now lay far out, hard 
 by the passage ; and the yellow flag, the emblem of pes- 
 tilence, flew on her. From up the coast a long proces- 
 sion of canoes headed round the point and toward the 
 market, bright as a scarf with the many-coloured cloth- 
 ing of the natives and the piles of fruit. But not even 
 the beauty and the welcome warmth of the morning, 
 not even these naval movements, so interesting to sail- 
 ors and to idlers, could engage the attention of the out- 
 casts. They were still cold at heart, their mouths sour 
 from the want of sleep, their steps rambling from the 
 lack of food; and they strung like lame geese along the 
 beach in a disheartened silence. It was towards the 
 town they moved; towards the town whence smoke 
 arose, where happier folk were breakfasting; and as 
 they went, their hungry eyes were upon all sides, but 
 they were only scouting for a meal. 
 
 238
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH 
 
 A small and dingy schooner lay snug against the quay, 
 with which it was connected by a plank. On the for- 
 ward deck, under a spot of awning, five Kanakas, who 
 made up the crew, were squatted round a basin of fried 
 feis 1 and drinking coffee from tin mugs. 
 
 ' ' Eight bells ; knock off for breakfast ! " cried ths 
 captain with a miserable heartiness. "Never tried thi? 
 craft before; positively my first appearance; guess I'll 
 draw a bumper house." 
 
 He came close up to where the plank rested on the 
 grassy quay, turned his back upon the schooner, and 
 began to whistle that lively air, "The Irish Washer- 
 woman." It caught the ears of the Kanaka seamen like 
 a preconcerted signal. With one accord they looked 
 up from their meal and crowded to the ship's side, fei 
 in hand, and munching as they looked. Even as a poor 
 brown Pyrenean bear dances in the streets of English 
 towns under his master's baton, even so, but with how 
 much more of spirit and precision, the captain footed it 
 in time to his own whistling, and his long morning 
 shadow capered beyond him on the grass. The Ka- 
 nakas smiled on the performance; Herrick looked on 
 heavy-eyed, hunger for the moment conquering all 
 sense of shame; and a little farther off, but still hard by, 
 the clerk was torn by the seven devils of the influenza. 
 
 The captain stopped suddenly, appeared to perceive 
 his audience for the first time, and represented the part 
 of a man surprised in a private hour of pleasure. 
 
 "Hello!" said he. 
 
 The Kanakas clapped hands and called upon him to 
 go on. 
 
 1 Fei is the hill banana. 
 239
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "No, sir! " said the captain. "No eat, no dance. 
 Savvy?" 
 
 " Poor old man! " returned one of the crew. " Him 
 no eat ? " 
 
 " Lord, no! " said the captain. " Like-um too much 
 eat. No got." 
 
 "All right. Me got," said the sailor. "You tome 
 here. Plenty toffee, plenty fei. Nutha man him tome 
 too. " 
 
 "I guess we'll drop right in," observed the captain; 
 and he and his companions hastened up the plank. 
 They were welcomed on board with the shaking of 
 hands; place was made for them about the basin; a 
 sticky demijohn of molasses was added to the feast in 
 honor of company, and an accordion brought from the 
 forecastle, and significantly laid by the performer's 
 side. 
 
 "Ariana," 1 said he, lightly touching the instrument 
 as he spoke; and he fell to on a long savory fei, made an 
 end of it, raised his mug of coffee, and nodded across at 
 the spokesman of the crew. "Here's your health, old 
 man. You're a credit to the South Pacific, "said he. 
 
 With the unsightly greed of hounds they glutted 
 themselves with the hot food and coffee; and even the 
 clerk revived and the colour deepened in his eyes. The 
 kettle was drained, the basin cleaned ; their entertainers, 
 who had waited on their wants throughout with the 
 pleased hospitality of Polynesians, made haste to bring 
 forward a dessert of island tobacco and rolls of pandanus 
 leaf to serve as paper, and presently all sat about the 
 dishes, puffing like Indian sachems. 
 
 1 By and by. 
 3.40
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH 
 
 " When a man 'as breakfast every day, he don't know 
 wot it is," observed the clerk. 
 
 "The next point is dinner," said Herrick; and then 
 with a passionate utterance: "I wish to God I was a 
 Kanaka! " 
 
 "There's one thing sure," said the captain. "I'm 
 about desperate. I'd rather hang than rot here much 
 longer." And with the word he took the accordion and 
 struck up "Home, Sweet Home." 
 
 ' ' Oh, drop that ! " cried Herrick. ' ' I can't stand that. " 
 
 "No more can I," said the captain. "I've got to 
 play something, though; got to pay the shot, my son." 
 And he struck up "John Brown's Body " in a fine, sweet 
 baritone; "Dandy Jim of Carolina" came next; "Rosin 
 the Bow, " " Swing low, sweet chariot, " and ' ' The Beau- 
 tiful Land" followed. The captain was paying his shot 
 with usury, as he had done many a time before ; many 
 a meal had he bought with the same currency from the 
 melodious-minded natives, always, as now, to their 
 delight. 
 
 He was in the middle of " Fifteen dollars in the inside 
 pocket," singing with dogged energy, for the task went 
 sore against the grain, when a sensation was suddenly 
 to be observed among the crew. 
 
 "Tapena Tom barry my/' 1 said the spokesman, 
 pointing. 
 
 And the three beach-combers, following his indica- 
 tion, saw the figure of a man in pyjama trousers and a 
 white jumper approaching briskly from the town. 
 
 "That's Tapena Tom, is it?" said the captain, paus- 
 ing in his music. " I don't seem to place the brute." 
 
 1 Captain Tom is coming. 
 
 24.1
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 " We'd better cut," said the clerk. "'E's no good." 
 
 "Well," said the musician deliberately, "one can't 
 most always generally tell. I'll try it on, I guess. Mu- 
 sic has charms to soothe the savage tapena, boys. We 
 might strike it rich ; it might amount to iced punch in 
 the cabin." 
 
 "Hiced punch? Oh, my! "said the clerk. "Give 
 him something 'ot, captain. ' Way down the Swanee 
 River;' try that." 
 
 "No, sir! Looks Scotch," said the captain; and he 
 struck, for his life, into "Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 Captain Tom continued to approach with the same 
 business-like alacrity; no change was to be perceived in 
 his bearded face as he came swinging up the plank; he 
 did not even turn his eyes on the performer. 
 
 " We twa hae paidled in the bum 
 Frae morning tide till dine," 
 
 went the song. 
 
 Captain Tom had a parcel under his arm, which he 
 laid on the house-roof, and then, turning suddenly to 
 the strangers, "Here, you!" he bellowed, "be off out 
 of that!" 
 
 The clerk and Herrick stood not on the order of their 
 going, but fled incontinently by the plank. The per- 
 former, on the other hand, flung down the instrument 
 and rose to his full height slowly. 
 
 " What's that you say ? " he said. " I've half a mind 
 to give you a lesson in civility." 
 
 " You set up any more of your gab to me," returned 
 the Scotchman, "and I'll show ye the wroang side of 
 a jyle. I've heard tell of the three of ye. Ye're not 
 
 242
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH 
 
 long for here, I can tell ye that. The Goavernment has 
 their eyes upon ye. They make shoart work of damned 
 beach-combers, I'll say that for the French." 
 
 " You wait till I catch you off your ship! " cried the 
 captain; and then turning to the crew, " Good-by, you 
 fellows!" he said. " You're gentlemen, any way ! The 
 worst nigger among you would look better upon a quar- 
 ter-deck than that filthy Scotchman." 
 
 Captain Tom scorned to reply. He watched with a 
 hard smile the departure of his guests, and as soon as 
 the last foot was off the plank, turned to the hands to 
 work cargo. 
 
 The beach-combers beat their inglorious retreat along 
 the shore; Herrick first, his face dark with blood, his 
 knees trembling under him with the hysteria of rage. 
 Presently, under the same purao where they had shiv- 
 ered the night before, he cast himself down, and 
 groaned aloud, and ground his face into the sand. 
 
 "Don't speak to me! don't speak to me. I can't 
 stand it! " broke from him. 
 
 The other two stood over him, perplexed. 
 
 " Wot can't he stand now ? " said the clerk. " 'Asn't 
 he 'ad a meal ? I'm lickin' my lips." 
 
 Herrick reared up his wild eyes and burning face. 
 "I can't beg," he screamed, and again threw himself 
 prone. 
 
 "This thing's got to come to an end," said the cap- 
 tain, with an intake of the breath. 
 
 "Looks like signs of an end, don't it?" sneered the 
 clerk. 
 
 " He's not so far from it, and don't you deceive your- 
 self," replied the captain. "Well," he added in a live- 
 
 243
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Her voice, "you fellows hang on here, and I'll go and 
 interview my representative." 
 
 Whereupon he turned on his heel, and set off at a 
 swinging sailor's walk towards Papeete. 
 
 It was some half-hour later when he returned. The 
 clerk was dozing with his back against a tree ; Herrick 
 still lay where he had flung himself; nothing showed 
 whether he slept or waked. 
 
 "See, boys!" cried the captain, with that artificial 
 heartiness of his which was at times so painful, " here's 
 a new idea." And he produced note-paper, stamped 
 envelopes, and pencils, three of each. "We can all 
 write home by the mail brigantine. The consul says I 
 can come over to his place and ink up the addresses." 
 
 " Well, that's a start, too," said the clerk. " I never 
 thought of that. " 
 
 "It was that yarning last night about going home 
 that put me up to it," said the captain. 
 
 " Well, 'and over," said the clerk. " I'll have a shy." 
 And he retired a little distance to the shade of a canoe. 
 
 The others remained under the purao. Now they 
 would write a word or two, now scribble it out; now 
 they would sit biting at the pencil-end and staring sea- 
 ward ; now their eyes would rest on the clerk where he 
 sat propped on the canoe, leering and coughing, his 
 pencil racing glibly on the paper. 
 
 "I can't do it," said Herrick, suddenly. "I haven't 
 got the heart." 
 
 " See here," said the captain, speaking with unwonted 
 gravity. " It may be hard to write, and to write lies at 
 that, and God knows it is; but it's the square thing. It 
 don't cost anything to say you're well and happy, and 
 
 244
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH 
 
 sorry you can't make a remittance this mail; and if you 
 don't, I'll tell you what I think it is, I think it's about 
 the high- water mark of being a brute beast." 
 
 " It's easy to talk," said Herrick. " You don't seem 
 to have written much yourself, I notice." 
 
 "What do you bring in me for?" broke from the 
 captain. His voice was indeed scarce raised above a 
 whisper, but emotion clanged in it. "What do you 
 know about me ? If you had commanded the finest 
 barque that ever sailed from Portland, Maine ; if you had 
 been drunk in your berth when she struck the breakers 
 in Fourteen Island Group, and hadn't had the wit to 
 stay there and drown, but come on deck, and given 
 drunken orders, and lost six lives, I could understand 
 your talking then! There," he said more quietly, "that's 
 my yarn, and now you know it. It's a pretty one for 
 the father of a family. Five men and a woman mur- 
 dered. Yes, there was a woman on board, and hadn't 
 no business to be either. Guess I sent her to hell, if 
 there is such a place. I never dared go home again; 
 and the wife and the little ones went to England to her 
 father's place. I don't know what's come to them," he 
 added, with a bitter shrug. 
 
 " Thank you, Captain," said Herrick. "I never liked 
 you better." 
 
 They shook hands, short and hard, with eyes averted, 
 tenderness swelling in their bosoms. 
 
 " Now, boys! to work again at lying! " said the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 "I'll give my father up," returned Herrick, with a 
 writhen smile. "I'll try my sweetheart, instead, for a 
 change of evils."
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 And here is what he wrote : 
 
 " EMMA, I have scratched out the beginning to my father, for I 
 think I can write more easily to you. This is my last farewell to all; 
 the last you will ever hear or see of an unworthy friend and son. I 
 have failed in life. I am quite broken down and disgraced. 1 pass 
 under a false name. You will have to tell my father that, with all your 
 kindness. It is my own fault. I know, had I chosen, that I might 
 have done well; and yet, I swear to you, 1 tried to choose. I could not 
 bear that you should think I did not try. For 1 loved you all ; you 
 must never doubt me in that, you least of all. I have always unceas- 
 ingly loved; but what was my love worth, and what was 1 worth ? I 
 had not the manhood of a common clerk. I could not work to earn 
 you. I have lost you now, and for your sake I could be glad of it. 
 When you first came to my father's house do you remember those 
 days? I want you to you saw the best of me then, all that was 
 good in me. Do you remember the day I took your hand and would 
 not let it go ? And the day on Battersea Bridge, when we were look- 
 ing at a barge, and 1 began to tell one of my silly stories, and broke off 
 to say I loved you ? That was the beginning, and now here is the end. 
 When you have read this letter, you will go round and kiss them all good- 
 by my father and mother, and the children, one by one, and poor uncle; 
 and tell them all to forget me, and forget me yourself. Turn the key 
 in the door; let no thought of me return; be done with the poor ghost 
 that pretended he was a man and stole your love. Scorn of myself 
 grinds in me as I write. 1 should tell you 1 am well and happy and 
 want for nothing. I do not exactly make money, or 1 should send a 
 remittance; but I am well cared for, have friends, live in a beautiful 
 place and climate, such as we have dreamed of together, and no pity 
 need be wasted on me. In such places, you understand, it is easy to 
 live, and live well, but often hard to make sixpence in money. Explain 
 this to my father; he will understand. I have no more to say; only 
 linger, going out, like an unwilling guest. God in heaven bless you! 
 Think of me, at the last, here, on a bright beach, the sky and sea im- 
 moderately blue, and the great breakers roaring outside on a barrier- 
 reef, where a little isle sits green with palms. I am well and strong. 
 It is a more pleasant way to die than if you were crowding about me 
 on a sick-bed. And yet I am dying. This is my last kiss. Forgive, 
 forget, the unworthy." 
 
 Btff
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH 
 
 So far he had written ; his paper was all filled, when 
 there returned a memory of evenings at the piano, and 
 that song, the masterpiece of love, in which so many 
 have found the expression of their dearest thoughts: 
 Einst, O Wunder! he added. More was not required ; 
 he knew that, in his love's heart, the context would 
 spring up, escorted with fair images and harmony; of 
 how all through life her name should tremble in his 
 ears, her name be everywhere repeated in the sounds 
 of nature ; and when death came and he lay dissolved, 
 her memory linger and thrill among his elements. 
 
 " Once, O wonder! once from the ashes of my heart 
 Arose a blossom " 
 
 Herrick and the captain finished their letters about 
 the same time; each was breathing deep, and their eyes 
 met and were averted as they closed the envelopes. 
 
 "Sorry I write so big," said the captain, gruffly. 
 "Came all of a rush, when it did come." 
 
 "Same here," said Herrick. "I could have done 
 with a ream when I got started; but it's long enough 
 for all the good I had to say." 
 
 They were still at the addresses when the clerk 
 strolled up, smirking, and twirling his envelope, like 
 a man well pleased. He looked over Herrick's shoulder. 
 
 " Hullo," he said, "you ain't writing 'ome." 
 
 "I am, though," said Herrick. "She lives with my 
 father. Oh, I see what you mean," he added. "My 
 real name is Herrick. No more Hay" they had both 
 used the same alias "no more Hay than yours, I dare 
 say." 
 
 "Clean bowled in the middle stump," laughed the
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 clerk. "My name's 'Uish, if you want to know. 
 Everybody has a false nyme in the Pacific. Lay you 
 five to three the captain 'as." 
 
 "So I have, too," replied the captain, "and I've never 
 told my own since the day I tore the title-page out of 
 my Bowditch and flung the damned thing into the sea. 
 But I'll tell it to you, boys. John Davis is my name. 
 I'm Davis of the Sea Ranger." 
 
 " Dooce you are! " said Huish. "And what was she, 
 a pirate or a slyver?" 
 
 "She was the fastest barque out of Portland, Maine," 
 replied the captain; "and for the way I lost her, I might 
 as well have bored a hole in her side with an auger." 
 
 "Oh, you lost her, did you ?" said the clerk. "'Ope 
 she was insured." 
 
 No answer being returned to this sally, Huish, still 
 brimming over with vanity and conversation, struck 
 into another subject. 
 
 "I've a good mind to read you my letter," said he. 
 "I've a good fist with a pen when I choose, and this is 
 a prime lark. She was a barmaid I ran across in North- 
 ampton ; she was a spanking fine piece, no end of style; 
 and we cottoned at first sight like parties in the play. I 
 suppose I spent the chynge of a fiver on that girl. Well, 
 I 'appened to remember her nyme, so I wrote to her, and 
 told her 'ow I had got rich, and married a queen in the 
 Hislands, and lived in a blooming palace. Such a sight 
 of crammers ! I must read you one bit about my opening 
 the nigger parliament in a cocked 'at. It's really prime." 
 
 The captain jumped to his feet. "That's what you 
 did with the paper that I went and begged for you ? " he 
 roared.
 
 MORNING ON THE BEACH 
 
 It was perhaps lucky for Huish it was surely in the 
 end unfortunate for all that he was seized just then 
 by one of his prostrating accesses of cough ; his com- 
 rades would have else deserted him, so bitter was their 
 resentment. When the fit had passed, the clerk reached 
 out his hand, picked up the letter, which had fallen to 
 the earth, and tore it into fragments, stamp and all. 
 
 " Does that satisfy you ?" he asked sullenly. 
 
 "We'll say no more about it," replied Davis.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE. DESTINY AT THE DOOR 
 
 THE old calaboose, in which the waifs had so long 
 harboured, was a low, rectangular enclosure of building, 
 at the corner of a shady western avenue, and a little 
 townward of the British Consulate. Within was a 
 grassy court, littered with wreckage and the traces of 
 vagrant occupation. Six or seven cells opened from the 
 court; the doors, that had once been locked on mutinous 
 whalermen, rotting before them in the grass. No mark 
 remained of their old destination, except the rusty bars 
 upon the windows. 
 
 The floor of one of the cells had been little cleared ; a 
 bucket (the last remaining piece of furniture of the three 
 caitiffs) stood full of water by the door, a half cocoanut- 
 shell beside it for a drinking-cup ; and on some ragged 
 ends of mat Huish sprawled asleep, his mouth open, his 
 face deathly. The glow of the tropic afternoon, the 
 green of sun-bright foliage, stared into that shady place 
 through door and window; and Herrick, pacing to and 
 fro on the coral floor, sometimes paused, and laved his 
 face and neck with tepid water from the bucket. His 
 long arrears of suffering, the night's vigil, the insults of 
 the morning, and the harrowing business of the letter, 
 had strung him to that point when pain is almost plea- 
 
 250
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE 
 
 sure, time shrinks to a mere point, and death and life 
 appear indifferent. To and fro he paced like a caged 
 brute, his mind whirling through the universe of thought 
 and memory; his eyes, as he went, skimming the le- 
 gends on the wall. The crumbling whitewash was all 
 full of them, Tahitian names, and French and English, 
 and rude sketches of ships under sail, and men at fisti- 
 cuffs. 
 
 It came to him of a sudden that he too must leave 
 upon these walls the memorial of his passage. He 
 paused before a clean space, took the pencil out, and 
 pondered. Vanity, so hard to dislodge, awoke in him. 
 We call it vanity, at least ; perhaps unjustly. Rather it 
 was the bare sense of his existence prompted him ; the 
 sense of his life, the one thing wonderful, to which he 
 scarce clung with a finger. From his jarred nerves there 
 came a strong sentiment of coming change; whether 
 good or ill, he could not say: change, he knew no 
 more; change, with inscrutable, veiled face, approach- 
 ing noiseless. With the feeling came the vision of a 
 concert-room, the rich hues of instruments, the silent 
 audience, and the loud voice of the symphony. "Des- 
 tiny knocking at the door," he thought; drew a stave on 
 the plaster, and wrote in the famous phrase from the 
 Fifth Symphony. "So," thought he, "they will know 
 that I loved music and had classical tastes. They ? He, 
 I suppose; the unknown, kindred spirit that shall come 
 some day and read my memor querela. Ha! he shall 
 have Latin too." And he added: " terque quaterque 
 beatiqu-eis ante orapatrum." 
 
 He turned again to his uneasy pacing, but now with 
 an irrational and supporting sense of duty done. He 
 
 251
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 had dug his grave that morning; now he had carved his 
 epitaph; the folds of the toga were composed, why 
 should he delay the insignificant trifle that remained to 
 do ? He paused and looked long in the face of the 
 sleeping Huish, drinking disenchantment and distaste of 
 life. He nauseated himself with that vile countenance. 
 Could the thing continue ? What bound him now ? 
 Had he no rights ? Only the obligation to go on, with- 
 out discharge or furlough, bearing the unbearable ? Icb 
 trage unertrdglicbes ; the quotation rose in his mind. 
 He repeated the whole piece, one of the most perfect 
 of the most perfect of poets ; and a phrase struck him 
 like a blow : Du, stores Her^, du bast es ja gewoUt. 
 Where was the pride of his heart? And he raged 
 against himself, as a man bites on a sore tooth, in a 
 heady sensuality of scorn. "I have no pride, I have 
 no heart, no manhood," he thought, "or why should 
 I prolong a life more shameful than the gallows ? Or 
 why should I have fallen to it ? No pride, no capacity, 
 no force. Not even a bandit And to be starving here 
 with worse than banditti with this trivial hell-hound ! " 
 His rage against his comrade rose and flooded him, and 
 he shook a trembling fist at the sleeper. 
 
 A swift step was audible. The captain appeared 
 upon the threshold of the cell, panting and flushed, and 
 with a foolish face of happiness. In his arms he carried 
 a loaf of bread and bottles of beer; the pockets of his 
 coat were bulging with cigars. He rolled his treasures 
 on the floor, grasped Herrick by both hands, and 
 crowed with laughter. 
 
 " Broach the beer! " he shouted. " Broach the beer, 
 and glory hallelujah ! " 
 
 353
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE 
 
 " Beer ? " repeated Huish, struggling to his feet. 
 
 " Beer it is! " cried Davis. " Beer, and plenty of it. 
 Any number of persons can use it (like Lyon's tooth 
 tablet) with perfect propriety and neatness. Who's to 
 officiate ? " 
 
 "Leave me alone for that," said the clerk. He 
 knocked the necks off with a lump of coral, and each 
 drank in succession from the shell. 
 
 " Have a weed ? " said Davis. " It's all in the bill." 
 
 "What is up ?" asked Herrick. 
 
 The captain fell suddenly grave. "I'm coming to 
 that," said he. "I want to speak with Herrick here. 
 You, Hay or Huish, or whatever your name is you 
 take a weed and the other bottle, and go and see how 
 the wind is down by the purao. I'll call you when 
 you're wanted." 
 
 ' ' Hey ? Secrets ? That ain't the ticket, " said Huish. 
 
 " Look here, my son," said the captain, "this is busi- 
 ness, and don't you make any mistake about it. If 
 you're going to make trouble, you can have it in your 
 own way and stop right here. Only get the thing right ; 
 if Herrick and I go, we take the beer. Savvy ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to shove my oar in," returned 
 Huish. "I'll cut right enough. Give me the swipes. 
 You can jaw till you're blue in the face, for what I care. 
 I don't think it's the friendly touch; that's all." And 
 he shambled, grumbling, out of the cell into the staring 
 sun. 
 
 The captain watched him clear of the courtyard, then 
 turned to Herrick. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Herrick, thickly. 
 
 " I'll tell you," said Davis. " I want to consult you. 
 253
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 It's a chance we've got. What's that ? " he cried, point- 
 ing to the music on the wall. 
 
 "What?" said the other. "Oh, that! It's music; 
 it's a phrase of Beethoven's 1 was writing up. It means 
 destiny knocking at the door." 
 
 " Does it ?" said the captain, rather low, and he went 
 near and studied the inscription; "and this French?" 
 he asked, pointing to the Latin. 
 
 " Oh, it just means I should have been luckier if I had 
 died at home," returned Herrick impatiently. "What 
 is this business ? " 
 
 "Destiny knocking at the door," repeated the cap- 
 tain; and then, looking over his shoulder, "Well, Mr. 
 Herrick, that's about what it comes to," he added. 
 
 ' ' What do you mean ? Explain yourself, " said Herrick. 
 
 But the captain was again staring at the music. 
 " About how long ago since you wrote up this truck ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " What does it matter ? " exclaimed Herrick. " I dare 
 say half an hour." 
 
 "My God, it's strange !" cried Davis. "There's some 
 men would call that accidental ; not me. That " and 
 he drew his thick finger under the music "that's what 
 I call providence." 
 
 "You said we had a chance ?" asked Herrick. 
 
 " Yes, sir! " said the captain, wheeling suddenly face 
 to face with his companion. " I did so. If you're the 
 man I take you for, we have a chance." 
 
 " I don't know what you take me for," was the reply. 
 "You can scarce take me too low." 
 
 "Shake hands, Mr. Herrick," said the captain. "I 
 know you. You're a gentleman and a man of spirit. I 
 
 254
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE 
 
 didn't want to speak before that bummer there; you'l) 
 see why. But to you I'll rip it right out. 1 got a ship." 
 " A ship ? " cried Herrick. " What ship ? " 
 "That schooner we saw this morning off the pas- 
 sage." 
 
 " The schooner with the hospital flag ?" 
 " That's the hooker," said Davis. "She's the Faral- 
 lone, hundred and sixty tons register, out of 'Frisco for 
 Sydney, in California champagne. Captain, mate, and 
 one hand all died of small-pox, same as they had round 
 in the Paumotus, I guess. Captain and mate were the 
 only white men; all the hands Kanakas; seems a queer 
 kind of outfit from a Christian port. Three of them left 
 and a cook ; didn't know where they were ; I can't think 
 where they were either, if you come to that; Wiseman 
 must have been upon the booze, I guess, to sail the 
 course he did. However, there he was, dead ; and here 
 were the Kanakas as good as lost. They bummed 
 iround at sea like the babes in the wood, and tumbled 
 ;nd-on upon Tahiti. The consul here took charge. He 
 offered the berth to Williams ; Williams had never had 
 the small-pox and backed down. That was when I 
 came in for the letter-paper. I thought there was some- 
 thing up when the consul asked me to look in again ; 
 but I never let on to you fellows, so's you'd not be dis- 
 appointed. Consul tried M'Neil; scared of small-pox. 
 He tried Capriati, that Corsican, and Leblue, or what- 
 ever his name is; wouldn't lay a hand on it; all too 
 fond of their sweet lives. Last of all, when there 
 wasn't nobody else left to offer it to, he offers it to 
 me. ' Brown, will you ship captain and take her to 
 Sydney ? ' says he. ' Let me choose my own mate and
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 another white hand,' says I, 'for I don't hold with this 
 Kanaka crew racket; give us all two months' advance 
 to get our clothes and instruments out of pawn, and I'll 
 take stock to-night, fill up stores, and get to sea to-mor- 
 row before dark ! ' That's what I said. ' That's good 
 enough,' says the consul; 'and you can count yourself 
 damned lucky, Brown,' says he. And he said it pretty 
 meaningful-appearing, too. However, that's all one 
 now. I'll ship Huish before the mast, of course I'll 
 let him berth aft; and I'll ship you mate at seventy-five 
 dollars and two months' advance." 
 
 " Me mate ? Why, I'm a landsman! " cried Herrick. 
 
 ' ' Guess you've got to learn, " said the captain. ' ' You 
 don't fancy I'm going to skip and leave you rotting on 
 the beach perhaps ? I'm not that sort, old man. And 
 you're handy, anyway; I've been shipmates with 
 worse." 
 
 "God knows I can't refuse," said Herrick. "God 
 knows I thank you from my heart." 
 
 "That's all right," said the captain. "But it ain't 
 all." He turned aside to light a cigar. 
 
 "What else is there?" asked the other, with a pang 
 of indefinable alarm. 
 
 "I'm coming to that," said Davis, and then paused a 
 little. "See here," he began, holding out his cigar be- 
 tween his finger and thumb, "suppose you figure up 
 what this'll amount to. You don't catch on ? Well, 
 we get two months' advance; we can't get away from 
 Papeete our creditors wouldn't let us go for less. 
 It'll take us along about two months to get to Sydney; 
 and when we get there I just want to put it to you 
 
 squarely what the better are we ? " 
 
 256
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE 
 
 "We're off the beach, at least," said Herrick. 
 
 "I guess there's a beach at Sydney," returned the 
 captain; "and I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Herrick I 
 don't mean to try. No, sir! Sydne y will never see 
 me." 
 
 "Speak out plain," said Herrick. 
 
 "Plain Dutch," replied the captain, "I'm going to 
 own that schooner. It's nothing new; it's done every 
 year in the Pacific. Stephens stole a schooner the other 
 day, didn't he ? Hayes and Pease stole vessels all the 
 time. And it's the making of the crowd of us. See 
 here, you think of that cargo. Champagne ! Why, it's 
 like as if it was put up on purpose. In Peru, we'll sell 
 that liquor off at the pier head, and the schooner after 
 it, if we can find a fool to buy her, and then light out 
 for the mines. If you'll back me up, I stake my life 
 I'll carry it through." 
 
 ' ' Captain, " said Herrick, with a quailing voice, ' ' don't 
 doit!" 
 
 "I'm desperate," returned Davis. "I've got a 
 chance; I may never get another. Herrick, say the 
 word; back me up. I think we've starved together 
 long enough for that." 
 
 "I can't do it. I'm sorry. I can't do it. I've not 
 fallen as low as that," said Herrick, deadly pale. 
 
 "What did you say this morning?" said Davis. 
 "That you couldn't beg? It's the one thing or the 
 other, my son." 
 
 "Ah, but this is the jail!" cried Herrick. "Don't 
 tempt me. It's the jail." 
 
 "Did you hear what the skipper said on board that 
 schooner?" pursued the captain. "Well, I tell you he 
 
 257
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 talked straight. The French have let us alone a long 
 time; it can't last longer. They've got their eye on 
 us, and as sure as you live, in three weeks you'll be in 
 jail, whatever you do. I read it in the consul's face." 
 
 ' ' You forget, captain, " said the young man. ' ' There 
 is another way. I can die; and to say truth, I think I 
 should have died three years ago." 
 
 The captain folded his arms and looked the other in 
 the face. "Yes," said he, "yes, you can cut your 
 throat; that's a frozen fact. Much good may it do 
 you ! And where do I come in ? " 
 
 The light of a strange excitement came in Herrick's 
 face. "Both of us," said he, "both of us together. 
 It 's not possible you can enjoy this business. Come," 
 and he reached out a timid hand, " a few strokes in the 
 lagoon and rest ! " 
 
 "I tell you, Herrick, I'm 'most tempted to answer 
 you the way the man does in the Bible, and say, ' Get 
 thee behind me, Satan!'" said the captain. "What! 
 you think I would go drown myself, and I got children 
 starving ? Enjoy it ? No, by God ! I do not enjoy it ; 
 but it's the row I've got to hoe, and I'll hoe it till I 
 drop right here. I have three of them, you see, two 
 boys and the one girl, Adar. The trouble is that you 
 are not a parent yourself. I tell you, Herrick, I love 
 you," the man broke out. "I didn't take to you at 
 first, you were so Anglified and tony, but I love you 
 now; it's a man that loves you stands here and wrestles 
 with you. I can't go to sea with the bummer alone; 
 it's not possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes 
 my last chance, the last chance of a poor, miserable 
 beast earning a crust to feed his family. I can't do 
 
 258
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE 
 
 nothing but sail ships, and I've no papers. And here 
 I get a chance, and you go back on me! Ah, you've 
 no family, and that's where the trouble is ! " 
 
 "I have indeed," said Herrick. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said the captain, "you think so. 
 But no man's got a family till he's got children. It's 
 only the kids count. There's something about the little 
 shavers I can't talk of them. And if you thought a 
 cent about this father that I hear you talk of, or that 
 sweetheart you were writing to this morning, you 
 would feel like me. You would say, ' What matter 
 laws, and God, and that? My folks are hard up ; I be- 
 long to them. I'll get them bread, or, by God! I'll 
 get them wealth, if I have to burn down London for it.' 
 That's what you would say. And I'll tell you more: 
 your heart is saying so this living minute. I can see it 
 in your face. You're thinking, ' Here's poor friend- 
 ship for the man I've starved along of; and as for the 
 girl that I set up to be in love with, here's a mighty 
 limp kind of a love that won't carry me as far as 
 'most any man would go for a demijohn of whisky.' 
 There's not much romance to that love, anyway; it's 
 not the kind they carry on about in song books. But 
 what's the good of my carrying on talking, when it's 
 all in your inside as plain as print ? I put the question 
 to you once for all. Are you going to desert me in my 
 hour of need you know if I've deserted you or will 
 you give me your hand, and try a fresh deal, and go 
 home (as like as not) a millionnaire ? Say no, and God 
 pity me! Say yes, and I'll make the little ones pray 
 for you every night on their bended knees. 'God 
 bless Mr. Herrick!' that's what they'll say, one after 
 
 259
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 the other, the old girl sitting there holding stakes at the 
 foot of the bed, and the damned little innocents " He 
 broke off. "I don't often rip out about the kids," he 
 said, " but when I do, there's something fetches loose." 
 
 "Captain," said Herrick, faintly, "is there nothing 
 else?" 
 
 "I'll prophesy if you like," said the captain, with re- 
 newed vigour. " Refuse this because you think your- 
 self too honest, and before a month's out you'll be jailed 
 for a sneak-thief. I give you the word fair. I can see 
 it, Herrick, if you can't; you're breaking down. Don't 
 think, if you refuse this chance, that you'll go on doing 
 the evangelical ; you're about through with your stock, 
 and before you know where you are, you'll be right 
 out on the other side. No, it's either this for you, or 
 else it's Caledonia. I bet you never were there, and 
 saw those white, shaved men, in their dust clothes and 
 straw hats, prowling around in gangs in the lamplight 
 at Noumea; they look like wolves, and they look like 
 preachers, and they look like the sick. Huish is a daisy 
 to the best of them. Well, there's your company. 
 They're waiting for you, Herrick, and you got to go; 
 and that's a prophecy." 
 
 And as the man stood and shook through his great 
 stature, he seemed, indeed, like one in whom the spirit 
 of divination worked and might utter oracles. Herrick 
 looked at him and looked away; it seemed not decent 
 to spy upon such agitation, and the young man's cour- 
 age sank. 
 
 " You talk of going home," he objected. " We could 
 never do that." 
 
 "We could," said the other. "Captain B r own 
 260
 
 THE OLD CALABOOSE 
 
 couldn't, nor a Mr. Hay that shipped mate with him 
 couldn't. But what's that to do with Captain Davis or 
 Mr. Herrick, you galoot?" 
 
 " But Hayes had these wild islands where he used to 
 call," came the next, fainter objection. 
 
 "We have the wild islands of Peru," retorted Davis. 
 " They were wild enough for Stephens no longer agone 
 than just last year. I guess they'll be wild enough for 
 us." 
 
 "And the crew?" 
 
 "All Kanakas. Come, I see you're right, old man. 
 i see you'll stand by." And the captain once more 
 offered his hand. 
 
 " Have it your own way, then," said Herrick. " I'll 
 do it. A strange thing for my father's son. But I'll do 
 it. I'll stand by you, man, for good or evil." 
 
 "God bless you! " cried the captain, and stood silent 
 " Herrick," he added, with a smile, " I believe I'd have 
 died in my tracks if you'd have said no." 
 
 And Herrick, looking at the man, half-believed so 
 also. 
 
 "And now we'll go break it to the bummer," said 
 Davis. 
 
 " I wonder how he'll take it," said Herrick. 
 
 " Him ? Jump at it!" was the reply.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG 
 
 THE schooner Farattone lay well out in the jaws of 
 the pass, where the terrified pilot had made haste to 
 bring her to her moorings and escape. Seen from the 
 beach, through the thin line of shipping, two objects 
 stood conspicuous to seaward, the little isle, on the 
 one hand, with its palms, and the guns and batteries 
 raised forty years before in defence of Queen Pomard's 
 capital; the outcast Farattone upon the other, ban- 
 ished to the threshold of the port, rolling there to her 
 scuppers, and flaunting the plague flag as she rolled. 
 A few sea-birds screamed and cried about the ship, and 
 within easy range a man-of-war guard-boat hung off 
 and on, and glittered with the weapons of marines. 
 The exuberant daylight and the blinding heaven of the 
 tropics picked out and framed the picture. 
 
 A neat boat, manned by natives in uniform, and 
 steered by the doctor of the port, put from shore to- 
 wards three of the afternoon, and pulled smartly for the 
 schooner. The foresheets were heaped with sacks of 
 flour, onions, and potatoes, perched among which was 
 Huish, dressed as a foremast hand; a heap of chests and 
 cases impeded the action of the oarsmen; and in the 
 stern, by the left hand of the doctor, sat Herrick, dressed
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG 
 
 in a fresh rig of slops, his brown beard trimmed to a 
 point, a pile of paper novels on his lap, and nursing the 
 while between his feet a chronometer, for which they 
 had exchanged that of the Farattone, long since run 
 down and the rate lost. 
 
 They passed the guard-boat, exchanging hails with 
 the boatswain's mate in charge, and drew near at last 
 to the forbidden ship. Not a cat stirred ; there was no 
 speech of man; and the sea being exceedingly high 
 outside, and the reef close to where the schooner lay, 
 the clamour of the surf hung round her like the sound 
 of battle. 
 
 " Obe la goeiette!" sang out the doctor, with his 
 best voice. 
 
 Instantly, from the house, where they had been stow- 
 ing away stores, first Davis and then the ragamuffin 
 swarthy crew made their appearance. 
 
 "Hullo, Hay, that you?" said the captain, leaning 
 on the rail. " Tell the old man to lay her alongside as 
 if she was eggs. There's a hell of a run of sea here, 
 and his boat's brittle." 
 
 The movement of the schooner was at that time more 
 than usually violent. Now she heaved her side as high 
 as a deep-sea steamer's, and showed the flashing of her 
 copper; now she swung swiftly toward the boat until 
 her scuppers gurgled. 
 
 "I hope you have sea-legs," observed the doctor, 
 "You will require them." 
 
 Indeed, to board the Farattone, in that exposed po- 
 sition where she lay, was an affair of some dexterity. 
 The less precious goods were hoisted roughly in; the 
 chronometer, after repeated failures, was passed gently 
 
 263
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 and successfully from hand to hand, and there remained 
 only the more difficult business of embarking Huish. 
 Even that piece of dead weight (shipped A. B. at eigh- 
 teen dollarsy and described by the captain to the consul 
 as an invaluable man) was at last hauled on board with- 
 out mishap, and the doctor, with civil salutations, took 
 his leave. 
 
 The three co-adventurers looked at each other, and 
 Davis heaved a breath of relief. 
 
 "Now let's get this chronometer fixed," said he, and 
 led the way into the house. It was a fairly spacious 
 place; two staterooms and a good-sized pantry opened 
 from the main cabin. The bulk-heads were painted 
 white, the floor laid with wax-cloth. No litter, no sign 
 of life remained, for the effects of the dead men had 
 been disinfected and conveyed on shore. Only on the 
 table, in a saucer, some sulphur burned, and the fumes 
 set them coughing as they entered. The captain peered 
 into the starboard stateroom, where the bedclothes still 
 lay tumbled in the bunk, the blanket flung back as they 
 had flung it back from the disfigured corpse before its 
 burial. 
 
 "Now I told those niggers to tumble that truck over- 
 board," grumbled Davis. "Guess they were afraid to 
 lay hands on it Well, they've hosed the place out; 
 that's as much as can be expected, I suppose. Huish, 
 lay on to these blankets." 
 
 ' ' See you blooming well far enough first, "said Huish, 
 drawing back. 
 
 ' ' What's that ? " snapped the captain. "I'll tell you, 
 my young friend, I think you make a mistake. I'm 
 captain here." 
 
 264
 
 THE YbLLOW FLAG 
 
 "Fat lot I care," returned the clerk. 
 
 "That so ? " said Davis. " Then you'll berth forward 
 with the niggers! Walk right out of this cabin." 
 
 " Oh, I dessay ! " said Huish. " See any green in my 
 eye ? A lark's a lark." 
 
 "Well, now, I'll explain this business, and you'll see 
 (once for all) just precisely how much lark there is to 
 it," said Davis. "I'm captain, and I'm going to be it. 
 One thing of three. First, you take my orders here as 
 cabin steward, in which case you mess with us. Or, 
 second, you refuse, and I pack you forward, and you 
 get as quick as the word's said. Or, third and last, I'll 
 signal that man-of-war and send you ashore under ar- 
 rest for mutiny." 
 
 " And of course I wouldn't blow the gaff? Oh, no! " 
 replied the jeering Huish. 
 
 "And who's to believe you, my son ?" inquired the 
 captain. " No sir! There ain't no lark about my cap- 
 tainising. Enough said. Up with these blankets." 
 
 Huish was no fool, he knew when he was beaten; 
 and he was no coward, either, for he stepped to the 
 bunk, took the infected bed-clothes fairly in his arms, and 
 carried them out of the house without a check or tremour. 
 
 "I was waiting for the chance," said Davis to Her- 
 rick. "I needn't do the same with you, because you 
 understand it for yourself." 
 
 "Are you going to berth here?" asked Herrick, fol- 
 lowing the captain into the stateroom, where he began 
 to adjust the chronometer in its place at the bed-head. 
 
 "Not much!" replied he. "I guess I'll berth on 
 dec-k. I don't know as I'm afraid, but I've no immedi~ 
 ate use for confluent small-pox." 
 
 fc
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "I don't know that I'm afraid either," said Herrick. 
 " But the thought of those two men sticks in my throat, 
 that captain and mate dying here, one opposite to the 
 other. It's grim. I wonder what they said last! " 
 
 " Wiseman and Wishart ? " said the captain. "Prob- 
 ably mighty small potatoes. That's the thing a fellow 
 figures out for himself one way, and the real business 
 goes quite another. Perhaps Wiseman said, ' Here, old 
 man, fetch up the gin; I'm feeling powerful rocky.' 
 And perhaps Wishart said, ' Oh, hell ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, that's grim enough," said Herrick. 
 
 "And so it is," said Davis. "There; there's that 
 chronometer fixed. And now it's about time to up an- 
 chor and clear out." 
 
 He lit a cigar and stepped on deck. 
 
 "Here, you! What's your name?" he cried to one 
 of the hands, a lean-flanked, clean-built fellow from 
 some far Western island, and of a darkness almost ap- 
 proaching to the African. 
 
 "Sally Day," replied the man. 
 
 "Devil it is!" said the captain. "Didn't know we 
 had ladies on board. Well, Sally, oblige me by haul- 
 ing down that rag there. I'll do the same for you an- 
 other time." He watched the yellow bunting as it was 
 eased past the cross-trees and handed down on deck. 
 "You'll float no more on this ship," he observed. 
 "Muster the people aft, Mr. Hay," he added, speaking 
 unnecessarily loud. "I've a word to say to them." 
 
 It was with a singular sensation that Herrick prepared 
 for the first time to address a crew. He thanked his 
 stars, indeed, that they were natives. But even natives, 
 he reflected, might be critics too quick for such a novice 
 
 ^366
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG 
 
 as himself; they might perceive some lapse from that 
 precise and cut-and-dry English which prevails on board 
 a ship; it was even possible they understood no other; 
 and he racked his brain, and overhauled his reminis- 
 ences of sea romance, for some appropriate words. 
 
 "Here, men, tumble aft!" he said at last. "Lively 
 now! All hands aft! " 
 
 They crowded in the alleyway like sheep. 
 
 "Here they are, sir," said Herrick. 
 
 For some time the captain continued to face the stern, 
 then turned with ferocious suddenness on the crew, 
 and seemed to enjoy their shrinking. 
 
 " Now," he said, twisting his cigar in his mouth, and 
 toying with the spokes of the wheel, "I'm Captain 
 Brown. I command this ship. This is Mr. Hay, first 
 officer. The other white man is cabin steward, but he'll 
 stand watch and do his trick. My orders shall be obeyed 
 smartly. You savvy, smartly ? There shall be no growl- 
 ing about the haikai, which will be above allowance. 
 You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on 
 ' sir ' to every order I give you. If you're smart and 
 quick, I'll mate this ship comfortable for all hands." 
 He took the cigar out of his mouth. ' ' If you're not, " he 
 added, in a roaring voice, "I'll make it a floating hell. 
 Now, Mr. Hay, we'll pick watches, if you please." 
 
 "All right," said Herrick. 
 
 "You will please use 'sir' when you address me, 
 Mr. Hay," said the captain. " I'll take the lady. Step 
 to starboard, Sally." And then he whispered in Her- 
 rick's ear: "Take the old man." 
 
 "I'll take you there," said Herrick. 
 
 " What's your name ? " said the captain. " What's 
 261
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 that you say ? Oh, that's not English ; I'll have none of 
 your highway gibberish on my ship. We'll call you old 
 Uncle Ned, because you've got no wool on the top of 
 your head, just the place where the wool ought to grow. 
 Step to port, Uncle. Don't you hear Mr. Hay has picked 
 you ? Then I'll take the white man. White Man, step 
 to starboard. Now which of you two is the cook ? 
 You? Then Mr. Hay takes your friend in the blue dun- 
 garee. Step to port, Dungaree. There ! we know who 
 we all are Dungaree, Uncle Ned, Sally Day, White 
 Man, and Cook. All F.F. V.'s, I guess. And now, Mr. 
 Hay, we'll up anchor, if you please." 
 
 " For heaven's sake, tell me some of the words," 
 whispered Herrick. 
 
 An hour later the Farattone was under all plain sail, 
 the rudder hard a-port, and the cheerfully clanking 
 windlass had brought the anchor home. 
 
 "All clear, sir," cried Herrick, from the bow. 
 
 The captain met her with the wheel, as she bounded 
 like a stag from her repose, trembling and bending to 
 the puffs. The guard-boat gave a parting hail, the wake 
 whitened and ran out ; the Farattone w'as under way. 
 
 Her berth had been close to the pass. Even as she 
 forged ahead, Davis slewed her for the channel between 
 the pier ends of the reef, the breakers sounding and 
 whitening to either hand. Straight through the narrow 
 band of blue she shot to seaward, and the captain's 
 heart exulted as he felt her tremble under foot, and (look- 
 ing back over the taff-rail) beheld the roofs of Papeete 
 changing position on the shore, and the island moun- 
 tains rearing higher in the wake. 
 
 But they were not yet done with the shore and the 
 268
 
 THE YELLOW FLAG 
 
 horror of the yellow flag. About midway of the pass 
 there was a cry and a scurry ; a man was seen to leap 
 upon the rail, and, throwing his arms over his head, to 
 stoop and plunge into the sea. 
 
 " Steady as she goes," the captain cried, relinquish- 
 ing the wheel to Huish. 
 
 The next moment he was forward, in the midst of 
 the Kanakas, belaying-pin in hand. 
 
 " Anybody else for shore ? " he cried, and the savage 
 trumpeting of his voice, no less than the ready weapon 
 in his hand, struck fear in all. Stupidly they stared after 
 their escaped companion, whose black head was visible 
 upon the water, steering for the land. And the schooner 
 meanwhile slipped like a racer through the pass, and 
 met the long sea of the open ocean with a souse of 
 spray. ^'. 
 
 "Fool that I was, not to have a pistol ready!" ex- 
 claimed Davis. "Well, we go to sea short-handed; 
 we can't help that You have a lame watch of it, Mr. 
 Hay." 
 
 " I don't see how we are to get along," said Herrick. 
 
 "Got to," said the captain. "No more Tahiti for 
 me." 
 
 Both turned instinctively and looked astern. The fair 
 island was unfolding, mountain top on mountain top; 
 Eimeo, on the port board, lifted her splintered pinna- 
 cles, and still the schooner raced to the open sea. 
 
 " Think ! " cried the captain, with a gesture, " yester- 
 day morning I danced for my breakfast like a poodle 
 dog."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 THE ship's head was laid to clear Eimeo to the north, 
 and the captain sat down in the cabin with a chart, a 
 ruler, and an epitome. 
 
 "East a half no "the," said he, raising his face from his 
 labours. "Mr. Hay, you'll, have to watch her dead 
 reckoning. I want every yard she makes on every 
 hair's breadth of a course. I'm going to knock a hole 
 right straight through the Paumotus, and that's always 
 a near touch. Now, if this southeast trade ever blew 
 out of the southeast, which it don't, we might hope to 
 lie within half a point of our course. Say we lie within 
 a point of it. That'll just about weather Fakarava. Yes, 
 sir, that's what we've got to do, if we tack for it. Brings 
 us through this slush of little islands in the cleanest 
 place; see?" And he showed where his ruler inter- 
 sected the wide-lying labyrinth of the Dangerous Archi- 
 pelago. " I wish it was night, and I could put her about 
 right now ; we're losing time and easting. Well, we'll 
 do our best. And if we don't fttch Peru, we'll bring up 
 to Ecuador. All one, I guess. Depreciated dollars down, 
 and no questions asked. A remarkable fine institootion, 
 the South American don." 
 
 Tahiti was already some way astern, the Diadem ris- 
 270
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 ing from among broken mountains; Eimeo was already 
 close aboard, and stood black and strange against the 
 golden splendour of the west, when the captain took his 
 departure from the two islands, and the patent log was set. 
 
 Some twenty minutes later, Sally Day, who was con- 
 tinually leaving the wheel to peer in at the cabin clock, 
 announced in a shrill cry " Fo' Bell," and the cook was 
 to be seen carrying the soup into the cabin. 
 
 "I guess I'll sit down and have a pick with you," 
 said Davis to Herrick. "By the time I've done, it '11 
 be dark, and we'll clap the hooker on the wind for 
 South America." 
 
 In the cabin, at one corner of the table, immediately 
 below the lamp, and on the lee side of a bottle of cham- 
 pagne, sat Huish. 
 
 " What's this ? Where did that come from ? " asked 
 the captain. 
 
 ' ' It's fizz ; and it came from the after-' old, if you want 
 to know," said Huish, and drained his mug. 
 
 "This'll never do!" exclaimed Davis, the merchant 
 seaman's horror of breaking into cargo showing Incon- 
 gruously forth on board that stolen ship. "There was 
 never any good came of games like that." 
 
 " You byby ! " said Huish. " A fellow would think 
 (to 'ear him) we were on the square! And look 'ere, 
 you've put this job up 'andsomely for me, 'aven't you ? 
 I'm to go on deck and steer while you two sit and 
 guzzle, and I'm to go by a nickname, and got to call 
 you ' sir ' and ' mister.' Well, you look here, my bloke; 
 I'll have fizz ad lib., or it won't wash. I tell you that. 
 And you know mighty well you ain't got any man-of- 
 war to sinal now."
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Davis was staggered. " I'd give fifty dollars this had 
 never happened," he said weakly. 
 
 "Well, it 'as 'appened, you see," returned Huish. 
 " Try some; it's devilish good." 
 
 The Rubicon was crossed without another struggle. 
 The captain filled a mug and drank. 
 
 "I wish it was beer," he said with a sigh. "But 
 there's no denying it's the genuine stuff, and cheap at 
 the money. Now, Huish, you clear out and take your 
 wheel." 
 
 The little wretch had gained a point, and he was 
 gay. "Ay, ay, sir," said he, and left the others to 
 their meal. 
 
 " Pea soup! " exclaimed the captain. " Blamed if I 
 thought I should taste pea soup again ! " 
 
 Herrick sat inert and silent. It was impossible, after 
 these months of hopeless want, to smell the rough, 
 high-spiced sea victuals without lust, and his mouth 
 watered with desire of the champagne. It was no less 
 impossible to have assisted at the scene between Huish 
 and the captain, and not to perceive, with sudden blunt- 
 ness, the gulf wherein he had fallen. He was a thief 
 among thieves. He said it to himself. He could not 
 touch the soup. If he had moved at all, it must have 
 been to leave the table, throw himself overboard, and 
 drown an honest man. 
 
 "Here," said the captain, "you look sick, old man; 
 have a drop of this." 
 
 The champagne creamed and bubbled in the mug; its 
 bright color, its lively effervescence seized his eye. " It 
 is too late to hesitate," he thought. His hand took the 
 mug instinctively; he drank, with unquenchable plea' 
 
 272
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 sure and desire of more ; drained the vessel dry, and set 
 it down with sparkling eyes. 
 
 " There is something in life after all! " he cried. " I 
 had forgot what it was like. Yes, even this is worth 
 while. Wine, food, dry clothes why, they're worth 
 dying, worth hanging for! Captain, tell me one thing: 
 why aren't all the poor folk foot-pads ? " 
 
 " Give it up," said the captain. 
 
 "They must be damned good," cried Herrick. 
 "There's something here beyond me. Think of that 
 calaboose! Suppose we were sent suddenly back!" 
 He shuddered as though stung by a convulsion, and 
 buried his face in his clutching hands. 
 
 " Here, what's wrong with you?" cried the captain. 
 There was no reply; only Herrick's shoulders heaved 
 so that the table was shaken. "Take some more of 
 this. Here, drink this. I order you to! Don't start 
 crying when you're out of the wood." 
 
 "I'm not crying," said Herrick, raising his face and 
 showing his dry eyes. "It's worse than crying. It's 
 the horror of that grave that we've escaped from." 
 
 "Come, now, you tackle your soup; that'll fix you," 
 said Davis, kindly. "I told you you were all broken 
 up. You couldn't have stood out another week." 
 
 " That's the dreadful part of it ! " cried Herrick. " An- 
 other week, and I'd have murdered some one for a dol- 
 lar! God ! and I know that ? And I'm still living ? It'* 
 some beastly dream." 
 
 "Quietly, quietly! Quietly does it, my son. Take 
 your pea soup. Food that's what you want," said 
 Davis. 
 
 The soup strengthened and quieted Herrick's nerves;
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 another glass of wine, and a piece of pickled pork and 
 fried banana completed what the soup began, and he 
 was able once more to look the captain in the face. 
 
 "I didn't know I was so much run down," he said. 
 
 "Well," said Davis, " you were as steady as a rock 
 all day; now you've had a little lunch, you'll be as 
 steady as a rock again." 
 
 "Yes," was the reply, " I'm steady enough now, but 
 I'm a queer kind of a first officer." 
 
 "Shucks! " cried the captain. "You've only got to 
 mind the ship's course, and keep your slate to half a 
 point. A babby could do that; let alone a college grad- 
 uate like you. There ain't nothing to sailoring, when 
 you come to look it in the face. And now we'll go and 
 put her about. Bring the slate; we'll have to start our 
 dead reckoning right away." 
 
 The distance run since the departure was read off the 
 log by the binnacle light, and entered on the slate. 
 
 "Ready about," said the captain. "Give me the 
 wheel, White Man, and you stand by the mainsheet. 
 Boom tackle, Mr. Hay, please, and then you can jump 
 forward and attend head-sails." 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir," responded Herrick. 
 
 "All clear forward ?" asked Davis. 
 
 "All clear, sir." 
 
 4 ' Hard a-lee ! " cried the captain. ' ' Haul in your slack 
 as she comes," he called to Huish. " Haul in your slack ; 
 put your back into it; keep your feet out of the coils." 
 A sudden blow sent Huish flat along the deck, and the 
 captain was in his place. " Pick yourself up and keep 
 the wheel hard over! " he roared. " You wooden fool, 
 you wanted to get killed, I guess. Draw the jib," he 
 
 274
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 cried a moment later; and then to Huish, " Give me the 
 wheel again, and see if you can coil that sheet." 
 
 But Huish stood and looked at Davis with an evil 
 countenance. "Do you know you struck me?" said 
 he. 
 
 " Do you know I saved your life ? " returned the other, 
 not deigning to look at him ; his eyes travelling, instead, 
 between the compass and the sails. "Where would 
 you have been if that boom had swung out and you. 
 bundled in the slack ? No, sir; we'll have no more of 
 you at the mainsheet. Seaport towns are full of main- 
 sheet-men ; they hop upon one leg, my son, what's left 
 of them, and the rest are dead. (Set your boom tackle, 
 Mr. Hay.) Struck you, did I ? Lucky for you I did." 
 
 "Well," said Huish, slowly, "I dessay there maybe 
 somethink in that. 'Ope there is." He turned his back 
 elaborately on the captain, and entered the house, where 
 the speedy explosion of a champagne cork showed he 
 was attending to his comfort. 
 
 Herrick came aft to the captain. " How is she doing 
 now ? " he asked. 
 
 " East and by no'the a half no'the," said Davis. " It's 
 about as good as I expected." 
 
 " What'll the hands think of it ?" said Herrick. 
 
 "Oh, they don't think. They ain't paid to," said the 
 captain. 
 
 "There was something wrong, was there not, be- 
 tween you and " Herrick paused. 
 
 "That's a nasty little beast; that's a biter," replied 
 the captain, shaking his head. " But so long as you and 
 me hang in, it don't matter." 
 
 Herrick lay down in the weather alleyway ; the night 
 375
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 was cloudless; the movement of the ship cradled him; 
 he was oppressed, besides, by the first generous meal 
 after so long a time of famine, and he was recalled from 
 deep sleep by the voice of Davis singing out: "Eight 
 bells!" 
 
 He rose stupidly and staggered aft, where the captain 
 gave him the wheel. 
 
 " By the wind," said the captain. " It comes a little 
 puffy; when you get a heavy puff, steal all you can to 
 windward, but keep her a good full." 
 
 He stepped towards the house, paused, and hailed the 
 forecastle. " Got such a thing as a concertina forward ? " 
 said he. "Bully for you, Uncle Ned. Fetch it aft, 
 will you ? " 
 
 The schooner steered very easy; and Herrick, watch- 
 ing the moon-whitened sails, was overpowered by 
 drowsiness. A sharp report from the cabin startled 
 him ; a third bottle had been opened ; and Herrick re- 
 membered the Sea Ranger and Fourteen Island Group. 
 Presently the notes of the accordion sounded, and then 
 the captain's voice : 
 
 "O honey, with our pockets full of money, 
 
 We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay; 
 And I will dance with Kate, and Tom will dance with Sail, 
 When we're all back from South Amerikee." 
 
 So it went to its quaint air; and the watch below lin- 
 gered and listened by the forward door, and Uncle Ned 
 was to be seen in the moonlight nodding time, and Her- 
 rick smiled at the wheel, his anxieties awhile forgotten. 
 Song folio wed song; another cork exploded ; there were 
 voices raised, as though the pair in the cabin were in 
 
 276
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 disagreement; and presently it seemed the breach was 
 healed, for it was now the voice of Huish that struck 
 up, to the captain's accompaniment: 
 
 " Up in a balloon, boys, 
 
 Up in a balloon, 
 Up among the little stars, 
 All around the moon." 
 
 A wave of nausea overcame Herrick at the wheel. 
 He wondered why the air, the words (which were yet 
 written with a certain knack), and the voice and accent 
 of the singer, should all jar his spirit like a file on a man's 
 teeth. He sickened at the thought of his two comrades 
 drinking away their reason upon stolen wine, quarrel- 
 ling and hiccupping and making up, while the doors of 
 a prison yawned for them in the near future. " Shall I 
 have sold my honour for nothing?" he thought; and a 
 heat of rage and resolution glowed in his bosom, rage 
 against his comrades, resolution to carry through this 
 business if it might be carried; pluck profit out of 
 shame, since the shame at least was now inevitable; 
 and come home, home from South America how did 
 the song go ? "with his pockets full of money." 
 
 " O honey, with our pockets full of money, 
 
 We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay: " 
 
 so the words ran in his head, and the " honey " took on 
 visible form ; the quay rose before him, and he knew it 
 for the lamplit Embankment, and he saw the lights of 
 Battersea bridge bestride the sullen river. All through 
 the remainder of his trick he stood entranced, review- 
 
 377
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 ing the past. He had been always true to his love, but 
 not always sedulous to recall her. In the growing ca- 
 lamity of his life, she had swum more distant, like the 
 moon in mist. The letter of farewell, the dishonourable 
 hope that had surprised and corrupted him in his dis- 
 tress, the changed scene, the sea, the night, and the 
 music, all stirred him to the roots of manhood. "I 
 wiU win her," he thought, and ground his teeth. " Fair 
 or foul, what matters if I win her ? " 
 
 "Fo' bell, matey. I think um fo' bell." He was 
 suddenly recalled by these words in the voice of Uncle 
 Ned. 
 
 "Look in at the clock, Uncle," said he. He would 
 not look himself from horror of the tipplers. 
 
 "Him past, matey," repeated the Hawaiian. 
 
 "So much the better for you, Uncle," he replied; and 
 he gave up the wheel, repeating the directions as he had 
 received them. 
 
 He took two steps forward, and remembered his dead 
 reckoning. " How has she been heading ?" he thought; 
 and he flushed from head to foot. He had not observed, 
 or had forgotten; here was the old incompetence; th* 
 slate must be filled up by guess. " Never again! " h4 
 vowed to himself in silent fury, " never again. It shall 
 be no fault of mine if this miscarry." And for the re- 
 mainder of his watch he stood close by Uncle Ned, and 
 read the face of the compass as, perhaps, he had never 
 read a letter from his sweetheart. 
 
 All the time, and spurring him to the more attention, 
 song, loud talk, fleering laughter, and the occasional 
 popping of a cork reached his ears from the interior of 
 the house ; and when the port watch was relieved at mid- 
 
 338
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 night, Huish and the captain appeared upon the quar- 
 ter-deck with flushed faces and uneven steps, the former 
 laden with bottles, the latter with the two tin mugs. 
 Herrick silently passed them by. They hailed him in 
 thick voices ; he made no answer. They cursed him for 
 a churl ; he paid no heed, although his belly quivered 
 with disgust and rage. He closed to the door of the house 
 behind him, and cast himself on a locker in the cabin 
 not to sleep, he thought ; rather to think and to despair. 
 Yet he had scarce turned twice on his uneasy bed before 
 a drunken voice hailed him in the ear, and he must go 
 on deck again to stand the morning watch. 
 
 The first evening set the model for those that were to 
 follow. Two cases of champagne scarce lasted the four 
 and twenty hours, and almost the whole was drunk by 
 Huish and the captain. Huish seemed to thrive on the 
 excess. He was never sober, yet never wholly tipsy; 
 the food and the sea air had soon healed him of his dis- 
 ease, and he began to lay on flesh. But with Davis 
 things went worse. In the drooping, unbuttoned figure 
 that sprawled all day upon the lockers, tippling and read- 
 ing novels, in the fool who made of the evening watch 
 a public carouse on the quarter-deck, it would have been 
 hard to recognise the vigorous seaman of Papeete roads. 
 He kept himself reasonably well in hand till he had taken 
 the sun and yawned and blotted through his calculations ; 
 but, from the moment he rolled up the chart, his hours 
 were passed in slavish self-indulgence or in hoggish 
 slumber. Every other branch of his duty was neglected, 
 except maintaining a stern discipline about the dinner 
 table. Again and again, Herrick would hear the cook 
 called aft, and see him running with fresh tins, or carry- 
 
 279
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 ing away again a meal that had been totally condemned. 
 And the more the captain became sunk in drunkenness, 
 the more delicate his palate showed itself. Once (in 
 the forenoon) he had a bo'sun's chair rigged over the 
 rail, stripped to his trousers, and went overboard with 
 a pot of paint. "I don't like the way this schooner's 
 painted," said he, " and I'll take a turn upon her name." 
 But he tired of it in half an hour, and the schooner went 
 on her way with an incongruous patch of colour on the 
 stern, and the word "Farallone" part obliterated and 
 part looking through. He refused to stand either the 
 middle or the morning watch. It was fine-weather 
 sailing, he said; and asked, with a laugh, "Who ever 
 heard of the old man standing watch himself ? " To the 
 dead reckoning, which Herrick still tried to keep, he 
 would pay not the least attention nor afford the least 
 assistance. 
 
 "What do we want of dead reckoning?" he asked. 
 "We get the sun all right, don't we?" 
 
 "We mayn't get it always, though," objected Her- 
 rick. "And you told me yourself you weren't sure of 
 the chronometer." 
 
 " Oh, there ain't no flies on the chronometer! " cried 
 Davis. 
 
 "Oblige me so far, captain," said Herrick, stiffly. 
 "I am anxious to keep this reckoning, which is a part 
 of my duty. I do not know what to allow for current, 
 nor how to allow for it. I am too inexperienced, and 
 I beg of you to help me." 
 
 "Never discourage zealous officer," said the captain, 
 unrolling the chart again, for Herrick had taken him 
 over his day's work, and while he was still partly sober. 
 
 280
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 *' Here it is; look for yourself; anything from the west- 
 no'the-west, and anyways from five to twenty-five 
 miles. That's what the A'm'ralty chart says. I guess 
 you don't expect to get ahead of your own Britishers ? " 
 
 "I am trying to do my duty, Captain Brown," said 
 Herrick, with a dark flush; "and I have the honour to 
 inform you that I don't enjoy being trifled with." 
 
 "What in thunder do you want?" roared Davis. 
 " Go and look at the blamed wake. If you're trying to 
 do your duty, why don't you go and do it ? I guess it's 
 no business of mine to go and stick my head over the 
 ship's rump. I guess it's yours. And I'll tell you 
 what it is, my fine fellow, I'll trouble you not to come 
 the dude over me. You're insolent; that's what's 
 wrong with you. Don't you crowd me, Mr. Herrick, 
 Esquire." 
 
 Herrick tore up his papers, threw them on the floor, 
 and left the cabin. 
 
 "He's turned a bloomin' swot, ain't he?" sneered 
 Huish. 
 
 "He thinks himself too good for his company; that's 
 what ails Herrick, Esquire," raged the captain. "He 
 thinks I don't understand when he comes the heavy 
 swell. Won't sit down with us, won't he? Won't 
 say a civil word ? I'll serve the son of a gun as he de- 
 serves. By God, Huish, I'll show him whether he's 
 too good for John Davis! " 
 
 "Easy with the names, Cap'," said Huish, who was 
 always the more sober. "Easy over the stones, my 
 boy!" 
 
 "All right, I will. You're a good sort, Huish. I 
 didn't take to you at first, but I guess you're right 
 
 281
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 enough. Le's open another bottle," said the captain; 
 and that day, perhaps because he was excited by the 
 quarrel, he drank more recklessly, and by four o'clock 
 was stretched insensible upon the locker. 
 
 Herrick and Huish supped alone, one after the other, 
 opposite his flushed and snorting body. And if the 
 sight killed Herrick's hunger, the isolation weighed so 
 heavily on the clerk's spirit that he was scarce risen 
 from table ere he was currying favour with his former 
 comrade. 
 
 Herrick was at the wheel when he approached, and 
 Huish leaned confidentially across the binnacle. 
 
 "I say, old chappie," he said, "you and me don't 
 seem to be such pals, somehow." 
 
 Herrick gave her a spoke or two in silence; his eye, 
 as it skirted from the needle to the luff of the foresail, 
 passed the man by without speculation. But Huish 
 was really dull, a thing he could support with difficulty, 
 having no resources of his own. The idea of a private 
 talk with Herrick, at this stage of their relations, held 
 out particular inducements to a person of his character. 
 Drink, besides, as it renders some men hyper-sensitive, 
 made Huish callous; and it would almost have required 
 a blow to make him quit his purpose. 
 
 " Pretty business, ain't it ? " he continued. " Dyvis 
 on the lush! Must say I thought you gave it 'im A-one 
 to-day. He didn't like it a bit ; took on ha wful after you 
 were gone. ' 'Ere,' says I, ' 'old on; easy on the lush,' 
 I says. ' 'Errick was right, and you know it Give 
 'im a chanst,' I says. f 'Uish,' sezee, 'don't you gim- 
 me no more of your jaw, or I'll knock your bloomin' 
 eyes out.' Well, wot can I do, 'Errick ? But I tell you, 
 
 282
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 I don't 'arf like it. It looks to me like the Sea Ryngei 
 over again." 
 
 Still Herrick was silent. 
 
 "Do you 'ear me speak?" asked Huish, sharply. 
 "You're pleasant, ain't you?" 
 
 "Stand away from that binnacle," said Herrick. 
 
 The clerk looked at him, long and straight and black; 
 his figure seemed to writhe like that of a snake about 
 to strike; then he turned on his heel, went back to the 
 cabin, and opened a bottle of champagne. When eight 
 bells were cried, he slept on the floor beside the captain 
 on the locker ; and of the whole starboard watch, only 
 Sally Day appeared upon the summons. The mate 
 proposed to stand the watch with him, and let Uncle 
 Ned lie down. It would make twelve hours on deck, 
 and probably sixteen ; but in this fair-weather sailing, 
 he might safely sleep between his tricks of wheel, leav- 
 ing orders to be called on any sign of squalls. So far 
 he could trust the men, between whom and himself a 
 close relation had sprung up. With Uncle Ned he held 
 long nocturnal conversations, and the old man told him 
 his simple and hard story of exile, suffering, and injustice 
 among cruel whites. The cook, when he found Herrick 
 messed alone, produced for him unexpected and some- 
 times unpalatable dainties, of which he forced himself 
 to eat. And one day, when he was forward, he was 
 surprised to feel a caressing hand run down his shoul- 
 der, and to hear the voice of Sally Day crooning in his 
 ear: "You gootch man!" He turned, and, choking 
 down a sob, shook hands with the negrito. They were 
 kindly, cheery, childish souls. Upon the Sunday each 
 brought forth his separate Bible ; for they were all men 
 
 283
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 of alien speech, even to each other, and Sally Day com- 
 municated with his mates in English only. Each read, 
 or made believe to read, his chapter, Uncle Ned with 
 spectacles on nose, and they would all join together in 
 the singing of missionary hymns. It was thus a cutting 
 reproof to compare the islanders and the whites aboard 
 the Farattone. Shame ran in Herrick's blood to re- 
 member what employment he was on, and to see these 
 poor souls and even Sally Day, the child of cannibals, 
 in all likelihood a cannibal himself so faithful to what 
 they knew of good. The fact that he was held in grate- 
 ful favour by these innocents served like blinders to his 
 conscience, and there were times when he was inclined, 
 with Sally Day, to call himself a good man. But the 
 height of his favour was only now to appear. With one 
 voice the crew protested. Ere Herrick knew what they 
 were doing, the cook was aroused, and came a willing 
 volunteer; all hands clustered about their mate with ex- 
 postulations and caresses, and he was bidden to lie down 
 and take his customary rest without alarm. 
 
 "He tell you tlue," said Uncle Ned. "You sleep. 
 Evely man hea he do all light. Evely man he like you 
 too much." 
 
 Herrick struggled choked upon some trivial words 
 of gratitude and walked to the side of the house, 
 against which he leaned, struggling with emotion. 
 
 Uncle Ned presently followed him, and begged him 
 to lie down. 
 
 "It's no use, Uncle Ned," he replied. "I couldn't 
 sleep. I'm knocked over with all your goodness." 
 
 "Ah, no call me Uncle Ned no mo'!" cried the old 
 man. "No my name! My name Taveeta, all-e-same 
 
 284
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 Taveeta, King of Islael. Wat for he call that Hawaii ? 
 I think no savvy nothing all-e-same Wise-a-mana." 
 
 It was the first time the name of the late captain had 
 been mentioned, and Herrick grasped the occasion. The 
 reader shall be spared Uncle Ned's unwieldy dialect, and 
 learn, in less embarrassing English, the sum of what he 
 now communicated. The ship had scarce cleared the 
 Golden Gate before the captain and mate had entered 
 on a career of drunkenness, which was scarcely inter- 
 rupted by their malady, and only closed by death. For 
 days and weeks they had encountered neither land nor 
 ship; and, seeing themselves lost on the huge deep 
 with their insane conductors, the natives had drunk 
 deep of terror. 
 
 At length they made a low island, and went in ; and 
 Wiseman and Wishart landed in the boat. There was 
 a great village, a very fine village, and plenty Kanakas 
 in that place, but all mighty serious ; and, from every 
 here and there in the back parts of the settlement, Ta- 
 veeta heard the sounds of island lamentation. "I no 
 savvy talk that island," said he. " I savvy hear um cly. 
 \ think, Hum! too many people die here!" But upon 
 Wiseman and Wishart the significance of that barbaric 
 keening was lost. Full of bread and drink, they rol- 
 'icked along, unconcerned ; embraced the girls, who had 
 scarce energy to repel them ; took up and joined (with 
 drunken voices) in the death wail; and at last (on what 
 they took to be an invitation) entered under the roof of a 
 house in which was a considerable concourse of people 
 sitting silent. They stooped below the eaves, flushed 
 and laughing; within a minute they came forth again 
 with changed faces and silenced tongues; and, as the 
 
 285
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 press severed to make way for them, Taveeta was able 
 to perceive, in the deep shadow of the house, the sick 
 man raising from his mat a head already defeatured by 
 disease. The two tragic triflers fled, without hesita- 
 tion, for their boat, screaming on Taveeta to make haste. 
 They came aboard with all speed of oars, raised anchor, 
 and crowded sail upon the ship with blows and curses, 
 and were at sea again and again drunk before sun- 
 set. A week after, and the last of the two had been 
 committed to the deep. Herrick asked Taveeta where 
 that island was, and he replied that, by what he gath- 
 ered of folks' talk as they went up together from the 
 beach, he supposed it must be one of the Paumotus. 
 This was in itself probable enough, for the Dangerous 
 Archipelago had been swept that year from east to west 
 by devastating small-pox; but Herrick thought it a 
 strange course to lie for Sydney. Then he remembered 
 the drink. 
 
 "Were they not surprised when they made the 
 island?" he asked. 
 
 " Wise-a-mana he say, ' Dam ! what this ? ' " was the 
 reply. 
 
 " Oh, that's it, then," said Herrick. "I don't believe 
 they knew where they were." 
 
 " I tink so, too," said Uncle Ned. " I tink no savvy. 
 This one mo' betta," he added, pointing to the house 
 where the drunken captain slumbered. "Take-a-sun 
 all-e-same." 
 
 The implied last touch completed Herrick's picture of 
 the life and death of his two predecessors ; of their pro- 
 longed, sordid, sodden sensuality as they sailed, they 
 knew not whither, on their last cruise. He held but a 
 
 286
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 twinkling and unsure belief in any future state; the 
 thought of one of punishment, he derided; yet for him 
 (as for all) there dwelt a horror about the end of the 
 brutish man. Sickness fell upon him at the image thus 
 called up; and when he compared it with the scene in 
 which himself was acting, and considered the doom 
 that seemed to brood upon the schooner, a horror that 
 was almost superstitious fell upon him. And yet the 
 strange thing was, he did not falter. He who had 
 proved his incapacity in so many fields, being now 
 falsely placed amid duties which he did not understand, 
 without help, and, it might be said, without counte- 
 nance, had hitherto surpassed expectation ; and even the 
 shameful misconduct and shocking disclosures of that 
 night served but to nerve and strengthen him. He had 
 sold his honour; he vowed it should not be in vain. "It 
 shall be no fault of mine if this miscarry," he repeated. 
 And in his heart he wondered at himself. Living rage, 
 no doubt, supported him ; no doubt, also, the sense of 
 the last cast, of the ships burned, of all doors closed but 
 one, which is so strong a tonic to the merely weak, and 
 so deadly a depressant to the merely cowardly. 
 
 For some f ime the voyage went otherwise well. They 
 weathered Fakarava with one board ; and, the wind hold- 
 ing well to the southward and blowing fresh, they passed 
 between Ranaka and Ratiu, and ran some days, north- 
 east by east half east, under the lee of Takume and 
 Hondem, neither of which they made. In about four- 
 teen south and between one hundred and thirty-four 
 and one hundred and thirty-five west, it fell a dead calm, 
 with rather a heavy sea. The captain refused to take in 
 sail ; the helm was lashed, no watch was set, and the
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Farattone rolled and banged for three days, according to 
 observation, in almost the same place. The fourth morn- 
 ing, a little before day, a breeze sprang up and rapidly 
 freshened. The captain had drunk hard the night be- 
 fore ; he was far from sober when he was roused ; and 
 when he came on deck for the first time, at half past 
 eight, it was plain he had already drunk deep again at 
 breakfast. Herrick avoided his eye, and resigned the 
 deck, with indignation, to a man more than half seas 
 over. By the loud commands of the captain and the 
 singing out of fellows at the ropes, he could judge from 
 the house that sail was being crowded on the ship ; re- 
 linquished his half-eaten breakfast, and came on deck 
 again, to find the main and the jib topsails set, and both 
 watches and the cook turned out to hand the stay-sail. 
 The Farallone lay already far over; the sky was ob- 
 scured with misty scud; and from the windward an 
 ominous squall came flying up, broadening and black- 
 ening as it rose. 
 
 Fear thrilled in Herrick's vitals. He saw death hard 
 by, and, if not death, sure ruin; for if the Farallone 
 lived through the coming squall, she must surely be 
 dismasted. With that, their enterprise was at an end, 
 and they themselves bound prisoners to the very evi- 
 dence of their crime. The greatness of the peril and 
 his own alarm sufficed to silence him. Pride, wrath, 
 and shame raged without issue in his mind, and he 
 shut his teeth and folded his arms close. 
 
 The captain sat in the boat to windward, bellowing 
 orders and insults, his eyes glazed, his face deeply con- 
 gested, a bottle set between his knees, a glass in his 
 hand, half empty. His back was to the squall, and he 
 
 388
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 was at first intent upon the setting of the sail. When 
 that was done, and the great trapezium of canvas had 
 begun to draw and to trail the lee-rail of the Farattone 
 level with the foam, he laughed out an empty laugh, 
 drained his glass, sprawled back among the lumber in 
 the boat, and fetched out a crumpled novel. 
 
 Herrick watched him, and his indignation glowed red- 
 hot. He glanced to windward, where the squall already 
 whitened the near sea, and already heralded its coming 
 with a singular and dismal sound. He glanced at the 
 steersman, and saw him clinging to the spokes with a 
 face of a sickly blue. He saw the crew were running to 
 their stations without orders, and it seemed as if some- 
 thing broke in his brain ; and the passion of anger, so 
 long restrained, so long eaten in secret, burst suddenly 
 loose, and filled and shook him like a sail. He stepped 
 across to the captain, and smote his hand heavily on the 
 drunkard's shoulder. 
 
 " You brute," he said, in a voice that tottered, " look 
 behind you! " 
 
 "Wha's that?" cried Davis, bounding in the boat 
 and upsetting the champagne. 
 
 "You lost the Sea Ranger because you were a 
 drunken sot," said Herrick. "Now you're going to 
 lose the Farattone. You're going to drown here the 
 same way as you drowned others, and be damned. 
 And your daughter shall walk the streets, and your sons 
 be thieves like their father." 
 
 For the moment, the words struck the captain white 
 and foolish. " My God! " he cried, looking at Herrick 
 as upon a ghost; "my God, Herrick!" 
 
 " Look behind you, then! " reiterated the assailant
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 The wretched man, already partly sobered, did as he 
 was told, and in the same breath of time leaped to his 
 feet. "Down staysail!" he trumpeted. The hands 
 were thrilling for the order, and the great sail came with 
 a run, and fell half overboard among the racing foam. 
 "Jib topsail halyards! Let the stays'l be," he said again. 
 
 But before it was well uttered, the squall shouted 
 aloud and fell, in a solid mass of wind and rain com- 
 mingled on the Farallone, and she stooped under the 
 blow, and lay like a thing dead. From the mind of 
 Herrick reason fled; he clung in the weather rigging, 
 exulting; he was done with life, and he gloried in the 
 release; he gloried in the wild noises of the wind anrl 
 the choking onslaught of the rain ; he gloried to die so. 
 and now, amid this coil of the elements. And mean 1 
 while, in the waist, up to his knees in water, so low 
 the schooner lay, the captain was hacking at the fore- 
 sheet with a pocket-knife. It was a question of seconds, 
 for the Farallone drank deep of the encroaching seas. 
 But the hand of the captain had the advance. The fore- 
 sail boom tore apart the last strands of the sheet, and 
 crashed to leeward; the Farallone leaped up into the 
 wind and righted; and the peak and throat halyards, 
 which had long been let go, began to run at the same 
 instant 
 
 For some ten minutes more she careered under the 
 impulse of the squall ; but the captain was now master 
 of himself and of his ship, and all danger at an end. 
 And then, sudden as a trick-change upon the stage, the 
 squall blew by, the wind dropped into light airs, the 
 sun beamed forth again upon the tattered schooner; and 
 the captain, having secured the foresail boom, and set a 
 
 290
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 couple of hands to the pump, walked aft, sober, a little 
 pale, and with the sodden end of a cigar still stuck be- 
 tween his teeth, even as the squall had found it. Her- 
 rick followed him. He could scarce recall the violence 
 of his late emotions, but he felt there was a scene to go 
 through, and he was anxious and even eager to go 
 through with it. 
 
 The captain, turning at the house end, met him face 
 to face, and averted his eyes. " We've lost the two 
 tops'ls and the stays'I," he gabbled. " Good business 
 we did n't lose any sticks. I guess you think we're all 
 the better without the kites." 
 
 "That's not what I'm thinking," said Herrick, in a 
 voice strangely quiet, that yet echoed confusion in the 
 captain's mind. 
 
 "I know that," he cried, holding up his hand. "I 
 know what you're thinking. No use to say it now. I'm 
 sober." 
 
 " I have to say it, though," returned Herrick. 
 
 "Hold on, Herrick; you've said enough," said Davis. 
 " You've said what I would take from no man breath- 
 ing but yourself; only I know it's true." 
 
 "I have to tell you, Captain Brown," pursued Her- 
 rick, "that I resign my position as mate. You can put 
 me in irons or shoot me, as you please. I will make no 
 resistance ; only I decline in any way to help or to obey 
 you; and I suggest you should put Mr. Huish in my 
 place. He will make a worthy first officer to your cap- 
 tain, sir." He smiled, bowed, and turned to walk for- 
 ward. 
 
 " Where are you going, Herrick ?" cried the captain, 
 detaining him by the shoulder. 
 
 201
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "To berth forward with the men, sir," replied Her- 
 rick, with the same hateful smile. "I've been long 
 enough aft here with you gentlemen." 
 
 " You're wrong there," said Davis. "Don't you be 
 too quick with me ; there ain't nothing wrong but the 
 drink it's the old story, man ! Let me get sober once, 
 and then you'll see," he pleaded. 
 
 "Excuse me, I desire to see no more of you," said 
 Herrick. 
 
 The captain groaned aloud. " You know what you 
 said about my children ? " he broke out. 
 
 "By rote. In case you wish me to say ft to you 
 again ? " asked Herrick. 
 
 " Don't! " cried the captain, clapping his hands to his 
 ears. "Don't make me kill a man I care for! Herrick, 
 if you see me put a glass to my lips again till we're 
 ashore, I give you leave to put a bullet through me. I 
 beg you to do it! You're the only man aboard whose 
 carcass is worth losing. Do you think I don't know 
 that? Do you think I ever went back on you? I 
 always knew that you were in the right of it; drunk or 
 sober, I knew that What do you want ? An oath ? 
 Man, you're clever enough to see that this is sure- 
 enough earnest" 
 
 "Do you mean there shall be no more drinking," 
 asked Herrick; " neither by you nor Huish ? That you 
 won't go on stealing my profits and drinking my cham- 
 pagne, that I gave my honour for ? And that you'll at- 
 tend to your duties, and stand watch and watch, and 
 bear your proper share of the ship's work, instead of 
 leaving it all on the shoulders of a landsman, and mak- 
 ing yourself the butt and scoff of native seamen ? Is 
 
 393
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 that what you mean ? If it is, be so good as to say it 
 categorically." 
 
 " You put these things in a way hard for a gentleman 
 to swallow," said the captain. " You would n't have 
 me say I was ashamed of myself? Trust me this once! 
 I'll do the square thing; and there's my hand on it" 
 
 "Well, I'll try it once," said Herrick. "Fail me 
 again " 
 
 "No more now !" interrupted Davis. "No more, 
 old man ! Enough said. You've a riling tongue when 
 your back's up, Herrick. Just be glad we're friends 
 again, the same as what I am, and go tender on the 
 raws. I'll see as you don't repent it. We've been 
 mighty near death this day, don't say whose fault it 
 was ! pretty near hell too, I guess. We're in a mighty 
 bad line of life, us two, and ought to go easy with each 
 other." 
 
 He was maundering; yet it seemed as if he were 
 maundering with some design, beating about the bush 
 of some communication that he feared to make, or per- 
 haps only talki.ig against time, in terror of what Her- 
 rick might say next But Herrick had now spat his 
 venom. His was a kindly nature, and, content with 
 his triumph, he had now begun to pity. With a 
 few soothing words he sought to conclude the inter- 
 view, and proposed that they should change their 
 clothes. 
 
 ' ' Not right yet, " said Davis. ' ' There's another thing 
 i want to tell you first You know what you said about 
 my children ? I want to tell you why it hit me so 
 hard ; I kind of think you'll feel bad about it too. It's 
 about my little Adar. You hadn't ought to have quite 
 
 293
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 said that but of course I know you didn't know. She 
 she's dead, you see." 
 
 "Why, Davis!" cried Herrick. "You've told me a 
 dozen times she was alive! Clear your head, man! 
 This must be the drink." 
 
 "No, sir," said Davis. "She's dead, right enough. 
 Died of a bowel complaint. That was when I was 
 away in the brig Oregon. She lies in Portland, Maine. 
 ' Adar, only daughter of Captain John Davis and Mariar 
 his wife, aged five.' I had a doll for her on board. I 
 never took the paper offn that doll, Herrick; it went 
 down the way it was, with the Sea Ranger, that day I 
 was damned." 
 
 The captain's eyes were fixed on the horizon; he 
 talked with an extraordinary softness, but a complete 
 composure; and Herrick looked upon him with some- 
 thing that was almost terror. 
 
 "Don't think I'm crazy, neither," resumed Davis. 
 "I've all the cold sense that I know what to do with. 
 But I guess a man that's unhappy's like a child; and 
 this is a kind of a child's game of mine. I never could 
 act up to the plain-out truth, you see. So I pretend. 
 And I warn you square: as soon as we're through 
 with this talk, I'll start in again with the pretending. 
 Only, you see, she can't walk no streets," added the 
 captain; "couldn't even make out to live and get that 
 doll!" 
 
 Herrick laid a tremulous hand upon the captain's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Don't do that!" cried Davis, recoiling from the 
 touch. "Can't you see I'm all broken up the way it 
 is ? Come along, then ; come along, old man. You 
 
 294
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 can put your trust in me right through. Come along 
 and get dry clothes." 
 
 They entered the cabin, and there was Huish on his 
 knees, prising open a case of champagne. 
 
 "Vast, there!" cried the captain. "No more of 
 that. No more drinking on this ship." 
 
 "Turned teetotal, 'ave you ? " inquired Huish. " I'm 
 agreeable. About time, eh? Bloomin' nearly lost 
 another ship, I fancy." He took out a bottle, and be- 
 gan calmly to burst the wire with the spike of a cork- 
 screw. 
 
 "Do you hear me speak ? " cried Davis. 
 
 "I suppose I do. You speak loud enough," said 
 Huish. " The trouble is that I don't care." 
 
 Herrick plucked the captain's sleeve. "Let him be 
 now," said he; "we've had all we want this evening." 
 
 " Let him have it, then," said the captain. " It's his 
 last." 
 
 By this time the wire was open, the string was cut, 
 the head of gilded paper was torn away, and Huish 
 waited, mug in hand, expecting the usual explosion. 
 It did not follow. He eased the cork with his thumb; 
 still there was no result. At last he took the screw and 
 drew it. It came out very easy and with scarce a 
 sound. 
 
 " 'Illo! " said Huish, " 'ere's a bad bottle." 
 
 He poured some of the wine into the mug; it was 
 colourless and still. He smelt and tasted it. 
 
 " W'y, wot's this ? " he said. " It's water! " 
 
 If the voice of trumpets had suddenly sounded about 
 the ship in the midst of the sea, the three men in the 
 house could scarce have been more stunned than by 
 
 295
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 this incident. The mug passed round; each sipped, 
 each smelt of it; each stared at the bottle, in its glory of 
 gold paper, as Crusoe may have stared at the footprint; 
 and their minds were swift to fix upon a common ap- 
 prehension. The difference between a bottle of cham- 
 pagne and a bottle of water is not great; between a 
 shipload of one or of the other lay the whole scale from 
 riches to ruin. 
 
 A second bottle was broached. There were two cases 
 standing ready in a stateroom. These two were brought 
 out, broken open and tested; still with the same result: 
 the contents were still colourless and tasteless, and dead 
 as the rain in a beached fishing-boat. 
 
 "Crikey!" said Huish. 
 
 " Here, let's sample the hold! " said the captain, mop- 
 ping his brow with a back-handed sweep ; and the three 
 stalked out of the house, grim and heavy-footed. 
 
 All hands were turned out : two Kanakas were sent 
 below, another stationed at a purchase, and Davis, axe 
 in hand, took his place beside the coaming. 
 
 "Are you going to let the men know ? " whispered 
 Herrick. 
 
 "Damn the men !" said Davis. "It's beyond that. 
 We've got to know ourselves." 
 
 Three cases were sent on deck and sampled in turn ; 
 from each bottle, as the captain smashed it with the axe, 
 the champagne ran bubbling and creaming. 
 
 " Go deeper, can't you ?" cried Davis to the Kanakas 
 in the hold. 
 
 The command gave the signal fora disastrous change. 
 Case after case came up, bottle after bottle was burst, 
 and bled mere water. Deeper yet, and they came upon 
 
 296
 
 THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE 
 
 a layer where there was scarcely so much as the inten- 
 tion to deceive, where the cases were no longer 
 branded, the bottles no longer wired or papered; where 
 the fraud was manifest, and stared them in the face. 
 
 "Here's about enough of this foolery!" said Davis. 
 "Stow back the cases in the hold, Uncle, and get the 
 broken crockery overboard. Come with me," he added 
 to his co-adventurers, and led the way back into th-" 
 cabin.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PARTNERS 
 
 EACH took a side of the fixed table. It was the first 
 time they had sat down at it together; but now all 
 sense of incongruity, all memory of differences, was 
 quite swept away by the presence of common ruin. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the captain, after a pause, and 
 with very much the air of a chairman opening a board- 
 meeting, "we're sold." 
 
 Huish broke out in laughter. "Well, if this ain't the 
 'ighest old rig!" he cried. "And Davis 'ere, who 
 thought he had got up so bloomin' early in the morn- 
 in'! We've stolen a cargo of spring water! Oh, my 
 crikey!" and he squirmed with mirth. 
 
 The captain managed to screw out a phantom smile. 
 
 "Here's Old Man Destiny again," said he to Herrick; 
 "but this time I guess he's kicked the door right in." 
 
 Herrick only shook his head. 
 
 "Oh, Lord, it's rich!" laughed Huish. "It would 
 really be a scrumptious lark if it 'ad 'appened to some- 
 body else. And wot are we to do next ? Oh, my eye! 
 with this bloomin' schooner, too." 
 
 " That's the trouble," said Davis. "There's only one 
 thing certain : it's no use carting this old glass and bal- 
 last to Peru. No, sir, we're in a hole." 
 
 "Oh, my! and the merchant!" cried Huish; "the 
 
 a8
 
 THE PARTNERS 
 
 man that made this shipment! He'll get the news by 
 the mail brigantine, and he'll think of course we're 
 making straight for Sydney." 
 
 "Yes, he'll be a sick merchant," said the captain. 
 "One thing: this explains the Kanaka crew. If you're 
 going to lose a ship, I would ask no better myself than 
 a Kanaka crew. But there's one thing it don't explain; 
 it don't explain why she came down Tahiti ways." 
 
 " W'y, to lose her, you byby! " said Huish. 
 
 "A lot you know," said the captain. "Nobody 
 wants to lose a schooner ; they want to lose her on her 
 course, you skeesicks! You seem to think under- 
 writers haven't got enough sense to come in out of the 
 rain." 
 
 "Well," said Herrick, "I can tell you, I am afraid, 
 why she came so far to the eastward. I had it of Uncle 
 Ned. It seems these two unhappy devils, Wiseman 
 and Wishart, were drunk on the champagne from the 
 beginning, and died drunk at the end." 
 
 The captain looked on the table. 
 
 "They lay in their two bunks, or sat here in this 
 damned house," he pursued, with rising agitation, 
 "filling their skins with the accursed stuff, till sickness 
 took them. As they sickened, and the fever rose, they 
 drank the more. They lay here howling and groaning, 
 drunk and dying, all in one. They didn't know where 
 they were; they didn't care. They didn't even take 
 the sun, it seems." 
 
 "Not take the sun!" cried the captain, looking up. 
 "Sacred Billy! what a crowd! " 
 
 " Well, it don't matter to Joe! " said Huish. " Wot 
 are Wiseman and the t'other buffer to us ? " 
 
 299
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "A good deal, too," said the captain. "We're their 
 heirs, I guess." 
 
 " It is a great inheritance," said Herrick. 
 
 "Well, I don't know about that," returned Davis. 
 " Appears to me as if it might be worse. T ain't what 
 the cargo would have been, of course; at least, not money 
 down. But I'll tell you what it appears to figure up to. 
 Appears to me as if it amounted to about the bottom 
 dollar of the man in "Frisco." 
 
 "'Old on," said Huish. "Give a fellow time. 'Ow's 
 this, umpire?" 
 
 "Well, my sons, "pursued the captain, who seemed 
 to have recovered his assurance, ' ' Wiseman and Wish- 
 art were to be paid for casing away this old schooner 
 and its cargo. We're going to cast away the schooner 
 right enough, and I'll make it my private business to see 
 that we get paid. What were W. and W. to get ? That's 
 more'n I can tell. But W. and W. went into this busi- 
 ness themselves; they were on the crook. Now we're 
 on the square; we only stumbled into it; and that mer- 
 chant has just got to squeal, and I'm the man to see that 
 he squeals good. No, sir! there's some stuffing to this 
 Farattone racket, after all." 
 
 " Go it, Cap 1" cried Huish. "Yoicks! Forrard! 'Old 
 'ard ! There's your style for the money ! Blow me if I 
 don't prefer this to the hother." 
 
 " I do not understand," said Herrick. "I have to ask 
 you to excuse me; I do not understand." 
 
 "Well, now, see here, Herrick," said Davis. "I'm 
 going to have a word with you, any way, upon a dif- 
 ferent matter, and it's good that Huish should hear it 
 too. We're done with this boozing business, and we 
 
 300
 
 THE PARTNERS 
 
 ask your pardon for it right here and now. We have 
 to thank you for all you did for us while we were mak- 
 ing hogs of ourselves. You'll find me turn to all right 
 in future; and as for the wine, which I grant we stole 
 from you, I'll take stock and see you paid for it. That's 
 good enough, I believe. But what I want to point out 
 to you is this. The old game was a risky game. The 
 new game's as safe as running a Vienna bakery. We 
 just put this Farattone before the wind, and run till 
 we're well to leeward of our port of departure, and rea- 
 sonably well up with some other place where they have 
 an American consul. Down goes the Farattone, and 
 good-by to her! A day or so in the boat; the consul 
 packs us home, at Uncle Sam's expense, to 'Frisco ; and 
 if that merchant don't put the dollars down, you come 
 tome!" 
 
 "But I thought " began Herrick; and then broke 
 out, "Oh, let's get on to Peru! " 
 
 " Well, if you're going to Peru for your health, I won't 
 say no, " replied the captain. ' ' But for what other blame' 
 shadow of a reason you should want to go there, gets 
 me clear. We don't want to go there with this cargo. 
 I don't know as old bottles is a lively article anywheres; 
 leastways I'll go my bottom cent it ain't in Peru. It 
 was always a doubt if we could sell the schooner; I 
 never rightly hoped to, and now I'm sure she ain't worth 
 a hill of beans. What's wrong with her, I don't know. 
 I only know it's something, or she wouldn't be here 
 with this truck in her inside. Then, again, if we lose 
 her, and land in Peru, where are we ? We can't declare 
 the less, or how did we get to Peru ? In that case the 
 merchant can't touch the insurance; most likely he'll go 
 
 301
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 bust; and don't you think you see the three of us on the 
 beach of Callao?" 
 
 "There's no extradition there, "said Herrick. 
 
 "Well, my son, and we want to be extradished," said 
 the captain. " What's our point ? We want to have a 
 consul extradish us as far as San Francisco and that mer- 
 chant's office door. My idea is that Samoa would be 
 found an eligible business centre. It's dead before the 
 wind; the States have a consul there, and 'Frisco steam- 
 ers call, so's we could skip right back and interview the 
 merchant" 
 
 " Samoa ? " said Herrick. ' ' It will take us forever to 
 get there." 
 
 " Oh, with a fair wind ! " said the captain. 
 
 "No trouble about the log, eh ? " asked Huish. 
 
 "No, sir," said Davis. " Ugbt airs and baffling 
 winds. Squalls and calms. D. R.: five miles. No 
 obs. Pumps attended. And fill in the barometer 
 and thermometer off of last year's trip. ' Never saw 
 such a voyage,' says you to the consul 'Thought I 
 was going to run short '" He stopped in mid- 
 career. "Say," he began again, and once more 
 stopped. " Beg your pardon, Herrick," he added, with 
 undisguised humility, "but did you keep the run of 
 the stores?" 
 
 " Had I been told to do so, it should have been done, 
 as the rest was done, to the best of my little ability," 
 said Herrick. "As it was, the cook helped himself to 
 what he pleased." 
 
 Davis looked at the table. 
 
 " I drew it rather fine, you see, " he said at last "The 
 great thing was to clear right out of Papeete before the 
 
 302
 
 THE PARTNERS 
 
 consul could think better of it. Tell you what, I guess 
 I'll take stock." 
 
 And he rose from the table, and disappeared with a 
 lamp in the lazaretto. 
 
 "'Ere's another screw loose," observed Huish. 
 
 "My man," said Herrick, with a sudden gleam of 
 animosity, "it is still your watch on deck, and surely 
 your wheel also ? " 
 
 "You come the 'eavy swell, don't you, ducky?" 
 said Huish. "Stand away from that binnacle. ' Surely 
 your w'eel, my man.' Yah! " 
 
 He lit a cigar ostentatiously, and strolled into the waist 
 with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 In a surprisingly short time the captain reappeared; 
 he did not look at Herrick, but called Huish back and 
 sat down. 
 
 "Well," he began, "I've taken stock roughly." 
 He paused, as if for somebody to help him out; and, 
 none doing so, both gazing on him instead with mani- 
 fest anxiety, he yet more heavily resumed: "Well, it 
 won't fight. We can't do it; that's the bed-rock. I'm 
 as sorry as what you can be, and sorrier. But the 
 game's up. We can't look near Samoa. I don't know 
 as we could get to Peru." 
 
 " Wot-ju mean ? " asked Huish, brutally. 
 
 "I can't most tell myself," replied the captain. "I 
 drew it fine; I said I did; but what's been going on here 
 gets me! Appears as if the devil had been around. 
 That cook must be the holiest kind of a fraud. Only 
 twelve days, too! Seems like craziness. I'll own up 
 square to one thing: I seem to have figured too fine upon 
 the flour. But the rest my land! I'll never under- 
 
 303
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 stand it! There's been more waste on this two-penny 
 ship than what there is to an Atlantic Liner." He stole 
 a glance at his companions; nothing good was to be 
 gleaned from their dark faces ; and he had recourse to 
 rage. "You wait until I interview that cook!" he 
 roared, and smote the table with his fist. "I'll inter- 
 view the son of a gun as he's never been spoken to be- 
 fore. I'll put a bead upon the 1" 
 
 " You will not lay a finger on the man," said Herrick. 
 " The fault is yours, and you know it. If you turn a 
 savage loose in your store-room, you know what to ex- 
 pect. I will not allow the man to be molested." 
 
 It is hard to say how Davis might have taken this de- 
 fiance, but he was diverted to a fresh assailant. 
 
 " Well! " drawled Huish, "you're a plummy captain, 
 ain't you ? You're a blooming captain! Don't you set 
 up any of your chat to me, John Dyvis. I know you 
 now; you ain't any more use than a bloomin' dawl! 
 Oh, you 'don't know,' don't you? Oh, it 'gets you,' 
 do it? Oh, I dessay! W'y, weren't you 'owling for 
 fresh tins every blessed day ? 'Ow often 'ave I 'card 
 you send the 'ole bloomin' dinner off, and tell the man 
 to chuck it in the swill-tub ? And breakfast ? Oh, my 
 crikey! Breakfast for ten, and you 'ollerin' for more! 
 And now you ' can't most tell ' ! Blow me if it ain't 
 enough to make a man write an insultin' letter to Gawd ! 
 You dror it mild, John Dyvis. Don't 'andle me; I'm 
 dyngerous." 
 
 Davis sat like one bemused ; it might even have been 
 doubted if he heard. But the voice of the clerk rang 
 about the cabin like that of a cormorant among the 
 ledges of a cliff. 
 
 304
 
 THE PARTNERS 
 
 "That will do, Huish," said Herrick. 
 
 " Oh, so you tyke his part, do you, you stuck-up, sneer- 
 in' snob ? Tyke it, then. Come on, the pair of you ! 
 But as for John Dyvis, let him look out! He struck me 
 the first night aboard, and I never took a blow yet but 
 wot I gave as good. Let him knuckle down on his mar- 
 rowbones and beg my pardon; that's my last word! " 
 
 " I stand by the captain," said Herrick. "That makes 
 us two to one, both good men; and the crew will all 
 follow me. I hope I shall die very soon ; but I have not 
 the least objection to killing you before I go. I should 
 prefer it so. I should do it with no more remorse than 
 winking. Take care, take care, you little cad I " 
 
 The animosity with which these words were uttered 
 was so marked in itself, and so remarkable in the man 
 who uttered them, that Huish stared, and even the hu- 
 miliated Davis reared up his head and gazed at his de- 
 fender. As for Herrick, the successive agitations and 
 disappointments of the day had left him wholly reckless; 
 he was conscious of a pleasant glow, an agreeable ex- 
 citement. His head seemed empty ; his eyeballs burned 
 as he turned them ; his throat was dry as a biscuit. The 
 least dangerous man by nature, except in so far as the 
 weak are always dangerous, at that moment he was 
 ready to slay or be slain, with equal unconcern. 
 
 Here, at least, was the gage thrown down, and battle 
 offered. He who should speak next would bring the 
 matter to an issue there and then. All knew it to be so, 
 and hung back ; and for many seconds by the cabin clock 
 the trio sat motionless and silent. 
 
 Then came an interruption, welcome as the flowers 
 in May. 
 
 305
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "Land ho!" sang out a voice on deck. "Land a 
 weatha bow ! " 
 
 ' ' Land ! " cried Davis, springing to his feet. ' ' What's 
 this ? There ain't no land here." 
 
 And, as men may run from the chamber of a mur- 
 dered corpse, the three ran forth out of the house, and 
 left their quarrel behind them, undecided. 
 
 The sky shaded down at the sea level to the white of 
 opal; the sea itself, insolently, inkily blue, drew all about 
 them the uncompromising wheel of the horizon. Search 
 it as they pleased, not even the practised eye of Captain 
 Davis could descry the smallest interruption. A few 
 filmy clouds were slowly melting overhead ; and about 
 the schooner, as around the only point of interest, a tropic 
 bird, white as a snowflake, hung and circled, and dis- 
 played, as it turned, the long vermilion feather of its 
 tail. Save the sea and the heaven, that was all. 
 
 "Who sang out land?" asked Davis. "If there's 
 any boy playing funny-dog with me, I'll teach him sky - 
 Varking! " 
 
 But Uncle Ned contentedly pointed to a part of the 
 horizon where a greenish, filmy iridescence could be 
 discerned, floating like smoke on the pale heavens. 
 
 Davis applied his glass to it, and then looked at the 
 Kanaka. ' ' Call that land ? " said he. ' ' Well, it's more 
 than I do!" 
 
 "Onetime, long ago, "said Uncle Ned, "IseeAnaa 
 all-e-same that, four, five hours befo' we come up. 
 Capena he say sun go down, sun go up again ; he say 
 lagoon all-e-same milla." 
 
 " All-e-same what? " asked Davis. 
 
 "Milla, sah,"said Uncle Ned. 
 306
 
 THE PARTNERS 
 
 "Oh, ah! mirror," said Davis. "I see, reflection 
 from the lagoon. Well, you know, it is just possible, 
 though it's strange I never heard of it. Here, let's look 
 at the chart." 
 
 They went back to the cabin, and found the position 
 of the schooner well to windward of the archipelago, in 
 the midst of a white field of paper. 
 
 "There, you see for yourselves !" said Davis. 
 
 " And yet I don't know, " said Herrick ; " I somehow 
 think there's something in it. I'll tell you one thing, 
 too, captain: that's all right about the reflection; I 
 heard it in Papeete." 
 
 " Fetch up that Findlay, then! " said Davis; " I'll try 
 it all ways. An island wouldn't come amiss the way 
 we're fixed." 
 
 The bulky volume was handed up to him, broken- 
 backed, as is the way with Findlay ; and he turned to 
 the place, and began to run over the text, muttering to 
 himself, and turning over the pages with a wetted 
 finger. 
 
 "Hullo!" he exclaimed; "how's this?" And he 
 read aloud: "New Island. According to M. Delille, 
 this island, which from private interests would remain 
 unknown, lies, it is said, in latitude 12 49' 10" south, 
 longitude 133" 6' west. In addition to the position 
 above given, Commander Matthews, H. M. S. Scorpion, 
 states that an island exists in latitude 12 o' south, lon- 
 gitude 133 1 6' west. This must be the same, if such 
 an island exists, which is very doubtful, and totally dis- 
 believed in by South Sea traders." 
 
 "Golly!" saidHuish. 
 
 "It's rather in the conditional mood," said Herrick. 
 307
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "It's anything you please," cried Davis, "only there 
 it is! That's our place, and don't you make any mis- 
 take." 
 
 "'Which from private interests would remain un- 
 known,'" read Herrick, over his shoulder. "What 
 may that mean ? " 
 
 "It should mean pearls," said Davis. "A pearling 
 island the government don't know about. That sounds 
 like real estate. Or suppose it don't mean anything. 
 Suppose it's just an island; I guess we could fill up 
 with fish and cocoanuts and native stuff, and carry out 
 the Samoa scheme hand over fist. How long did he 
 say it was before they raised Anaa ? Five hours, I 
 think." 
 
 " Four or five," said Herrick. 
 
 Davis stepped to the door. " What breeze had you 
 that time you made Anaa, Uncle Ned ? " said he. 
 
 "Six or seven knots," was the reply. 
 
 "Thirty or thirty-five miles," said Davis. "High 
 time we were shortening sail, then. If it is an island, 
 we don't want to be butting our head against it in the 
 dark; and if it isn't an island, we can get through it 
 just as well by daylight. Ready about! " he roared. 
 
 And the schooner's head was laid for that elusive 
 glimmer in the sky, which began already to pale in 
 lustre and diminish in size, as the stain of breath van- 
 ishes from a window-pane. At the same time she was 
 reefed close down. 
 
 308
 
 PART II 
 
 THE
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 A^OUT four in the morning, as the captain and Her- 
 rick sat together on the rail, there arose from the 
 midst of the night, in front of them, the voice of 
 breakers. Each sprang to his feet and stared and lis- 
 tened. The sound was continuous, like the passing of 
 a train ; no rise or fall could be distinguished ; minute 
 by minute the ocean heaved with an equal potency 
 against the invisible isle; and as time passed, and Her- 
 rick waited in vain for any vicissitude in the volume of 
 that roaring, a sense of the eternal weighed upon his 
 mind. To the expert eye, the isle itself was to be in- 
 ferred from a certain string of blots along the starry 
 heaven. And the schooner was laid to and anxiously 
 observed till daylight. 
 
 There was little or no morning bank. A brightening 
 came in the east ; then a wash of some ineffable, faint, 
 nameless hue between crimson and silver; and then 
 coals of fire. These glimmered awhile on the sea-line, 
 and seemed to brighten and darken and spread out; 
 and still the night and the stars reigned undisturbed. It 
 was as though a spark should catch and glow and creep 
 along the foot of some heavy and almost incombustible
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 wall-hanging, and the room itself be scarce menaced. 
 Yet a little after, and the whole east glowed with gold 
 and scarlet, and the hollow of heaven was filled with 
 the daylight. 
 
 The isle the undiscovered, the scarce believed in 
 now lay before them and close aboard; and Herrick 
 thought that never in his dreams had he beheld any- 
 thing more strange and delicate. The beach was ex- 
 cellently white, the continuous barrier of trees inimitably 
 green; the land perhaps ten feet high, the trees thirty 
 more. Every here and there, as the schooner coasted 
 northward, the wood was intermitted; and he could 
 see clear over the inconsiderable strip of land (as a man 
 looks over a wall) to the lagoon within ; and clear over 
 that, again, to where the far side of the atoll prolonged 
 its pencilling of trees against the morning sky. He 
 tortured himself to find analogies. The isle was like 
 the rim of a great vessel sunken in the waters ; it was 
 like the embankment of an annular railway grown upon 
 with wood. So slender it seemed amidst the outra- 
 geous breakers, so frail and pretty, he would scarce 
 have wondered to see it sink and disappear without a 
 sound, and the waves close smoothly over its descent. 
 
 Meanwhile the captain was in the fore-crosstrees, 
 glass in hand, his eyes in every quarter, spying for an 
 entrance, spying for signs of tenancy. But the isle con- 
 tinued to unfold itself in joints and to run out in inde- 
 terminate capes, and still there was neither house nor 
 man nor the smoke of fire. Here a multitude of sea- 
 birds soared and twinkled and fished in the blue waters ; 
 and there, and for miles together, the fringe of cocoa- 
 palm and pandanus extended desolate, and made desir-
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 able green bowers for nobody to visit; and the silence 
 of death was only broken by the throbbing of the sea. 
 
 The airs were very light, their speed was small ; the 
 heat intense. The decks were scorching underfoot; the 
 sun flamed overhead, brazen out of a brazen sky; the 
 pitch bubbled in the seams, and the brains in the brain- 
 pan. And all the while the excitement of the three ad- 
 venturers glowed about their bones like a fever. They 
 whispered and nodded and pointed and put mouth to 
 ear with a singular instinct of secrecy, approaching that 
 island underhand, like eavesdroppers and thieves; and 
 even Davis, from the crosstrees, gave his orders mostly 
 by gestures. The hands shared in this mute strain, like 
 dogs, without comprehending it; and through the roar 
 of so many miles of breakers, it was a silent ship that 
 approached an empty island. 
 
 At last they drew near to the break in that intermina- 
 ble gangway. A spur of coral sand stood forth on the 
 one hand ; on the other, a high and thick tuft of trees 
 cut off the view ; between was the mouth of the huge 
 laver. Twice a day the ocean crowded in that narrow 
 entrance and was heaped between these fraH walls; 
 twice a day, with the return of the ebb, the mighty 
 surplusage of water must struggle to escape, The hour 
 in which the Farattone came there was the hour of 
 flood. The sea turned (as with the instinct of the hom- 
 ing pigeon) for the vast receptacle, swept eddying 
 through the gates, was transmuted, as it did so, into a 
 wonder of watery and silken hues, and brimmed into 
 the inland sea beyond. The schooner worked up, close- 
 hauled, and was caught and carried away by the influx 
 like a toy. She skimmed; she flew; a momentary 
 
 313
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 shadow touched her decks from the shoreside trees; 
 the bottom of the channel showed up for a moment, 
 and was in a moment gone; the next, she floated on 
 the bosom of the lagoon ; and below, in the transparent 
 chamber of waters, a myriad of many-coloured fishes 
 were sporting, a myriad pale flowers of coral diversified 
 the floor. 
 
 Herrick stood transported. In the gratified lust of 
 his eye he forgot the past and the present; forgot that 
 he was menaced by a prison on the one hand and star- 
 vation on the other; forgot that he was come to that 
 island, desperately foraging, clutching at expedients. 
 A drove of fishes, painted like the rainbow and billed 
 like parrots, hovered up in the shadow of the schooner, 
 and passed clear of it, and glinted in the submarine sun. 
 They were beautiful like birds, and their silent passage 
 impressed him like a strain of song. 
 
 Meanwhile, to the eye of Davis in the crosstrees, the 
 lagoon continued to expand its empty waters, and the 
 long succession of the shoreside trees to be paid out 
 like fishing-line off a reel. And still there was no mark 
 of habitation. The schooner, immediately on entering, 
 had been kept away to the northward, where the water 
 seemed to be the most deep ; and she was now skim- 
 ming past the tall grove of trees, which stood on that 
 side of the channel and denied further view. Of the 
 whole of the low shores of the island, only this bight 
 remained to be revealed. And suddenly the curtain 
 was raised; they began to open out a haven, snugly 
 elbowed there, and beheld, with an astonishment be- 
 yond words, the roofs of men. The appearance, thus 
 " instantaneously disclosed " to those on the deck of
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 the FaraUone, was not that of a city, rather of a sub- 
 stantial country farm with its attendant hamlet, a long 
 line of sheds and store-houses; apart, upon the one side, 
 a deep-verandahed dwelling-house ; on the other, per- 
 haps a dozen native huts, a building with a belfry and 
 some rude offer at architectural features that might be 
 thought to mark it out for a chapel; on the beach in 
 front, some heavy boats drawn up, and a pile of timber 
 running forth into the burning shallows of the lagoon. 
 From a flag-staff at the pierhead, the red ensign of 
 England was displayed. Behind, about, and over, the 
 same tall grove of palms which had masked the settle- 
 ment in the beginning, prolonged its roof of tumultuous 
 green fans, and tossed and ruffled overhead, and sang 
 its silver song all day in the wind. The place had the 
 indescribable but unmistakable appearance of being in 
 commission, yet there breathed from it a sense of de- 
 sertion that was almost poignant; no human figure was 
 to be observed going to and fro about the houses, and 
 there was no sound of human industry or enjoyment. 
 Only, on the top of the beach and hard by the flag- 
 staff, a woman of exorbitant stature and as white as 
 snow was to be seen, beckoning with uplifted arm. 
 The second glance identified her as a piece of naval 
 sculpture, the figure-head of a ship that had long hov- 
 ered and plunged into so many running billows, and 
 was now brought ashore to be the ensign and presid- 
 ing genius of that empty town. 
 
 The Farattone made a soldier's breeze of it; the wind, 
 besides, was stronger inside than without under the lee 
 of the land ; and the stolen schooner opened out suc- 
 cessive objects with the swiftness of a panorama, so 
 
 35
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 that the adventurers stood speechless. The flag spoke 
 for itself; it was no frayed and weathered trophy that 
 had beaten itself to pieces on the post, flying over deso- 
 lation ; and, to make assurance stronger, there was to 
 be descried, in the deep shade of the verandah, a glitter 
 of crystal and the fluttering of white napery. If the 
 figure-head at the pier end, with its perpetual gesture 
 and its leprous whiteness, reigned alone in that hamlet, 
 as it seemed to do, it could not have reigned long. 
 Men's hands had been busy, men's feet stirring there, 
 within the circuit of the clock. The Farallones were 
 sure of it; their eyes dug in the deep shadow of the 
 palms for some one hiding. If intensity of looking 
 might have prevailed, they would have pierced the 
 walls of houses ; and there came to them, in these preg- 
 nant seconds, a sense of being watched and played 
 with, and of a blow impending, that was hardly bear- 
 able. 
 
 The extreme point of palms they had just passed en- 
 closed a creek, which was thus hidden up to the last 
 moment from the eyes of those on board ; and from this 
 a boat put suddenly and briskly out, and a voice hailed. 
 
 " Schooner ahoy ! " it cried. " Stand in for the pier! 
 In two cables' lengths you'll have twenty fathoms' 
 water and good holding-ground." 
 
 The boat was manned with a couple of brown oars- 
 men in scanty kilts of blue. The speaker, who was 
 steering, wore white clothes, the full dress of the tropics. 
 A wide hat shaded his face; but it could be seen that he 
 was of stalwart size, and his voice sounded like a gen- 
 tleman's. So much could be made out. It was plain, 
 besides, that the Farallone had been descried some time 
 
 316
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 before at sea, and the inhabitants were prepared for its 
 reception. 
 
 Mechanically the orders were obeyed, and the ship 
 berthed ; and the three adventurers gathered aft beside 
 the house and writed, with galloping pulses and a per- 
 fect vacancy of mind, the coming of the stranger who 
 might mean so much to them. They had no plan, no 
 story prepared, there was no time to make one, they 
 were caught red-handed, and must stand their chance. 
 Yet this anxiety was checkered with hope. The island 
 being undeclared, it was not possible the man could 
 hold any office or be in a position to demand their 
 papers. And beyond that, if there was any truth in 
 Findlay, as it now seemed there should be, he was the 
 representative of the "private reasons;" and must see 
 their coming with a profound disappointment; and 
 perhaps (hope whispered) he would be willing and able 
 to purchase their silence. 
 
 The boat was by that time forging alongside, and 
 they were able at last to see what manner of man they 
 had to do with. He was a huge fellow, six feet four in 
 height, and of a build proportionately strong, but his 
 sinews seemed to be dissolved in a listlessness that was 
 more than languor. It was only the eye that corrected 
 this impression, an eye of an unusual mingled bril- 
 liancy and softness, sombre as coal, and with lights that 
 outshone the topaz ; an eye of unimpaired health and vi- 
 rility ; an eye that bid you beware of the man's devastat- 
 ing anger. A complexion naturally dark had been tanned 
 in the island to a hue hardly distinguishable from that of 
 a Tahitian; only his manners and movements, and the 
 living force that dwelt in him, like fire in flint, betrayed 
 
 3'7
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 the European. He was dressed in white drill, exqui- 
 sitely made; his scarf and tie were of tender coloured 
 silks; on the thwart beside him there leaned a Win- 
 chester rifle. 
 
 "Is the doctor on board ?" he cried, as he came up. 
 "Doctor Symonds, I mean? You never heard of 
 him? Nor yet of the Trinity Hall? Ah!" He did 
 not look surprised ; seemed, rather, to affect it in polite- 
 ness; but his eye rested on each of the three white men 
 in succession with a sudden weight of curiosity that 
 was almost savage. "Ah, then," said he, "there is 
 some small mistake, no doubt, and I must ask you to 
 what I am indebted for this pleasure ? " 
 
 He was by this time on the deck, but he had the art 
 to be quite unapproachable; the friendliest vulgarian, 
 three parts drunk, would have known better than take 
 liberties ; and not one of the adventurers so much as 
 offered to shake hands. 
 
 "Well, "said Davis, "I suppose you may call it an 
 accident. We had heard of your island, and read that 
 thing in the ' Directory ' about the private reasons, you 
 see ; so when we saw the lagoon reflected in the sky, 
 we put her head for it at once, and here we are." 
 
 "'Ope we don't intrude! " said Huish. 
 
 The stranger looked at Huish with an air of faint 
 surprise, and looked pointedly away again. It was hard 
 to be more offensive in dumb show. 
 
 " It may suit me, your coming here," he said. "My 
 own schooner is overdue, and I may put something in 
 your way in the mean time. Are you open to a char- 
 ter?" 
 
 "Well, I guess so," said Davis; "it depends n 
 318
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 "My name is Attwater," continued the stranger. 
 ** You, I presume, are the captain ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir. I am the captain of this ship. Captain 
 Brown," was the reply. 
 
 "Well, see 'ere!" said Huish, "better begin fair\ 
 'E's skipper on deck right enough, but not below. Be- 
 low we're all equal, all got a lay in the adventure. 
 When it comes to business, I'm as good as 'e; and 
 what I say is, let's go into the 'ouse and have a lush, 
 and talk it over among pals. We've some prime fizz," 
 he said, and winked. 
 
 The presence of the gentleman lighted up like a can- 
 dle the vulgarity of the clerk ; and Herrick, instinctive- 
 ly, as one shields himself from pain, made haste to in- 
 terrupt. 
 
 "My name is Hay," said he, "since introductions 
 are going. We shall be very glad if you will step in- 
 side." 
 
 Attwater leaned to him swiftly. " University man ? " 
 said he. 
 
 "Yes, Merton," said Herrick, and the next moment 
 blushed scarlet at his indiscretion. 
 
 "I am of the other lot," said Attwater; "Trinity 
 Hall, Cambridge. I called my schooner after the old 
 shop. Well ! this is a queer place and company for us 
 to meet in, Mr. Hay," he pursued, with easy incivility 
 to the others. " But do you bear out I beg this gen- 
 tleman's pardon, I really did not catch his name." 
 
 "My name is 'Uish, sir," returned the clerk, and 
 blushed in turn. 
 
 "Ah!" said Attwater. And then turning again to 
 Herrick, "Do you bear out Mr. Whish's description of
 
 THE EBB TiDE 
 
 your vintage, or was it only the unaffected poetry of his 
 own nature bubbling up ? " 
 
 Herrick was embarrassed ; the silken brutality of their 
 visitor made him blush. That he should be accepted 
 as an equal, and the others thus pointedly ignored, 
 pleased him in spite of himself, and then ran through 
 his veins in a recoil of anger. 
 
 "I don't know," he said. " It's only California; it's 
 good enough, I believe." 
 
 Attwater seemed to make up his mind. "Well, 
 then, I'll tell you what: you three gentlemen come 
 ashore this evening, and bring a basket of wine with 
 you; I'll try and find the food," he said. "And by the 
 by, here is a question I should have asked you when I 
 came on board: Have you had small-pox ?" 
 
 " Personally, no," said Herrick. " But the schooner 
 had it" 
 
 " Deaths ? " from Attwater. 
 
 "Two," said Herrick. 
 
 "Well, it is a dreadful sickness," said Attwater. 
 
 "'Ad you any deaths," asked Huish, "'ere on the 
 island ? " 
 
 "Twenty-nine," said Attwater. "Twenty-nine 
 deaths and thirty-one cases, out of thirty-three souls 
 upon the island That's a strange way to calculate, 
 Mr. Hay, is it not ? Souls ! I never say it but it startles 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, so that's why everything's deserted?" said 
 Huish. 
 
 "That is why, Mr. Whish," said Attwater; "that is 
 why the house is empty and the graveyard full." 
 
 " Twenty-nine out of thirty-three! " exclaimed Her- 
 
 320
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 rick. "Why, when it came to burying or did you 
 bother burying ? " 
 
 "Scarcely," said Attwater; "or there was one day, 
 at least, when we gave up. There were five of the 
 dead that morning, and thirteen of the dying, and no 
 one able to go about except the sexton and myself. 
 We held a council of war, took the empty bottles 
 into the lagoon, and buried them." He looked over 
 his shoulder, back at the bright water. "Well, so 
 you'll come to dinner, then ? Shall we say half-past 
 six ? So good of you ! " 
 
 His voice, in uttering these conventional phrases, fell 
 at once into the false measure of society ; and Herrick 
 unconsciously followed the example. 
 
 "I am sure w shall be very glad," he said. "At 
 half-past six ? Thank you so very much." 
 
 " ' For my voice has been tuned to the note of the gun, 
 That startles the deep when the combat's begun,' " 
 
 quoted Attwater, with a smile, which instantly gave 
 way to an air of funereal solemnity. "I shall particu- 
 larly expect Mr. Whish," he continued. "Mr. Whish, 
 I trust you understand the invitation ? " 
 
 "I believe you, my boy!" replied the genial Huish. 
 
 "That is right, then; and quite understood, is it 
 not?" said Attwater. " Mr. Whish and Captain Brown 
 at six-thirty without fail; and you, Hay, at four sharp." 
 
 And he called his boat 
 
 During all this talk, a load of thought or anxiety 
 had weighed upon the captain. There was no part for 
 which nature had so liberally endowed him as that of 
 the genial ship-captain. But to-day he was silent and 
 
 321
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 abstracted. Those who knew him could see that he 
 hearkened close to every syllable, and seemed to ponder 
 and try it in balances. It would have been hard to say 
 what look there was, cold, attentive, and sinister, as of 
 a man maturing plans, which still brooded over the un- 
 conscious guest; it was here, it was there, it was no- 
 where; it was now so little that Herrick chid himself 
 for an idle fancy ; and anon it was so gross and palpa- 
 ble that you could say every hair on the man's head 
 talked mischief. 
 
 He woke up now, as with a start. " You were talk^ 
 ing of a charter, " said he. 
 
 " Was I ? " said Attwater. " Well, let's talk of it no 
 more at present." 
 
 "Your own schooner is overdue, I understand?" 
 continued the captain. 
 
 "You understand perfectly, Captain Brown," said 
 Attwater; "thirty-three days overdue at noon to-day." 
 
 "She comes and goes, eh? Flies between here 
 and ?" hinted the captain. 
 
 " Exactly ; every four months ; three trips in the year," 
 said Attwater. 
 
 " You go in her, ever ? " asked Davis. 
 
 " No, I stop here," said Attwater; " one has plenty to 
 attend to here." 
 
 "Stop here, do you?" cried Davis. "Say, how 
 long ? " 
 
 "How long, O Lord!" said Attwater, with perfect, 
 stern gravity. "But it does not seem so," he added, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "No, I dare say not," said Davis. "No, I suppose 
 not. Not with all your gods about you, and in as snug 
 
 322
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 a berth as this. For it is a pretty snug berth," said he, 
 with a sweeping look. 
 
 "The spot, as you are good enough to indicate, is 
 not entirely intolerable," was the reply. 
 
 "Shell, I suppose?" said Davis. 
 
 "Yes, there was shell," said Attwater. 
 
 "This is a considerable big beast of a lagoon, sir," 
 said the captain. "Was there a was the fishing 
 would you call the fishing anyways good ? ' ' 
 
 "I don't know that I would call it anyways any- 
 thing," said Attwater, "if you put it to me direct." 
 
 "There were pearls, too?" said Davis. 
 
 " Pearls, too," said Attwater. 
 
 " Well, I give out! " laughed Davis, and his laughter 
 ran cracked like a false piece. " If you're not going to 
 tell, you're not going to tell, and there's an end to it." 
 
 "There can be no reason why I should affect the 
 least degree of secrecy about my island," returned Att- 
 water. "That came wholly to an end with your ar- 
 rival ; and I am sure at any rate that gentlemen like you 
 and Mr. Whish I should have always been charmed to 
 make perfectly at home. The point on Which we are 
 now differing if you can call it a difference is one 
 of times and seasons. I have some information which 
 you think I might impart, and I think not. Well, we'll 
 see to-night! By-by, Whish!" He stepped into his 
 boat and shoved off. "All understood, then?" said 
 he. "The captain and Mr. Whish at six-thirty, and 
 you, Hay, at four precise. You understand that, Hay ? 
 Mind, I take no denial. If you're not there by the time 
 named, there will be no banquet. No song, no supper, 
 Mr. Whish!"
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 White birds whisked in the air above, a shoal of party- 
 coloured fishes in the scarce denser medium below; 
 between, like Mahomet's coffin, the boat drew away 
 briskly on the surface, and its shadow followed it over 
 the glittering floor of the lagoon. Attwater looked 
 steadily back over his shoulders as he sat; he did 
 not once remove his eyes from the Farattone and the 
 group on her quarter-deck beside the house, till his 
 boat ground upon the pier. Thence, with an agile pace, 
 he hurried ashore, and they saw his white clothes shin- 
 ing in the checkered dusk of the grove until the house 
 received him. 
 
 The captain, with a gesture and a speaking counte- 
 nance, called the adventurers into the cabin. 
 
 " Well," he said to Herrick, when they were seated, 
 "there's one good job at least. He's taken to you in 
 earnest" 
 
 "Why should that be a good job ? " said Herrick. 
 
 "Oh, you'll see how it pans out presently," returned 
 Davis. "You go ashore and stand in with him, that's 
 all! You'll get lots of pointers; you can find out what 
 he has, and what the charter is, and who's the fourth 
 man, for there's four of them, and we're only three." 
 
 "And suppose I do, what next?" cried Herrick. 
 "Answer me that!" 
 
 " So I will, Robert Herrick," said the captain. " But 
 first, let's see all clear. I guess you know," he said 
 with an imperious solemnity, " I guess you know the 
 bottom is about out of this Farattone speculation ? I 
 guess you know it's right out; and if this old island 
 hadn't turned up right when it did, I guess you know 
 where you and I and Huish would have been?" 
 
 324.
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 ' ' Yes, I know that, " said Herrick. ' ' No matter who's 
 to blame, I know it. And what next ? " 
 
 "No matter who's to blame, you know it, right 
 enough," said the captain, "and I'm obliged to you for 
 the reminder. Now here's this Attwater; what do you 
 think of him?" 
 
 "I do not know," said Herrick. "I am attracted 
 and repelled. He was insufferably rude to you." 
 
 "And you, Huish ?" said the captain. 
 
 Huish sat cleaning a favourite brier-root; he scarce 
 looked up from that engrossing task. "Don't ast me 
 what I think of him! " he said. " There's a day corn- 
 in', I pray Gawd, when I can tell it him myself." 
 
 "Huish means the same as what I do," said Davis. 
 "When that man came stepping around, and saying: 
 'Look here, I'm Attwater' and you knew it was so, 
 by God! I sized him right straight up. Here's the 
 real article, I said, and I don't like it; here's the real, 
 first-rate, copper-bottomed aristocrat. 'Aw! don't 
 know ye, do It God d n ye, did God make yet ' 
 No, that couldn't be nothing but genuine; a man's got 
 to be born to that. And notice! smart as champagne 
 and hard as nails; no kind of a fool; no, sir! not a 
 pound of him ! Well, what's he here upon this beastly 
 island for ? I said. He's not here collecting eggs. He's 
 a palace at home, and powdered flunkies; and if he 
 don't stay there, you bet he knows the reason why! 
 Follow?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I 'ear you," said Huish. 
 
 "He's been doing good business here, then," con- 
 tinued the captain. ' ' For years he's been doing a great 
 business. It's pearl and shell, of course ; there couldn't 
 
 325
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 be nothing else in such a place ; and no doubt the shell 
 goes off regularly by this Trinity Hall, and the money 
 for it straight into the bank, so that's no use to us. But 
 what else is there ? Is there nothing else he would be 
 likely to keep here ? Is there nothing else he would be 
 bound to keep here? Yes, sir; the pearls! First, be- 
 cause they're too valuable to trust out of his hands. 
 Second, because pearls want a lot of handling and 
 matching; and the man who sells his pearls as they 
 come in, one here, one there, instead of hanging back 
 and holding up well, that man's a fool, and it's not 
 Attwater." 
 
 "It's likely," said Huish, "that's w'at it is; not 
 proved, but likely." 
 
 "It's proved," said Davis, bluntly. 
 
 "Suppose it was?" said Herrick. "Suppose that 
 was all so, and he had these pearls, years' and years' 
 collection of them ? Suppose he had ? There's my 
 question." 
 
 The captain drummed with his thick hands on the 
 board in front of him ; he looked steadily in Herrick's 
 face, and Herrick as steadily looked upon the table and 
 the pattering fingers. There was a gentle oscillation 
 of the anchored ship, and a big patch of sunlight trav- 
 elled to and fro between one and the other. 
 
 " Hear me! " Herrick burst out suddenly. 
 
 "No, you better hear me first," said Davis. "Hear 
 me and understand me. IfVve got no use for that fel- 
 low, whatever you may have. He's your kind, he's not 
 ours; he's took to you, and he's wiped his boots on 
 me and Huish. Save him if you can!" 
 
 "Save him?" repeated Herrick. 
 326
 
 THE PEARL FISHER 
 
 "Save him if you're able!" reiterated Davis, with a 
 blow of his clinched fist. "Go ashore, and talk him 
 smooth ; and if you get him and his pearls aboard, I'll 
 spare him. If you don't, there's going to be a funeral. 
 Is that so, Huish ? Does that suit you ? " 
 
 "I ain't a forgiving man," said Huish, "but I'm not 
 the sort to spoil business neither. Bring the bloke on 
 board, and his pearls along with him, and you can have 
 it your own way ; maroon him where you like I'm 
 agreeable." 
 
 "Well, and if I can't?" cried Herrick, while the sweat 
 streamed upon his face. " You talk to me as if I was 
 God Almighty, to do this and that! But if I can't ? " 
 
 "My son," said the captain, "you better do your 
 level best, or you'll see sights! " 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Huish. "Oh, crikey, yes!" He 
 looked across at Herrick with a toothless smile that 
 was shocking in its savagery ; and, his ear caught ap- 
 parently by the trivial expression he had used, he broke 
 into a piece of the chorus of a comic song which he 
 must have heard twenty years before in London, 
 meaningless gibberish that, in that hour and place, 
 seemed hateful as a blasphemy: " Hikey, pikey, crikey, 
 fikey, chillingawallaba dory." 
 
 The captain suffered him to finish ; his face was un- 
 changed. 
 
 "The way things are, there's many a man that 
 wouldn't let you go ashore," he resumed. "But I'm 
 not that kind. I know you'd never go back on me, 
 Herrick! Or if you choose to go and do it, and be 
 d d ! " he cried, and rose abruptly from the table. 
 
 He walked out of the house, and, as he reached the 
 327
 
 THE EBB TIPE 
 
 door, turned and called Huish, suddenly and violently, 
 like the barking of a dog. Huish followed, and Herrick 
 remained alone in the cabin. 
 
 "Now, see here," whispered Davis; "I know that 
 man. If you open your mouth to him again, you'll 
 ruin all."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 THE boat was gone again, and already halfway to the 
 Farattone, before Herrick turned and went unwillingly 
 up the pier. From the crown of the beach, the figure- 
 head confronted him with what seemed irony, her hel- 
 meted head tossed back, her formidable arm apparently 
 hurling something, whether shell or missile, in the di- 
 rection of the anchored schooner. She seemed a defi- 
 ant deity from the island, coming forth to its threshold 
 with a rush as of one about to fly, and perpetuated in 
 that dashing attitude. Herrick looked up at her, where 
 she towered above him head and shoulders, with sin- 
 gular feelings of curiosity and romance, and suffered 
 his mind to travel to and fro in her life history. So long 
 she had been the blind conductress of a ship among 
 the waves; so long she had stood here idle in the vio- 
 lent sun that yet did not avail to blister her; and was 
 even this the end of so many adventures, he wondered, 
 or was more behind ? And he could have found it in his 
 heart to regret that she was not a goddess, nor yet he a 
 pagan, that he might have bowed down before her in 
 that hour of difficulty. 
 
 Where he now went forward, it was cool with the 
 shadow of many well-grown palms; draughts of the 
 
 3*9
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 dying breeze swung them together overhead; and on 
 all sides, with a swiftness beyond dragon-flies or swal- 
 lows, the spots of sunshine flitted and hovered and re- 
 turned. Underfoot, the sand was fairly solid and quite 
 level, and Herrick's steps fell there noiseless as in new- 
 fallen snow. It bore the marks of having been once 
 weeded like a garden alley at home; but the pestilence 
 had done its work, and the weeds were returning. 
 The buildings of the settlement showed here and there 
 through the stems of the colonnade, fresh-painted, trim 
 and dandy, and all silent as the grave. Only here and 
 there in the crypt there was a rustle and scurry and 
 some crowing of poultry ; and from behind the house 
 with the verandahs he saw smoke rise and heard the 
 crackling of a fire. 
 
 The store-houses were nearest him upon his right. 
 The first was locked; in the second he could dimly per- 
 ceive, through a window, a certain accumulation of 
 pearl shell piled in the far end ; the third, which stood 
 gaping open on the afternoon, seized on the mind of 
 Herrick with its multiplicity and disorder of romantic 
 things. Therein were cables, windlasses, and blocks 
 of every size and capacity ; cabin windows and ladders ; 
 rusty tanks; a companion hatch; a binnacle with its 
 brass mountings, and its compass idly pointing, in the 
 confusion and dusk of that shed, to a forgotten pole ; 
 ropes, anchors, harpoons ; a blubber-dipper of copper, 
 green with years ; a steering-wheel ; a tool-chest with 
 the vessel's name upon the top, the Asia, a whole 
 curiosity-shop of sea curios, gross and solid, heavy to 
 lift, ill to break, bound with brass and shod with iron. 
 Two wrecks at least must have contributed to this ran- 
 
 330
 
 BETTER ACQLJAINTANCE 
 
 dom heap of lumber; and as Herrick looked upon it, it 
 seemed to him as if the two ships' companies were 
 there on guard, and he heard the tread of feet and 
 whisperings, and saw with the tail of his eye the com- 
 monplace ghosts of sailormen. 
 
 This was not merely the work of an aroused imagi- 
 nation, but had something sensible to go upon. Sounds 
 of a stealthy approach were no doubt audible; and 
 while he still stood staring at the lumber, the voice of 
 his host sounded suddenly, and with even more than 
 the customary softness of enunciation, from behind. 
 
 "Junk," it said "only old junk! And does Mr. Hay 
 find a parable ? " 
 
 " I find at least a strong impression," replied Herrick, 
 turning quickly, lest he might be able to catch, on the 
 face of the speaker, some commentary on the words. 
 
 Attwater stood in the doorway, which he almost 
 wholly filled, his hands stretched above his head and 
 grasping the architrave. He smiled when their eyes met, 
 but the expression was inscrutable. 
 
 " Yes, a powerful impression. You are like me 
 nothing so affecting as ships!" said he. "The ruins 
 of an empire would leave me frigid, when a bit of an 
 old rail that an old shellback leaned on in the middle 
 watch would bring me up all standing. But come, let's 
 see some more of the island. It's all sand and coral 
 and palm-trees ; but there's a kind of quaintness in the 
 place." 
 
 "I find it heavenly," said Herrick, breathing deep, 
 with head bared in the shadow. 
 
 " Ah, that's because you're new from sea," said Att- 
 water. "I dare say, too, you can appreciate what one 
 
 331
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 calls it. It's a lovely name. It has a flavour, it has a 
 colour, it has a ring and fall to it; it's like its author 
 it's half Christian ! Remember your first view of the 
 island, and how it's only woods and water; and sup- 
 pose you had asked somebody for the name, and he 
 had answered, nemorosa Zacynthos. ' ' 
 
 "Jam medio apparet fluctu ! ' ' exclaimed Herrick. 
 "Ye gods! yes, how good!" 
 
 "If it gets upon the chart, the skippers will make 
 nice work of it," said Attwater. " But here, come and 
 see the diving-shed." 
 
 He opened a door, and Herrick saw a large display of 
 apparatus neatly ordered, pumps and pipes, and the 
 leaded boots, and the huge snouted helmets shining in 
 rows along the wall, ten complete outfits. 
 
 "The whole eastern half of my lagoon is shallow, 
 you must understand," said Attwater; "so we were 
 able to get in the dress to great advantage. It paid be- 
 yond belief, and was a queer sight when they were at 
 it; and these marine monsters" tapping the nearest 
 of the helmets "kept appearing and reappearing in 
 the midst of the lagoon. Fond of parables ? " he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" said Herrick. 
 
 "Well, I saw these machines come up dripping and 
 go down again, and come up dripping and go down 
 again, and all the while the fellow inside as dry as 
 toast," said Attwater; "and I thought we all wanted a 
 dress to go down into the world in, and come up 
 scathless. What do you think the name was ? " he 
 inquired. 
 
 "Self-conceit," said Herrick. 
 332
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 "Ah, but I mean seriously," said Attwater. 
 
 "Call it self-respect, then," corrected Herrick, with 
 a laugh. 
 
 ' ' And why not grace ? Why not God's grace, Hay ? " 
 asked Attwater. "Why not the grace of your Maker 
 and Redeemer, he who died for you, he who upholds 
 you, he whom you daily crucify afresh ? There is noth- 
 ing here " striking on his bosom " nothing there " 
 smiting the wall "and nothing there " stamping 
 -"nothing but God's grace! We walk upon, we 
 breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails 
 and axles of the universe ; and a puppy in pyjamas pre- 
 fers self-conceit!" The huge dark man stood over 
 against Herrick by the line of divers' helmets, and 
 seemed to swell and glow; and the next moment the 
 life had gone from him. " I beg your pardon," said he; 
 " I see you don't believe in God." 
 
 "Not in your sense, I am afraid," said Herrick. 
 
 " I never argue with young atheists or habitual drunk- 
 ards," said Attwater, flippantly. "Let us go across 
 the island to the outer beach." 
 
 It was but a little way, the greatest width of that 
 island scarce exceeding a furlong, and they walked 
 gently. Herrick was like one in a dream. He had 
 come there with a mind divided, come prepared to 
 study that ambiguous and sneering mask, drag out the 
 essential man from underneath, and act accordingly; 
 decision being till then postponed. Iron cruelty, an 
 iron insensibility to the suffering of others, the uncom- 
 promising pursuit of his own interests, cold culture, 
 manners without humanity, these he had looked for, 
 these he still thought he saw. But to find the whole 
 
 333
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 machine thus glow with the reverberation of religious 
 zeal, surprised him beyond words ; and he laboured in 
 vain, as he walked, to piece together into any kind of 
 whole his odds and ends of knowledge; to adjust again, 
 into any kind of focus with itself, his picture of the man 
 beside him. 
 
 "What brought you here to the South Seas?" he 
 asked presently. 
 
 "Many things," said Attwater. "Youth, curiosity, 
 romance, the love of the sea, and (it will surprise you 
 to hear) an interest in missions. That has a good deal 
 declined, which will surprise you less. They go the 
 wrong way to work; they are too parsonish, too much 
 of the old wife, and even the old apple- wife. Clotbes, 
 clothes, are their idea; but clothes are not Christianity, 
 any more than they are the sun in heaven, or could take 
 the place of it! They think a parsonage with roses, 
 and church bells, and nice old women bobbing in the 
 lanes, are part and parcel of religion. But religion is a 
 savage thing, like the universe it illuminates; savage, 
 cold, and bare, but infinitely strong." 
 
 "And you found this island by an accident?" said 
 Herrick. 
 
 "As you did," said Attwater. "And since then I 
 have had a business and a colony and a mission of my 
 own. I was a man of the world before I was a Chris- 
 tian; I'm a man of the world still, and I made my mis- 
 sion pay. No good ever came of coddling. A man 
 has to stand up in God's sight and work up to his weight 
 avoirdupois; then I'll talk to him, but not before. I 
 gave these beggars what they wanted, a judge in 
 Israel, the bearer of the sword and scourge. I was 
 
 334
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 making a new people here, and behold! the angel of the 
 Lord smote them, and they were not! " 
 
 With the very uttering of the words, which were ac- 
 companied by P gesture, they came forth out of the 
 porch of the palm wood by the margin of the sea, and 
 full in front of the sun, which was near setting. Be- 
 fore them the surf broke slowly. All around, with an 
 air of imperfect wooden things inspired with wicked 
 activity, the land-crabs trundled and scuttled into holes. 
 On the right, whither Attwater pointed and abruptly 
 turned, was the cemetery of the island, a field of broken 
 stones from the bigness of a child's hand to that of his 
 head, diversified by many mounds of the same mate- 
 rial, and walled by a rude rectangular enclosure of the 
 same. Nothing grew there but a shrub or two with 
 some white flowers ; nothing but the number of the 
 mounds, and their disquieting shape, indicated the pres- 
 ence of the dead. 
 
 '"The rude forefathers of the hamlet lie!'" quoted 
 Attwater, as he entered by the open gateway into that 
 unhomely close. ' ' Coral to coral, pebbles to pebbles, " 
 he said; "this has been the main scene of my activity 
 in the South Pacific. Some were good, and some bad, 
 and the majority (of course and always) null. Here 
 was a fellow, now, that used to frisk like a dog ; if you 
 had called him, he came like an arrow from a bow; if 
 you had not, and he came unbidden, you should have 
 seen the deprecating eye and the little intricate dancing 
 step. Well, his trouble is over now ; he has lain down 
 with kings and councillors; the rest of his acts, are 
 they not written in the Book of the Chronicles ? That 
 fellow was from Penrhyn; like all the Penrhyn islanders 
 
 335
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 he was ill to manage; heady, jealous, violent, the 
 man with the nose ! He lies here quiet enough. And so 
 they all lie. 'And darkness was the burier of the dead. ' ' 
 
 He stood, in the strong glow of the sunset, with 
 bowed head ; his voice sounded now sweet and now 
 bitter, with the varying sense. 
 
 " You loved these people?" cried Herrick, strangely 
 touched. 
 
 "I?" said Attwater. "Dear, nol Don't think me 
 a philanthropist. I dislike men, and I hate women. If 
 I like the islands at all, it is because you see them here 
 plucked of their lendings, their dead birds and cocked 
 hats, their petticoats and coloured hose. Here was one 
 I liked, though," and he set his foot upon a mound. 
 "He was a fine, savage fellow; he had a dark soul. 
 Yes, I liked this one. 1 am fanciful," he added, looking 
 hard at Herrick, " and I take fads. I like you." 
 
 Herrick turned swiftly, and looked far away to where 
 the clouds were beginning to troop together and amass 
 themselves round the obsequies of day. "No one can 
 like me," he said. 
 
 "You are wrong there," said the other, "as a man 
 usually is about himself. You are attractive, very at- 
 tractive." 
 
 "It is not me," said Herrick; "no one can like me. 
 If you knew how I despised myself and why! " His 
 voice rang out in the quiet graveyard. 
 
 "I knew that you despised yourself," said Attwater. 
 " I saw the blood come into your face to-day when you 
 remembered Oxford. And I could have blushed for 
 you myself, to see a man, a gentleman, with those two 
 vulgar wolves." 
 
 336
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Herrick faced him with a thrill. " Wolves ?" he re- 
 peated. 
 
 "I said wolves, and vulgar wolves," said Attwater. 
 "Do you know mat to-day, when I came on board, I 
 trembled ? " 
 
 " You concealed it well," stammered Herrick. 
 
 "A habit of mine," said Attwater. "But I was 
 afraid, for all that. I was afraid of the two wolves." 
 He raised his hand slowly. "And now, Hay, you 
 poor, lost puppy, what do you do with the two 
 wolves ? " 
 
 "What do I do ? I don't do anything," said Herrick. 
 " There is nothing wrong; all is above board; Captain 
 Brown is a good soul; he is a he is " The phan- 
 tom voice of Davis called in his ear, "There's going to 
 be a funeral ; " and the sweat burst forth and streamed 
 on his brow. "He is a family man," he resumed 
 again, swallowing; "he has children at home, and a 
 wife." 
 
 " And a very nice man ? " said Attwater. " And so 
 is Mr. Whish, no doubt ? " 
 
 " I won't go so far as that," said Herrick. " I do not 
 like Huish. And yet he has his merits, too." 
 
 "And, in short, take them for all in all, as good a 
 ship's company as one would ask ? " said Attwater. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Herrick, "quite." 
 
 "So, then, we approach the other point, of why you 
 despise yourself? " said Attwater. 
 
 "Do we not all despise ourselves?" cried Herrick. 
 "Do not you?" 
 
 " Oh, I say I do. But do I ? " said Attwater. " One 
 thing I know, at least; I never gave a cry like yours. 
 
 337
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Hay, it came from a bad conscience! Ah, man, that 
 poor diving-dress of self-conceit is sadly tattered ! To- 
 day, if ye will hear my voice. To-day, now, while 
 the sun sets, and here in this burying-place of brown 
 innocents, fall on your knees and cast your sins and 
 sorrows on the Redeemer. Hay " 
 
 "Not Hay!" interrupted the other, strangling. 
 "Don't call me that! I mean For God's sake, can't 
 you see I'm on the rack ? " 
 
 "I see it; I know it; I put and keep you there; my 
 fingers are on the screws," said Attwater. "Please 
 God, I will bring a penitent this night before His throne. 
 Come, come to the mercy seat ! He waits to be gracious, 
 man, waits to be gracious! " 
 
 He spread out his arms like a crucifix; his face shone 
 with the brightness of a seraph's; in his voice, as it 
 rose to the last word, the tears seemed ready. 
 
 Herrick made a vigorous call upon himself. "Att- 
 water," he said, "you push me beyond bearing. What 
 am I to do? I do not believe. It is living truth to 
 you ; to me, upon my conscience, only folk-lore. I do 
 not believe there is any form of words under heaven by 
 which I can lift the burthen from my shoulders. I must 
 stagger on to the end with the pack of my responsi- 
 bility ; I cannot shift it. Do you suppose I would not, 
 if I thought I could ? I cannot cannot cannot and 
 let that suffice ! " 
 
 The rapture was all gone from Attwater's counte- 
 nance; the dark apostle had disappeared, and in his 
 place there stood an easy, sneering gentleman, who 
 took off his hat and bowed. It was pertly done, and 
 the blood burned in Herrick's face. 
 
 338
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " he cried. 
 
 "Well, shall we go back to the house?" said Att- 
 water. "Our guests will soon be due." 
 
 Herrick stood his ground a moment, with clenched 
 fists and teeth ; and as he so stood, the fact of his errand 
 there slowly swung clear in front of him, like the moon 
 out of clouds. He had come to lure that man on board ; 
 he was failing, even if it could be said that he had tried ; 
 he was sure to fail now, and knew it, and knew it was 
 better so. And what was to be next ? 
 
 With a groan he turned to follow his host, who was 
 standing with a polite smile, and instantly, and some- 
 what obsequiously, led the way into the now darkened 
 colonnade of palms. There they went in silence; the 
 earth gave up richly of her perfume, the air tasted warm 
 and aromatic in the nostrils, and, from a great way 
 forward in the wood, the brightness of lights and fire 
 marked out the house of Attwater. 
 
 Herrick meanwhile revolved and resisted an immense 
 temptation, to go up, to touch him on the arm, and 
 breathe a word in his ear: " Beware, they are going to 
 murder you." There would be one life saved ; but what 
 of the two others ? The three lives went up and down 
 before him like buckets in a well, or like the scales of 
 balances. It had come to a choice, and one that must 
 be speedy. For certain invaluable minutes the wheels 
 of life ran before him, and he could still divert them 
 with a touch to the one side or the other; still choose 
 who was to live and who was to die. He considered 
 the men. Attwater intrigued, puzzled, dazzled, en- 
 chanted, and revolted him. Alive, he seemed but a 
 doubtful good; and the thought of him lying dead was 
 
 339
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 so unwelcome that it pursued him, like a vision, with 
 every circumstance of colour and sound. Incessantly 
 he had before him the image of that great mass of man, 
 stricken down, in varying attitudes and with varying 
 wounds, fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his side, 
 or clinging to a doorpost, with the changing face and 
 the relaxing fingers of the death agony. He heard the 
 click of the trigger, the thud of the ball, the cry of the 
 victim; he saw the blood flow. And this building-up 
 of circumstance was like a consecration of the man, till 
 he seemed to walk in sacrificial fillets. Next he con- 
 sidered Davis, with his thick-fingered, coarse-grained, 
 oat-bread commonness of nature; his indomitable valour 
 and mirth in the old days of their starvation ; the en- 
 dearing blend of his faults and virtues ; the sudden shin- 
 ing forth of a tenderness that lay too deep for tears ; his 
 children, Ada and her bowel complaint, and Ada's 
 doll. No, death could not be suffered to approach that 
 head, even in fancy. With a general heat and a brac- 
 ing of his muscles, it was borne in on Herrick that Ada's 
 father would find in him a son to the death. And even 
 Huish shared a little in that sacredness ; by ithe tacit 
 adoption of daily life they were become brothers; there 
 was an implied bond of loyalty in their cohabitation of 
 the ship and of their past miseries, to which Herrick 
 must be a little true or wholly dishonoured. Horror of 
 sudden death for horror of sudden death, there was 
 here no hesitation possible ; it must be Attwater. And 
 no sooner was the thought formed (which was a sen- 
 tence) than the whole mind of the man ran in a panic to 
 the other side; and when he looked within himself, he 
 was aware only of turbulence and inarticulate outcry.
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 In all this there was no thought of Robert Herrick. 
 He had complied with the ebb-tide in man's affairs, and 
 the tide had carried him away; he heard already the 
 roaring of the maelstrom that must hurry him under. 
 And in his bedevilled and dishonoured soul there was 
 no thought of self. 
 
 For how long he walked silent by his companion, 
 Herrick had no guess. The clouds rolled suddenly 
 away; the orgasm was over; he found himself placid 
 with the placidity of despair; there returned to him the 
 power of commonplace speech: and he heard with sur- 
 prise his own voice say: "What a lovely evening! " 
 
 "Is it not?" said Attwater. "Yes, the evenings 
 here would be very pleasant if one had anything to do. 
 By day, of course, one can shoot." 
 
 "You shoot?" asked Herrick. 
 
 "Yes, I am what you would call a fine shot," said 
 Attwater. "It is faith; I believe my balls will go true; 
 if I were to miss once, it would spoil me for nine 
 months." 
 
 "You never miss, then ?" said Herrick. 
 
 "Not unless I mean to," said Attwater. "But to 
 miss nicely is the art. There was an old king one knew 
 in the Western Islands, who used to empty a Win- 
 chester all round a man, and stir his hair or nick a rag 
 out of his clothes with every ball except the last; and 
 that went plump between the eyes. It was pretty 
 practice." 
 
 " You could do that ? " asked Herrick, with a sudden 
 chill. 
 
 " Oh, I can do anything, " returned the other. " You 
 do not understand; what must be, must." 
 
 34'
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 They were now come near to the back part of the 
 house. One of the men was engaged about the cook- 
 ing-fire, which burned with the clear, fierce, essential 
 radiance of cocoanut shells. A fragrance of strange 
 meats was in the air. All round in the verandahs lamps 
 were lighted, so that the place shone abroad in the dusk 
 of the trees with many complicated patterns of shadow. 
 
 "Come and wash your hands," said Attwater, and 
 led the way into a clean, matted room with a cot-bed, 
 a safe, a shelf or two of books in a glazed case, and an 
 iron washing-stand. Presently he cried in the native 
 tongue, and there appeared for a moment in the door- 
 way a plump and pretty young woman with a clean 
 towel. 
 
 " Hullo ! " cried Herrick, who now saw for the first time 
 the fourth survivor of the pestilence, and was startled 
 by the recollection of the captain's orders. 
 
 "Yes," said Attwater, "the whole colony lives 
 about the house, what's left of it. We are all afraid 
 of devils, if you please, and Taniera and she sleep in the 
 front parlour, and the other boy on the verandah." 
 
 "She is pretty," said Herrick. 
 
 "Too pretty," said Attwater. "That was why I 
 had her married. A man never knows when he may 
 be inclined to be a fool about women: so when we 
 were left alone, I had the pair of them to the chapel and 
 performed the ceremony. She made a lot of fuss. I 
 do not take at all the romantic views of marriage," he 
 explained. 
 
 "And that strikes you as a safeguard?" asked Her- 
 rick, with amazement 
 
 "Certainly. I am a plain man, and very literal 
 34*
 
 BETTER ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 Whom God batb joined together, are the words, I fancy. 
 So one married them, and respects the marriage," said 
 Attwater. 
 
 "Ah!" said Herrick. 
 
 "You see, I may look to make an excellent marriage 
 when I go home," began Attwater, confidentially. " I 
 am rich. This safe alone " laying his hand upon it 
 "will be a moderate fortune when I have the time to 
 place the pearls upon the market. Here are ten years' 
 accumulation from a lagoon where I have had as many 
 as ten divers going all day long; and I went farther 
 than people usually do in these waters, for I rotted a 
 lot of shell, and did splendidly. Would you like to 
 see them?" 
 
 This confirmation of the captain's guess hit Herrick 
 hard, and he contained himself with difficulty. "No, 
 thank you, I think not," said he. "I do not care for 
 pearls. I am very indifferent to all these " 
 
 "Gewgaws?" suggested Attwater. "And yet I 
 believe you ought to cast an eye on my collection, 
 which is really unique, and which Oh ! it is the case 
 with all of us and everything about us ! hangs by a 
 hair. To-day it groweth up and flourisheth ; to-mor- 
 row it is cut down and cast into the oven. To-day it 
 is here and together in this safe; to-morrow, to-night, 
 it may be scattered. Thou fool! this night thy soul 
 shall be required of thee." 
 
 "I do not understand you," said Herrick. 
 
 "Not?" said Attwater. 
 
 "You seem to speak in riddles," said Herrick, un- 
 steadily. "I do not understand what manner of man 
 you are, nor what you are driving at" 
 
 343
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Attwater stood with his hands upon his hips, and his 
 head bent forward. " I am a fatalist," he replied, "and 
 just now (if you insist on it) an experimentalist. Talk- 
 ing of which, by the by, who painted out the schooner's 
 name?" he said, with mocking softness. "Because, 
 do you know ? one thinks it should be done again. It 
 can still be partly read ; and whatever is worth doing, 
 is surely worth doing well. You think with me? 
 That is so nice. Well, shall we step on the verandah ? 
 I have a dry sherry that I would like your opinion of." 
 
 Herrick followed him forth to where, under the light 
 of the hanging lamps, the table shone with napery and 
 crystal; followed him as the criminal goes with the 
 hangman, or the sheep with the butcher; took the sherry 
 mechanically, drank it, and spoke mechanical words of 
 praise. The object of his terror had become suddenly 
 inverted; till then he had seen Attwater trussed and 
 gagged, a helpless victim, and had longed to run in 
 and save him ; he saw him now tower up mysterious 
 and menacing, the angel of the Lord's wrath, armed 
 with knowledge, and threatening judgment He set 
 down his glass again, and was surprised to see it 
 empty. 
 
 "You go always armed ?" he said, and the next mo- 
 ment could have plucked his tongue out 
 
 "Always," said Attwater. " I have been through a 
 mutiny here; that was one of my incidents of mission- 
 ary life." 
 
 And just then the sound of voices reached them, and 
 looking forth from the verandah, they saw Huish and the 
 captain drawing near. 
 
 344
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 THEY sat down to an island dinner remarkable fof Its 
 variety and excellence ; turtle soup and steak, fish, fowls, 
 a sucking-pig, a cocoanut salad, and sprouting cocoa- 
 nut roasted for dessert. Not a tin had been opened ; 
 and save for the oil and vinegar in the salad, and some 
 green spears of onion which Attwater cultivated and 
 plucked with his own hand, not even the condiments 
 were European. Sherry, hock, and claret succeeded 
 each other, and the Farattone champagne brought up 
 the rear with the dessert. 
 
 It was plain that, like so many of the extremely re- 
 ligious in the days before teetotalism, Attwater had a 
 dash of the epicure. For such characters it is softening 
 to eat well ; doubly so to have designed and had pre- 
 pared an excellent meal for others ; and the manners of 
 their host were agreeably mollified in consequence. A 
 cat of huge growth sat on his shoulder purring, and oc- 
 casionally, with a deft paw, captured a morsel in the 
 air. To a cat he might be likened himself, as he lolled 
 at the head of his table, dealing out attentions and in- 
 nuendoes, and using the velvet and the claw indiffer- 
 ently. And both Huish and the captain fell progressively 
 under the charm of his hospitable freedom. 
 
 345
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Over the third guest, the incidents of the dinner may 
 be said to have passed for long unheeded. Herrick ac- 
 cepted all that was offered him, ate and drank without 
 tasting, and heard without comprehension. His mind 
 was singly occupied in contemplating the horror of the 
 circumstance in which he sat. What Attwater knew, 
 what the captain designed, from which side treachery 
 was to be first expected, these were the ground of his 
 thoughts. There were times when he longed to throw 
 down the table and flee into the night. And even that 
 was debarred him. To do anything, to say anything, 
 to move at all, were only to precipitate the barbarous 
 tragedy ; and he sat spellbound, eating with white lips. 
 Two of his companions observed him narrowly; Att- 
 water with raking, side-long glances that did not inter- 
 rupt his talk, the captain with a heavy and anxious 
 consideration. 
 
 "Well, I must say this sherry is a really prime article," 
 said Huish. " 'Ow much does it stand you in, if it's a 
 fair question ?" 
 
 "A hundred and twelve shillings in London, and the 
 freight to Valparaiso and on again, " said Attwater. " It 
 strikes one as really not a bad fluid." 
 
 "A 'undred and twelve ! " murmured the clerk, relish- 
 ing the wine and the figures in a common ecstasy. ' ' Oh 
 my!" 
 
 "So glad you like it," said Attwater. "Help your- 
 self, Mr. Whish, and keep the bottle by you." 
 
 "My friend's name is Huish and not Whish, sir," 
 said the captain, with a flush. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, I am sure. Huish and not Whish 
 certainly," said Attwater. " I was about to say that 
 
 346
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 I have still eight dozen," he added, fixing the captain 
 with his eye. 
 
 " Eight dozen what ?" said Davis. 
 
 "Sherry," was the reply. "Eight dozen excellent 
 sherry. Why, it seems almost worth it in itself, to a 
 man fond of wine." 
 
 The ambiguous words struck home to guilty con- 
 sciences, and Huish and the captain sat up in their 
 places and regarded him with a scare. 
 
 "Worth what?" said Davis. 
 
 "A hundred and twelve shillings," replied Attwater. 
 
 The captain breathed hard for a moment. He reached 
 out far and wide to find any coherency in these remarks; 
 then, with a great effort, changed the subject. 
 
 "I allow we are about the first white men upon this 
 island, sir," said he. 
 
 Attwater followed him at once, and with entire grav- 
 ity, to the new ground. "Myself and Dr. Symonds ex- 
 cepted, I should say the only ones," he returned. " And 
 yet who can tell? In the course of the ages some one 
 may have lived here, and we sometimes think that some 
 one must. The cocoa palms grow all ro.und the island, 
 which is scarce like Nature's planting. We found, be- 
 sides, when we landed, an unmistakable cairn upon the 
 beach ; use unknown, but probably erected in the hope 
 of gratifying some mumbo-jumbo whose very name is 
 forgotten, by some thick-witted gentry whose very 
 bones are lost. Then the island (witness the ' Direc- 
 tory ') has been twice reported ; and since my tenancy 
 we have had two wrecks, both derelict. The rest is 
 conjecture." 
 
 "Dr. Symonds is your partner, I guess ? " said Davis. 
 
 347
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "A dear fellow, Symonds ! How he would rtgret it, 
 if he knew you had been here," said Att water. 
 
 " 'E 's on the Trinity 'All, ain't he ?" asked Huish. 
 
 "And if you could tell me where the Trinity 'AH 
 was, you would confer a favour, Mr. Whish ! " was the 
 reply. 
 
 "I suppose she has a native crew?" said Davis. 
 
 " Since the secret has been kept ten years, one would 
 suppose she had," replied Attwater. 
 
 "Well, now, see 'ere!" said Huish. "You have 
 everything about you in no end style, and no mistake, 
 but I tell you it would n't do for me. Too much of ' the 
 old rustic bridge by the mill ; ' too retired by 'alf. Give 
 me the sound of Bow Bells! " 
 
 "You must not think it was always so," replied Att- 
 water. "This was once a busy shore, although now, 
 hark! you can hear the solitude. I find it stimulating. 
 And talking of the sound of bells, kindly follow a little 
 experiment of mine in silence." There was a silver bell 
 at his right hand to call the servants ; he made them a 
 sign to stand still, struck the bell with force, and leaned 
 eagerly forward. The note rose clear and strong; it 
 rang out clear and far into the night and over the de- 
 serted island ; it died into the distance until there only 
 lingered in the porches of the ear a vibration that was 
 sound no longer. " Empty houses, empty sea, solitary 
 beaches!" said Attwater. "And yet God hears the 
 bell ! And yet we sit in this verandah, on a lighted stage, 
 with all heaven for spectators ! And you call that soli- 
 tude ? " 
 
 There followed a bar of silence, during which the 
 captain sat mesmerised. 
 
 348
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 Then Attwater laughed softly. "These are the di- 
 versions of a lonely man," he resumed, "and possibly 
 not in good taste. One tells one's self these little fairy 
 tales for company. If there should happen to be any- 
 thing in folk-lore, Mr. Hay ? But here comes the claret. 
 One does not offer you Laffitte, captain, because 1 be- 
 lieve it is all sold to the railroad dining-cars in your great 
 country : but this Brane-mouton is of a good year, and 
 Mr. Whish will give me news of it." 
 
 "That's a queer idea of yours!" cried the captain, 
 bursting with a sigh from the spell that had bound him. 
 "So you mean to tell me, now, that you sit here even- 
 ings and ring up G well, ring on the angels by 
 yourself?" 
 
 "As a matter of historic fact, and since you put it di- 
 rectly, one does not," said Attwater. "Why ring a 
 bell, when there flows out from one's self and every- 
 thing about one a far more momentous silence ? The 
 least beat of my heart, and the least thought in my mind, 
 echoing into eternity forever and forever and forever." 
 
 "Oh, look 'ere," said Huish, "turn down the lights 
 at once, and the Band of 'Ope will oblige! This ain't a 
 spiritual seance." 
 
 "No folk-lore about Mr. Whish I beg your pardon, 
 captain; Huish, not Whish, of course," said Attwater. 
 
 As the boy was filling Huish's glass, the bottle escaped 
 from his hand and was shattered, and the wine spilt on 
 the verandah floor. Instant grimness as of death ap- 
 peared in the face of Attwater; he smote the bell im- 
 periously, and the two brown natives fell into the atti- 
 tude of attention, and stood mute and trembling. There 
 was a moment of silence and hard looks; then followed 
 
 349
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 a few savage words in the native; and, upon a gesture 
 of dismissal, the service proceeded as before. 
 
 None of the party had as yet observed upon the ex- 
 cellent bearing of the two men. They were dark, un- 
 dersized, and well set up ; stepped softly, waited deftly, 
 brought on the wines and dishes at a look, and their 
 eyes attended studiously on their master. 
 
 "Where do you get your labour from, anyway?" 
 asked Davis. 
 
 "Ah, where not?" answered Attwater. 
 
 "Not much of a soft job, I suppose?" said the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 "If you will tell me where getting labour is," said 
 Attwater, with a shrug. "And, of course, in our case, 
 as we could name no destination, we had to go far and 
 wide, and do the best we could. We have gone as far 
 west as the Kingsmills, and as far south as Rapa-iti. 
 Pity Symonds isn't here! He is full of yarns. That 
 was his part, to collect them. Then began mine, which 
 was the educational." 
 
 "You mean to run them?" said Davis. 
 
 "Ay, to run them," said Attwater. 
 
 "Wait a bit," said Davis, "I'm out of my depth. 
 How was this ? Do you mean to say you did it single- 
 handed?" 
 
 "One did it single-handed," said Attwater, "because 
 there was nobody to help one." 
 
 "By God, but you must be a holy terror! " cried the 
 captain, in a glow of admiration. 
 
 "One does one's best," said Attwater. 
 
 "Well, now!" said Davis, "I have seen a lot of 
 driving in my time, and been counted a good driver 
 
 350
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 myself; I fought my way, third mate, round the Cape 
 Horn with a push of packet-rats that would have turned 
 the Devil out of hell and shut the door on him; and, I 
 tell you, this racket of Mr. Attwater's takes the cake. 
 In a ship, why there ain't nothing to it! You've got 
 the law with you, that's what does it. But put me 
 down on this blame' beach, alone, with nothing but a 
 whip and a mouthful of bad words, and ask me to no, 
 sir! it's not good enough! I haven't got the sand for 
 that! " cried Davis. " It's the law behind," he added; 
 "it's the law does it, every time! " 
 
 " The beak ain't as black as he's sometimes pynted," 
 observed Huish, humorously. 
 
 "Well, one got the law after a fashion," said Att- 
 water. "One had to be a number of things. It was 
 sometimes rather a bore." 
 
 "I should smile!" said Davis. " Rather lively, I 
 should think." 
 
 " I dare say we mean the same thing," said Attwater. 
 "However, one way or another, one got it knocked 
 into their heads that they must work, and they did 
 until the Lord took them." 
 
 " 'Ope you made 'em jump," said Huish. 
 
 "When it was necessary, Mr. Whish, I made them 
 jump," said Attwater. 
 
 " You bet you did! " cried the captain. He was a 
 good deal flushed, but not so much with wine as admi- 
 ration ; and his eyes drank in the huge proportions of 
 the other with delight. " You bet you did, and you bet 
 that I can see you doing it. By God, you're a man ; and 
 you can say I said so! " 
 
 "Too good of you, I'm sure," said Attwater. 
 35
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 " Did you did you ever have crime here?" asked 
 Herrick, breaking his silence with a plangent voice. 
 
 "Yes," said Attwater, "we did." 
 
 " And how did you handle that, sir ? " cried the eager 
 captain. 
 
 " Well, you see, it was a queer case, " replied Attwater. 
 " It was a case that would have puzzled Solomon. 
 Shall I tell it you? Yes?" 
 
 The captain rapturously accepted. 
 
 "Well," drawled Attwater, "here is what it was. I 
 dare say you know two types of natives, which may be 
 called the obsequious and the sullen ? Well, one had 
 them, the types themselves, detected in the fact; 
 and one had them together. Obsequiousness ran out 
 of the first, like wine out of a bottle; sullenness con- 
 gested in the second. Obsequiousness was all smiles; 
 he ran to catch your eye ; he loved to gabble ; and he 
 had about a dozen words of beach English, and an 
 eighth of an inch veneer of Christianity. Sullens was 
 industrious ; a big, down-looking bee. When he was 
 spoken to, he answered with a black look and a shrug 
 of one shoulder, but the thing would be done. I don't 
 give him to you for a model of manners; there was 
 nothing showy about Sullens, but he was strong and 
 steady, and ungraciously obedient. Now, Sullens got 
 into trouble; no matter how ; the regulations of the place 
 were broken, and he was punished accordingly with- 
 out effect. So the next day, and the next, and the day 
 after, till I began to be weary of the business, and Sul- 
 lens (I am afraid) particularly so. There came a day 
 when he was in fault again, for perhaps the thirtieth 
 time; and he rolled a dull eye upon me, with a spark In 
 
 353
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 it and appeared to be about to speak. Now, the regu- 
 lations of the place are formal upon one point: we allow 
 no explanations. None are received, none allowed to 
 be offered. So one stopped him instantly, but made a 
 note of the circumstance. The next day he was gone 
 from the settlement. There could be nothing more an- 
 noying; if the labour took to running away, the fishery 
 was wrecked. There are sixty miles of this island, you 
 see, all in length, like the Queen's Highway; the idea 
 of pursuit in such a place was a piece of single-minded 
 childishness, which one did not entertain. Two days 
 later I made a discovery. It came in upon me with a 
 flash that Sullens had been unjustly punished from be- 
 ginning to end, and the real culprit throughout had 
 been Obsequiousness. The native who talks, like the 
 woman who hesitates, is lost. You set him talking 
 and lying, and he talks and lies, and watches your face 
 to see if he has pleased you, till at last out comes the 
 truth! It came out of Obsequiousness in the regular 
 course. I said nothing to him ; I dismissed him ; and, 
 late as it was, for it was already night, set off to look 
 for Sullens. I had not far to go; about two hundred 
 yards up the island the moon showed him to me. He 
 was hanging in a cocoa palm I'm not botanist enough 
 to tell you how but it's the way, in nine cases out of 
 ten, these natives commit suicide. His tongue was out, 
 poor devil, and the birds had got at him. I spare you 
 details; he was an ugly sight! I gave the business six 
 good hours of thinking in this verandah. My justice had 
 been made a fool of. I don't suppose that I was ever 
 angrier. Next day I had the conch sounded and all 
 hands out before sunrise. One took one's gun and led 
 
 353
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 the way with Obsequiousness. He was very talkative ; 
 the beggar supposed that all was right, now he had 
 confessed. In the old schoolboy phrase, he was plainly 
 * sucking up 'to me ; full of protestations of good will 
 and good behaviour, to which one answered one really 
 can't remember what. Presently the tree came in sight, 
 and the hanged man. They all burst out lamenting for 
 their comrade in the island way, and Obsequiousness 
 was the loudest of the mourners. He was quite genu- 
 ine ; a noxious creature, without any consciousness of 
 guilt. Well, presently to make a long story short 
 one told him to go up the tree. He stared a bit, looked 
 at one with a trouble in his eye, and had rather a sickly 
 smile, but went. He was obedient to the last ; he had 
 all the pretty virtues, but the truth was not in him. So 
 soon as he was up, he looked down, and there was the 
 rifle covering him; and at that he gave a whimper 
 like a dog. You could hear a pin drop; no more keen- 
 ing now. There they all crouched upon the ground 
 with bulging eyes; there was he in the tree-top, the 
 colour of lead ; and between was the dead man, dancing 
 a bit in the air. He was obedient to the last, recited 
 his crime, recommended his soul to God. And 
 then " 
 
 Attwater paused, and Herrick, who had been listening 
 attentively, made a convulsive movement which upset 
 his glass. 
 
 "And then ?" said the breathless captain. 
 
 "Shot," said Attwater. "They came to ground to- 
 gether." 
 
 Herrick sprang to his feet with a shriek and an in- 
 sensate gesture. 
 
 354
 
 THE DINNER-PARTY 
 
 "It was a murder," he screamed. " A cold-hearted, 
 bloody-minded murder! You monstrous being! Mur- 
 derer and hypocrite! Murderer and hypocrite! Mur- 
 derer and hypocrite!" he repeated, and his tongue 
 stumbled among the words. 
 
 The captain was by him in a moment. " Herrick! " 
 he cried, "behave yourself! Here, don't be a blame' 
 fool!" 
 
 Herrick struggled in his embrace like a frantic child, 
 and suddenly bowing his face in his hands, choked into 
 a sob, the first of many, which now convulsed his body 
 silently, and now jerked from him indescribable and 
 meaningless sounds. 
 
 "Your friend appears over-excited," remarked Att- 
 water, sitting unmoved, but all alert, at table. 
 
 "It must be the wine," replied the captain. "He 
 ain't no drinking man, you see. I I think I'll take 
 him away. A walk'll sober him up, I guess." 
 
 He.led him without resistance out of the verandah and 
 toito the night, in which they soon melted ; but still for 
 tome time, as they drew away, his comfortable voice 
 was to be heard soothing and remonstrating, and Her- 
 rick answering, at intervals, with the mechanical noises 
 of hysteria. 
 
 "'E's like a bloomin' poultry yard," observed Huish, 
 helping himself to wine (of which he spilled a good 
 deal) with gentlemanly ease. "A man should learn to 
 beyave at table," he added. 
 
 ' ' Rather bad form, is it not ? " said Attwater. ' ' Well, 
 well, we are left Ute-d-tete. A glass of wine with you, 
 Mr. Whish!" 
 
 355
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 THE captain and Herrick meanwhile turned their backs 
 upon the lights in Attwater's veranda, and took a direc- 
 tion towards the pier and the beach of the lagoon. 
 
 The isle, at this hour, with its smooth floor of sand, 
 the pillared roof overhead, and the prevalent illumina- 
 tion of the lamps, wore an air of unreality, like a de- 
 serted theatre or a public garden at midnight A man 
 looked about him for the statues and tables. Not the 
 least air of wind was stirring among the palms, and the 
 silence was emphasised by the continuous clamour of 
 the surf from the sea-shore, as it might be of traffic in 
 the next street. 
 
 Still talking, still soothing him, the captain hurried 
 his patient on, brought him at last to the lagoon side, 
 and, leading him down the beach, laved his head and 
 face with the tepid water. The paroxysm gradually 
 subsided, the sobs became less convulsive, and then 
 ceased. By an odd but not quite unnatural conjunc- 
 tion, the captain's soothing current of talk died away at 
 the same time, and by proportional steps, and the pair 
 remained sunk in silence. The lagoon broke at their 
 feet in petty wavelets, and with a sound as delicate as 
 a whisper; stars of all degrees looked down on their 
 
 356
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 own images in the vast mirror; and the more angry 
 colour of the Farattone's riding-lamp burned in the mid- 
 dle distance. For long they continued to gaze on the 
 scene before them, and hearken anxiously to the rustle 
 and tinkle of that miniature surf, or the more distant 
 and loud reverberations from the outer coast. For long, 
 speech was denied them ; and when the words came at 
 last, they came to both simultaneously. 
 
 "Say, Herrick " the captain was beginning. 
 
 But Herrick, turning swiftly towards his companion, 
 beat him down with the eager cry: "Let's up anchor, 
 captain, and to sea!" 
 
 "Where to, my son?" said the captain. "Up an- 
 chor's easy saying. But where to ?" 
 
 "To sea," responded Herrick. "The sea's big 
 enough! To sea, away from this dreadful island and 
 that oh that sinister man! " 
 
 ' ' Oh, we'll see about that ! " said Davis. ' ' You brace 
 up, and we'll see about that. You're all run down, 
 that's what's wrong with you. You're all nerves like 
 Jemimar. You've got to brace up good, and be your- 
 self again, and then we'll talk." 
 
 "To sea," reiterated Herrick; "to sea to-night 
 now this moment! " 
 
 "It can't be, my son," replied the captain firmly. 
 "No ship of mine puts to sea without provisions; you 
 can take that for settled." 
 
 "You don't seem to understand," said Herrick. 
 " The whole thing is over, I tell you. There is noth- 
 ing to do here, when he knows all. That man there 
 with the cat knows all. Can't you take it in ? " 
 
 " All what ? " asked the captain, visibly discomposed. 
 
 357
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "Why, he received us like a perfect gentleman, and 
 treated us real handsome until you began with your 
 foolery; and I must say I've seen men shot for less, and 
 nobody sorry ! What more do you expect, anyway ? " 
 
 Herrick rocked to and fro upon the sand, shaking his 
 head. 
 
 " Guying us," he said. " He was guying us only 
 guying us; it's all we're good for." 
 
 "There was one queer thing, to be sure," admitted 
 the captain, with a misgiving of the voice; "that about 
 the sherry. D d if I caught on to that. Say, Her- 
 rick, you didn't give me away ? " 
 
 " Oh ! give you away 1 " repeated Herrick with weary, 
 querulous scorn. "What was there to give away? 
 We're transparent; we've got rascal branded on us; de- 
 tected rascal detected rascal ! Why, before he came 
 on board, there was the name painted out, and he saw 
 the whole thing. He made sure we would kill him 
 there and then, and stood guying you and Huish on the 
 chance. He calls that being frightened ! Next he had 
 me ashore ; a fine time I had ! The two wolves, he calls 
 you and Huish. What is the puppy doing with the two 
 wolves ? he asked. He showed me his pearls ; he said 
 they might be dispersed before morning, and att bung 
 by a bair and smiled as he said it; such a smile! Oh, 
 it's no use, I tell you ! He knows all ; he sees through 
 all. We only make him laugh with our pretences he 
 looks at us, and laughs like God! " 
 
 There was a silence. Davis stood with contorted 
 brows, gazing into the night. 
 
 "The pearls?" he said suddenly. "He showed 
 them to you ? He has them ? " 
 
 358
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 "No, he didn't show them. I forgot; only the safe 
 they were in," said Herrick. "But you'll never get 
 them!" 
 
 "I've two words to say to that," said the captain. 
 
 "Do you think he would have been so easy at table 
 unless he was prepared?" cried Herrick. "The ser- 
 vants were both armed. He was armed himself; he 
 always is, he told me. You will never deceive his vig- 
 ilance. Davis, I know it! It's all up, I tell you, and 
 keep telling you, and proving it. All up; all up! There's 
 nothing for it, there's nothing to be done. All gone 
 life, honour, love. O my God! my God! why was I 
 born?" 
 
 Another pause followed upon this outburst. 
 
 The captain put his hands to his brow. 
 
 " Another thing! " he broke out. " Why did he tell 
 you all this ? Seems like madness to me." 
 
 Herrick shook his head with gloomy iteration. " You 
 wouldn't understand if I were to tell you," said he. 
 
 " I guess I can understand any blame' thing that you 
 can tell me," said the captain. 
 
 "Well, then, he's a fatalist," said Herrick. 
 
 " What's that a fatalist ? " said Davis. 
 
 "Oh, it's a fellow that believes a lot of things," said 
 Herrick. "Believes that his bullets go true ; believes 
 that all falls out as God chooses, do as you like to pre- 
 vent it; and all that." 
 
 "Why, I guess I believe right so myself," said Davis. 
 
 "You do?" said Herrick. 
 
 "You bet I do! " said Davis. 
 
 Herrick shrugged his shoulders. " Well, you must be 
 a fool," said he, and he leaned his head upon his knees. 
 
 359
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 The captain stood biting his hands. 
 
 "There's one thing sure," he said at last. "I must 
 get Huish out of that. He's not fit to hold his end up 
 with a man like you describe." 
 
 And he turned to go away. The words had been 
 quite simple; not so the tone, and the other was quick 
 to catch it. 
 
 "Davis!" he cried, "no! Don't do it! Spare me, 
 and don't do it! Spare yourself, and leave it alone 
 for God's sake! for your children's sake! " 
 
 His voice rose to a passionate shrillness ; another mo- 
 ment, and he might be overheard by their not distant 
 victim. But Davis turned on him with a savage oath 
 and gesture; and the miserable young man rolled over 
 on his face on the sand, and lay speechless and helpless. 
 
 The captain meanwhile set out rapidly for Attwater's 
 house. As he went, he considered with himself eagerly, 
 his thoughts racing. The man had undei stood; he had 
 mocked them from the beginning. He would teach him 
 to make a mockery of John Davis! Herrick thought 
 him a god. Give him a second to aim in, and the god 
 was overthrown. He chuckled as he felt the butt of 
 his revolver. It should be done now, as he went in. 
 From behind ? It was difficult to get there. From 
 across the table? No; the captain preferred to shoot 
 standing, so as you could be sure to get your hand upon 
 your gun. The best would be to summon Huish, and 
 when Attwater stood up and turned ah, then would 
 be the moment! Wrapped in this ardent preflguration 
 of events, the captain posted towards the house with 
 his head down. 
 
 " Hands up! Halt! " cried the voice of Attwater. 
 360
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 And the captain, before he knew what he was doing, 
 had obeyed. The surprise was complete and irremedi- 
 able. Coming on the top crest of his murderous inten- 
 tions, he had walked straight into an ambuscade, and 
 now stood, with his hands impotently lifted, staring at 
 the verandah. 
 
 The party was now broken up. Attwater leaned on 
 a post, and kept Davis covered with a Winchester. 
 One of the servants was hard by, with a second at the 
 port arms, leaning a little forward, round-eyed with 
 eager expectancy. In the open space at the head of the 
 stair, Huish was partly supported by the other native, 
 his face wreathed in meaningless smiles, his mind 
 seemingly sunk in the contemplation of an unlighted 
 cigar. 
 
 "Well," said Attwater, "you seem to me to be a 
 very twopenny pirate!" 
 
 The captain uttered a sound in his throat for which 
 we have no name; rage choked him. 
 
 "I'm going to give you Mr. Whish or the wine- 
 sop that remains of him," continued Attwater. "He 
 talks a great deal when he drinks, Captain Davis of the 
 Sea Ranger. But I have quite done with him, and re- 
 turn the article with thanks. Now," he cried sharply, 
 "another false movement like that, and your family 
 will have to deplore the loss of an invaluable parent; 
 keep strictly still, Davis." 
 
 Attwater said a word in the native, his eye still un- 
 deviatingly fixed on the captain, and the servant thrust 
 Huish smartly forward from the brink of the stair. 
 With an extraordinary simultaneous dispersion of his 
 members, that gentleman bounded forth into space, 
 
 361
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 struck the earth, ricochetted, and brought up with his 
 arms about a palm. His mind was quite a stranger to 
 these events. The expression of anguish that deformed 
 his countenance at the moment of the leap was probably 
 mechanical. And he suffered these convulsions in si- 
 lence; clung to the tree like an infant; and seemed, by 
 his dips, to suppose himself engaged in the pastime of 
 bobbing for apples. A more finely sympathetic mind, 
 or a more observant eye, might have remarked, a little 
 in front of him on the sand, and still quite beyond reach, 
 the unlighted cigar. 
 
 " There is your Whitechapel carrion ! " said Attwater. 
 "And now you might very well ask me why I do not 
 put a period to you at once, as you deserve. I will tell 
 you why, Davis. It is because I have nothing to do 
 with the Sea Ranger and the people you drowned, or 
 the Farallone and the champagne that you stole. That 
 is your account with God; He keeps it, and He will 
 settle it when the clock strikes. In my own case, I 
 have nothing to go on but suspicion ; and I do not kill 
 on suspicion, not even vermin like you. But under- 
 stand ; if ever I see any of you again, it is another mat- 
 ter, and you shall eat a bullet. And now take yourself 
 off. March ! And as you value what you call your life, 
 keep your hands up as you go! " 
 
 The captain remained as he was, his hands up, his 
 mouth open, mesmerised with fury. 
 
 "March!" said Attwater. "One, two, three!" 
 
 And Davis turned and passed slowly away. But 
 even as he went, he was meditating a prompt, offen- 
 sive return. In the twinkling of an eye he had leaped 
 behind a tree, and was crouching there, pistol in hand,
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 peering from either side of his place of ambush with 
 bared teeth, a serpent already poised to strike. And 
 already he was too late. Attwater and his servants had 
 disappeared, and only the lamps shone on the deserted 
 table and the bright sand about the house, and threw 
 into the night in all directions the strong and tall shad- 
 ows of the palms. 
 
 Davis ground his teeth. Where were they gone, the 
 cowards? To what hole had they retreated beyond 
 reach? It was in vain he should try anything he, 
 single, and with a second-hand revolver, against three 
 persons armed with Winchesters, and who did not 
 show an ear out of any of the apertures of that lighted 
 and silent house. Some of them might have already 
 ducked below it from the rear, and be drawing a bead 
 upon him at that moment from the low-browed crypt, 
 the receptacle of empty bottles and broken crockery. 
 No, there was nothing to be done but to bring away (if 
 it were still possible) his shattered and demoralised 
 forces. 
 
 "Huish," he said, "come along." 
 
 "'s loss my ciga'," said Huish, reaching vaguely for- 
 ward. 
 
 The captain let out a rasping oath. "Come right 
 along here ! " said he. 
 
 " 's all righ'. Sleep here 'th Atty Attwa. Go boar' 
 t'morr'," replied the festive one. 
 
 "If you don't come, and come now, by the living 
 God I'll shoot you! " cried the captain. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the sense of these words 
 in any way penetrated to the mind of Huish; rather 
 that, in a fresh attempt upon the cigar, he over-balanced 
 
 363
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 himself, and came flying erratically forward, a course 
 which brought him within reach of Davis. 
 
 "Now you walk straight," said the captain, clutching 
 him, "or Til know why not" 
 
 "'s loss my ciga'," replied Huish. 
 
 The captain's contained fury blazed up for a moment. 
 He twisted Huish round, grasped him by the neck of the 
 coat, ran him in front of him to the pier end, and flung 
 him savagely forward on his face. 
 
 "Look for your cigar, then, you swine! "said he; 
 and blew his boat-call till the pea in it ceased to rattle. 
 
 An immediate activity responded on board the Faral- 
 lone; far away voices, and soon the sound of oars, 
 floated along the surface of the lagoon ; and at the same 
 time, from nearer hand, Herrick aroused himself and 
 strolled languidly up. He bent over the insignificant 
 figure of Huish, where it grovelled, apparently insen- 
 sible, at the base of the figure-head. 
 
 "Dead?" he askad. 
 
 "No, he's not dead," said Davis. 
 
 "And Attwater?" asked Herrick. 
 
 ' ' Now you just shut your head ! " replied Davis. ' ' You 
 can do that, I fancy ; and by God, I'll show you how ! I'll 
 stand no more of your drivel." 
 
 They waited accordingly in silence till the boat bumped 
 on the farthest piers, then raised Huish, head and heels, 
 carried him down the gangway, and flung him sum- 
 marily in the bottom. On the way out he was heard 
 murmuring of the loss of his cigar; and after he had 
 been handed up the side like baggage, and cast down 
 in the alleyway to slumber, his last audible expression 
 was: "Splen'l fl' Attwa!" This the expert construed 
 
 364
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 ir.to " Splendid fellow, Attwater! " With so much in- 
 nocence had this great spirit issued from the adventures 
 of the evening. 
 
 The captain went and walked in the waist with 
 brief, irate turns; Herrick leaned his arms on the taff- 
 rail; the crew had all turned in. The ship had a gen- 
 tle, cradling motion ; at times a block piped like a bird. 
 On shore, through the colonnade of palm stems, Att- 
 water's house was to be seen shining steadily with 
 many lamps. And there was nothing else visible, 
 whether in the heaven above or in the lagoon below, 
 but the stars and their reflections. It might have been 
 minutes or it might have been hours that Herrick 
 leaned there, looking in the glorified water and drink- 
 ing peace. "A bath of stars," he was thinking, when 
 a hand was laid at last on his shoulder. 
 
 " Herrick," said the captain, "I've been walking off 
 my trouble." 
 
 A sharp jar passed through the young man, but he 
 neither answered nor so much as turned his head. 
 
 "I guess I spoke a little rough to you on shore," 
 pursued the captain. "The fact is, I was real mad; 
 but now it's over and you and me have to turn to and 
 think." 
 
 " I will not think," said Herrick. 
 
 "Here, old man," said Davis kindly, "this won't 
 fight, you know. You've got to brace up and help 
 me get things straight. You're not going back on a 
 friend? That's not like you, Herrick." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it is," said Herrick. 
 
 "Come, come!" said the captain, and paused as if 
 quite at a loss. "Look here," he cried, "you have a 
 
 365
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 glass of champagne ; / won't touch it, so that'll show 
 you if I'm in earnest. But it's just the pick-me-up for 
 you; it'll put an edge on you at once." 
 
 "Oh, you leave me alone," said Herrick, and turned 
 away. 
 
 The captain caught him by the sleeve, and Herrick 
 shook him off and turned on him, for the moment, like 
 a demoniac. 
 
 " Go to hell in your own way ! " he cried. 
 
 And he turned away again, this time unchecked, and 
 stepped forward to where the boat rocked alongside, 
 and ground occasionally against the schooner. He 
 looked about him ; a corner of the house was interposed 
 between the captain and himself; all was well; no eye 
 must see him in that last act. He slid silently in the 
 boat, thence silently into the starry water. Instinct- 
 ively he swam a little; it would be time enough to stop 
 by and by. 
 
 The shock of the immersion brightened his mind 
 immediately; the events of the ignoble day passed be- 
 fore him in a frieze of pictures ; and he thanked "what- 
 ever gods there be " for that open door of suicide. In 
 such a little while he would be done with it, the ran- 
 dom business at an end, the prodigal son come home. 
 A very bright planet shone before him and drew a 
 trenchant wake along the water. He took that for his 
 line and followed it; that was the last earthly thing 
 that he should look upon; that radiant speck, which 
 he had soon magnified into a city of Laputa, along 
 whose terraces there walked men and women of awful 
 and benignant features, who viewed him with distant 
 commiseration. These imaginary spectators consoled 
 
 366
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 him; he told himself their talk, one to another; it was 
 of himself and his sad destiny. 
 
 From such flights of fancy he was aroused by the 
 growing coldness of the water. Why should he de- 
 lay ? Here, where he was now, let him drop the cur- 
 tain, let him seek the ineffable refuge, let him lie down 
 with all races and generations of men in the house of 
 sleep. It was easy to say, easy to do. To stop swim- 
 ming there was no mystery in that, if he could do it 
 Could he ? And he could not. He knew it instantly. 
 He was aware instantly of an opposition in his mem- 
 bers, unanimous and invincible, clinging to life with a 
 single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by 
 sinew; something that was at once he and not he; at 
 once within and without him; the shutting of some 
 miniature valve in his brain, which a single manly 
 thought should suffice to open; and the grasp of an ex- 
 ternal fate ineluctable as gravity. To any man there may 
 come at times a consciousness that there blows through 
 all the articulations of his body the wind of a spirit not 
 wholly his; that his mind rebels; that another girds 
 him and carries him whither he would not. It came 
 now to Herrick, with the authority of a revelation. 
 There was no escape possible. The open door was 
 closed in his recreant face. He must go back into the 
 world and amongst men without illusion. He must 
 stagger on to the end with the pack of his responsibility 
 and his disgrace, until a cold, a blow, a merciful chance 
 ball, or the more merciful hangman, should dismiss 
 him from his infamy. There were men who could 
 commit suicide: there were men who could not; and 
 he was one who could not. 
 
 367
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 For perhaps a minute there raged in his mind the 
 coil of this discovery ; then cheerless certitude followed, 
 and, with an incredible simplicity of submission to as- 
 certained fact, he turned round and struck out for shore. 
 There was a courage in this which he could not ap- 
 preciate, the ignobility of his cowardice wholly occu- 
 pying him. A strong current set against him like a 
 wind in his face; he contended with it heavily, wearily, 
 without enthusiasm, but with substantial advantage; 
 marking his progress the while, without pleasure, by 
 the outline of the trees. Once he had a moment of 
 hope. He heard to the southward of him, towards the 
 centre of the lagoon, the wallowing of some great fish, 
 doubtless a shark, and paused for a little, treading wa- 
 ter. Might not this be the hangman ? he thought. 
 But the wallowing died away ; mere silence succeeded ; 
 and Herrick pushed out again for the shore, raging as 
 he went at his own nature. Ay, he would wait for the 
 shark; but if he had heard him coming His smile 
 was tragic. He could have spat upon himself. 
 
 About three in the morning, chance and the set of 
 the current, and the bias of his own right-handed body, 
 so decided it between them that he came to shore upon 
 the beach in front of Attwater's. There he sat down, 
 and looked forth into a world without any of the lights 
 of hope. The poor diving-dress of self-conceit was 
 sadly tattered. With the fairy tale of suicide, of a ref- 
 uge always open to him, he had hitherto beguiled and 
 supported himself in the trials of life; and behold! that 
 also was only a fairy tale ; that also was folk-lore. With 
 the consequences of his acts he saw himself implacably 
 confronted for the duration of life, stretched upon a 
 
 368
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 cross, and nailed there with the iron bolts of his own 
 cowardice. He had no tears, he told himself no stories. 
 His disgust with himself was so complete, that even 
 the process of apologetic mythology had ceased. He 
 was like a man cast down from a pillar and every bone 
 broken; he lay there, and admitted the facts, and did 
 not attempt to rise. 
 
 Dawn began to break over the far side of the atoll, 
 the sky brightened, the clouds became dyed with gor- 
 geous colours, the shadows of the night lifted. And 
 suddenly Herrick was aware that the lagoon and the 
 trees wore again their daylight livery ; and he saw, on 
 board the Farattone, Davis extinguishing the lantern, 
 and smoke rising from the galley. 
 
 Davis, without doubt, remarked and recognised the 
 figure on the beach or, perhaps, hesitated to recog- 
 nise it for after he had gazed a long while from un- 
 der his hand, he went into the house and fetched a 
 glass. It was very powerful; Herrick had often used 
 it. With an instinct of shame, he hid his face in his 
 hands. 
 
 "And what brings you here, Mr. Herrick-Hay, or 
 Mr. Hay-Herrick ? " asked the voice of Attwater. "Your 
 back view from my present position is remarkably fine, 
 and I would continue to present it. We can get on very 
 nicely as we are, and if you were to turn round, do 
 you know, 1 think it would be awkward." 
 
 Herrick slowly rose to his feet; his heart throbbed 
 hard; a hideous excitement shook him, but he was 
 master of himself. Slowly he turned and faced Att- 
 water and the muzzle of a pointed rifle. "Why could 
 I not do that last night ? " he thought.
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "Well, why don't you fire?" he said aloud, with a 
 voice that trembled. 
 
 Attwater slowly put his gun under his arm, then his 
 hands in his pockets. 
 
 " What brings you here ?" he repeated. 
 
 "I don't know," said Herrick; and then, with a cry, 
 " Can you do anything with me ?" 
 
 "Are you armed?" said Attwater. "I ask for the 
 form's sake." 
 
 "Armed? No!" said Herrick. "Oh, yes, I am, 
 too ! " 
 
 And he flung upon the beach a dripping pistol. 
 
 "You are wet," said Attwater. 
 
 "Yes, I am wet," said Herrick. "Can you do any- 
 thing with me ? " 
 
 Attwater read his face attentively. 
 
 " It would depend a good deal upon what you are," 
 said he. 
 
 ' 'What ? I am a coward! " said Herrick. 
 
 "There is very little to be done with that," said 
 Attwater. "And yet the description hardly strikes one 
 as exhaustive." 
 
 "Oh! what does it matter?" cried Herrick. "Here 
 I am. I am broken crockery ; the whole of my life is 
 gone to water; I have nothing left that I believe in, ex- 
 cept my living horror of myself. Why do I come to 
 you ? I don't know. You are cold, cruel, hateful ; and 
 I hate you, or I think I hate you. But you are an honest 
 man, an honest gentleman. I put myself helpless in 
 your hands. What must I do ? If I can't do anything, 
 be merciful, and put a bullet through me; it's only a 
 puppy with a broken leg! " 
 
 370
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 " If I were you, I would pick up that pistol, come up 
 to the house, and put on some dry clothes," said 
 Attwater. 
 
 "If you really mean it ? " said Herrick. " You know 
 they we they But you know all. " 
 
 "I know quite enough," said Attwater. " Come up 
 to the house." 
 
 And the captain, from the deck of the Farattone, saw 
 the two men pass together under tne shadow of the 
 grove.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 HUISH had bundled himself up from the glare of the 
 day, his face to the house, his knees retracted ; the frail 
 bones in the thin tropical raiment seemed scarce more 
 considerable then a fowl's; and Davis, sitting on the 
 rail, with his arm about a stay, contemplated him with 
 gloom, wondering what manner of counsel that insig- 
 nificant figure should contain. For since Herrick had 
 thrown him off and deserted to the enemy, Huish, 
 alone of mankind, remained to him to be a helper and 
 oracle. 
 
 He considered their position with a sinking heart. 
 The ship was a stolen ship ; the stores, whether from 
 initial carelessness or ill administration during the voy- 
 age, were insufficient to carry them to any port except 
 back to Papeete; and there retribution waited in the 
 shape of a gendarme, a judge with a queer-shaped hat, 
 and the horror of distant Noumea. Upon that side there 
 was no glimmer of hope. Here, at the island, the dragon 
 was roused ; Attwater with his men and his Winchesters 
 watched and patrolled the house ; let him who dare 
 approach it What else was then left but to sit there 
 inactive, pacing the decks, until the Trinity HaU arrived, 
 and they were cast into irons, or until the food came to
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 an end, and the pangs of famine succeeded ? For the 
 Trinity Hall Davis was prepared. He would barricade 
 the house, and die there, defending it, like a rat in a 
 crevice. But for the other ? The cruise of the Farattone, 
 into which he had plunged, only a fortnight before, with 
 such golden expectations, could this be the nightmare 
 end of it, the ship rotting at anchor, the crew stum- 
 bling and dying in the scuppers ? It seemed as if any 
 extreme of hazard were to be preferred to so grisly a 
 certainty ; as if it would be better to up-anchor, after all, 
 put to sea at a venture, and perhaps perish at the hands 
 of cannibals on one of the more obscure Paumotus. His 
 eye roved swiftly over sea and sky in quest of any 
 promise of wind, but the fountains of the Trade were 
 empty. Where it had run yesterday, and for weeks 
 before, a roaring blue river charioting clouds, silence 
 now reigned, and the whole height of the atmosphere 
 stood balanced. On the endless ribbon of island that 
 stretched out to either hand of him its array of golden 
 and green and silvery palms, not the most volatile frond 
 was to be seen stirring; they drooped to their stable 
 images in the lagoon like things carved of metal, and 
 already their long line began to reverberate heat. There 
 was no escape possible that day, none probable on the 
 morrow. And still the stores were running out. 
 
 Then came over Davis, from deep down in the roots 
 of his being, or at least from far back among his memo- 
 ries of childhood and innocence, a wave of superstition. 
 This run of ill-luck was something beyond natural; the 
 chances of the game were in themselves more various; 
 it seemed as if the devil must serve the pieces. The 
 devil ? He heard again the clear note of Attwater's bell 
 
 373
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 ringing abroad into the night, and dying away. How, 
 if God ? 
 
 Briskly he averted his mind. Attwater that was 
 the point Attwater had food and a treasure of pearls; 
 escape made possible in the present, riches in the future. 
 They must come to grips with Attwater; the man must 
 die. A smoky heat went over his face as he recalled 
 the impotent figure he had made last night, and the 
 contemptuous speeches he must bear in silence. Rage, 
 shame, and the love of life all pointed the one way ; and 
 only invention halted. How to reach him? Had he 
 strength enough ? Was there any help in that misbe- 
 gotten packet of bones against the house ? 
 
 His eyes dwelled upon him with a strange avidity, as 
 though he would read into his soul ; and presently the 
 sleeper moved, stirred uneasily, turned suddenly round, 
 and threw him a blinking look. Davis maintained the 
 same dark stare, and Huish looked away again and sat 
 up. 
 
 "Lord, I've an 'eadache on me!" said he. "I be- 
 lieve I was a bit swipey last night. W'ere's that cry- 
 byby, 'Errick?" 
 
 " Gone," said the captain. 
 
 "Ashore?" cried Huish. "Oh, I say, I'd 'a' gone, too." 
 
 "Would you?" said the captain. 
 
 "Yes, I would," replied Huish. "I like Attwater; 
 'e's aH right; we got on like one o'clock when you 
 were gone. And ain't his sherry in it, rather? It's 
 like Spiers and Pond's Amontillado! I wish I 'ad a 
 drain of it now," he sighed. 
 
 "Well, you'll never get no more of it, that's one 
 thing," said Davis, gravely. 
 
 374
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 '"Ere! wot's wrong with you, Dyvis? Coppers 'ot? 
 Well, look at me! /ain't grumpy," said Huish. "I'm 
 as plyful as a canyry-bird, I am." 
 
 "Yes," said Davis, "you're playful, I own that; and 
 you were playful last night, I believe, and a damned 
 fine performance you made of it. " 
 
 '"Allo!" said Huish. " 'Ow's this? Wot per- 
 formance ? " 
 
 "Well, I'll tell you," said the captain, getting slowly 
 off the rail. 
 
 And he did, at full length, with every wounding epi- 
 thet and absurd detail repeated and emphasised ; he had 
 his own vanity and Huish's upon the grill and roasted 
 them ; and as he spoke he inflicted and endured agonies 
 of humiliation. It was a plain man's master-piece of 
 the sardonic. 
 
 "What do you think of it?" said he, when he had 
 done, and looked down at Huish, flushed and serious, 
 and yet jeering. 
 
 "I'll tell you wot it is," was the reply, "you and me 
 cut a pretty dicky figure." 
 
 "That's so," said Davis; "a pretty measly figure, 
 by God ! And, by God ! I want to see that man at my 
 knees." 
 
 "Ah!" said Huish. " 'Ow to get him there?" 
 
 ' ' That's it ! " cried Davis. " Ho w to get hold to him ! 
 They're four to two, though there's only one man among 
 them to count, and that's Attwater. Get a bead on 
 Attwater, and the others would cut and run and sing 
 out like frightened poultry, and old man Herrick would 
 come round with his hat for a share of the pearls. No, 
 sir! It's how to get hold of Attwater! And we daren't 
 
 575
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 even go ashore. He would shoot us in the boat like 
 dogs." 
 
 "Are you particular about having him dead or alive?" 
 asked Huish. 
 
 "I want to see him dead," said the captain. 
 
 "Ah, well," said Huish. "Then I believe I'll do a 
 bit of breakfast." 
 
 And he turned into the house. 
 
 The captain doggedly followed him. 
 
 "What's this?" he asked. "What's your idea, 
 anyway?" 
 
 "Oh, you let me alone, will you?" said Huish, 
 opening a bottle of champagne. " You'll 'ear my idea 
 soon enough. Wyte till I pour some cham on my 'ol 
 coppers." He drank a glass off, and affected to listen. 
 "'Ark!" said he, "'ear it fizz. Like 'am fryin', I de- 
 clare. 'Ave a glass, do, and look sociable." 
 
 " No," said the captain, with emphasis. " No, I will 
 not. There's business." 
 
 "You p'ys your money and you tykes your choice, 
 my little man, " returned Huish. ' ' Seems rather a shyme 
 to me to spoil your breakfast for wot's really ancient 
 'istory." 
 
 He finished three parts of a bottle of champagne and 
 nibbled a corner of biscuit with extreme deliberation, 
 the captain sitting opposite and champing the bit like 
 an impatient horse. Then Huish leaned his arms on the 
 table and looked Davis in the face. 
 
 " W'en you're ready," said he. 
 
 "Well, now, what's your idea?" said Davis, with a 
 sigh. 
 
 " Fair play ! " said Huish. ' ' What's yours ? " 
 376
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 "The trouble is that I've got none," replied Davis; 
 and wandered for some time in aimless discussion of 
 the difficulties in their path, and useless explanations of 
 his own fiasco. 
 
 "About done ?" said Huish. 
 
 "I'll dry up right here," replied Davis. 
 
 "Well, then, "said Huish, "you give me your 'and 
 across the table, and say : Gawd strike me dead if I 
 don't back you up.' " 
 
 His voice was hardly raised, yet it thrilled the hearer. 
 His face seemed the epitome of cunning, and the cap- 
 tain recoiled from it as from a blow. 
 
 "What for?" said he. 
 
 "Luck," said Huish. "Substantial guarantee de- 
 manded." 
 
 And he continued to hold out his hand. 
 
 "I don't see the good of any such tomfoolery," said 
 the other. 
 
 "I do, though," returned Huish. "Gimme your 
 'and and say the words, then you'll 'ear my view of it. 
 Don't, and you don't." 
 
 The captain went through the required form, breath- 
 ing short, and gazing on the clerk with anguish. What 
 to fear he knew not ; yet he feared slavishly what was 
 to fall from these pale lips. 
 
 "Now, if you'll excuse me'alfa second, "said Huish, 
 " I '11 go and fetch the byby." 
 
 " The baby ? " said Davis. " What's that ? " 
 
 "Fragile. With care. This side up," replied the 
 clerk, with a wink, as he disappeared. 
 
 He returned, smiling to himself, and carrying in his 
 hand a silk handkerchief. The long, stupid wrinkles 
 
 377
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 ran up Davis's brow as he saw it. What should it con- 
 tain ? He could think of nothing more recondite than 
 a revolver. 
 
 Huish resumed his seat. 
 
 "Now, "said he, ''are you man enough to take charge 
 of 'Errick and the niggers ? Because I'll take care of 
 Hatt water." 
 
 " How ? " cried Davis. " You can't ! " 
 
 "Tut, tut," said the clerk. "You gimme time. 
 Wot's the first point ? The first point is, that we can't 
 get ashore; and I'll make you a present of that for a 
 'ard one. But 'ow about a flag of truce ? Would that 
 do the trick, d'ye think, or would Attwater simply 
 blyze aw'y at us in the bloomin' boat like dawgs ? " 
 
 "No," said Davis, "I don't believe he would." 
 
 "No more do I," said Huish. "I don't believe he 
 would, either; and I'm sure I 'ope he won't. So then 
 you can call us ashore. Next point is to get near the 
 managin' direction. And for that I'm going to 'ave you 
 write a letter, in w'ich you s'y you're ashymed to meet 
 his eye, and that the bearer, Mr. J. L. 'Uish, is empow- 
 ered to represent you; armed with w'ich seemin'ly sim- 
 ple expedient, Mr. J. L. 'Uish will proceed to business." 
 
 He paused, like one who had finished, but still held 
 Davis with his eye. 
 
 " How ? " said Davis. " Why ? " 
 
 "Well, you see, you're big," returned Huish; "'e 
 knows you 'ave a gun in your pocket, and anybody can 
 see with 'alf an eye that you ain't the man to 'esitate 
 about usin' it. So it's no go with you, and never was ; 
 you're out of the runnin', Dyvis. But he won't be 
 afryde of me, I'm such a little un. I'm unarmed no 
 
 378
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 kid about that and I'll 'old my 'ands up right enough." 
 He paused. "If I can manage to sneak up nearer to 
 him as we talk," he resumed, "you look out and back 
 me up smart. If I don't, we go aw'y again, and nothink 
 to 'urt. See ? " 
 
 The captain's face was contorted by the frenzied effort 
 to comprehend. 
 
 "No, I don't see," he cried. "I can't see. What 
 do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean to do for the Beast! " cried Huish, in a burst 
 of venomous triumph. "I'll bring the 'ulkin' bully to 
 grass. He's 'ad his larks out of me: I'm goin' to 'ave 
 my lark out of 'im; and a good lark, too! " 
 
 " What is it r" said the captain, almost in a whisper. 
 
 " Sure you want to know ?" asked Huish. 
 
 Davis rose and took a turn in the house. 
 
 "Yes, I want to know," he said at last, with an 
 effort. 
 
 " Wen your back's at the wall, you do the best you 
 can, don't you ? " began the clerk. " I s'y that, because 
 I 'appen to know there's a prejudice against it; it's con- 
 sidered vulgar, awf'ly vulgar." He unrolled the hand- 
 kerchief and showed a four-ounce jar. "This 'ere's 
 vitriol, this is," said he. 
 
 The captain stared upon him with a whitening face. 
 
 "This is the stuff!" he pursued, holding it up. 
 "This'll burn to the bone; you'll see it smoke upon 'im 
 like 'ell fire. One drop upon 'is bloomin' heyesight, and 
 I'll trouble you for Attwater! " 
 
 "No, no, by God! " exclaimed the captain. 
 
 "Now, see 'ere, ducky," said Huish, "this is my 
 bean-feast, I believe ? I'm goin' up to that man single- 
 
 379
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 'anded, I am. 'E's about seven foot high and I'm five 
 foot one. 'E's a rifle in his 'and, 'e's on the look-out; 
 'e wasn't born yesterday. This is Dyvid and Goliar, I 
 tell you. If I 'ad ast you to walk up and face the music 
 I could understand. But I don't. I on'y ast you to 
 stand by and spifflicate the niggers. It'll all come in 
 quite natural; you'll see, else. Fust thing you know 
 you'll see him running round and 'owling like a good 
 un " 
 
 " Don't! " said Davis. " Don't talk of it! " 
 
 "Well, you are a juggins! "exclaimed Huish. "What 
 did you want ? You wanted to kill him, and tried to 
 last night You wanted to kill the 'ole lot of them, and 
 tried to, and 'ere I show you 'ow ; and because there's 
 some medicine in a bottle, you kick up this fuss ! " 
 
 "I suppose that's so," said Davis. "It don't seem 
 someways reasonable, only there it is." 
 
 " It's the happlication of science, I suppose ?" sneered 
 Huish. 
 
 "I don't know what it is," cried Davis, pacing the 
 floor. "It's there; I draw the line at it. I can't put 
 a finger to no such piggishness ; it's too damned hate- 
 ful!" 
 
 "And I suppose it's all your fancy pynted it," said 
 Huish, "w'en you take a pistol and a bit o' lead, and 
 copse a man's brains all over him ? No accountin' for 
 tystes." 
 
 "I'm not denying it," said Davis; "it's something 
 here, inside of me. It's foolishness ; I daresay it's damn 
 foolishness. I don't argue, I just draw the line. Isn't 
 there no other way ?" 
 
 "Look for yourself," said Huish. "I ain't wedded 
 380
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 to this, if you think I am. I ain't ambitious. I don't 
 make a point of playin' the lead. I offer to, that's all ; 
 and if you can't show me better, by Gawd, I'm goin' 
 to!" 
 
 "Then the risk!" cried Davis. 
 
 " If you ast me stryte, I should say it was a case of 
 seven to one and no tykers," said Huish. " But that's 
 my lookout, ducky, and I'm gyme. Look at me, Dyvis ; 
 there ain't any shilly-shally about me. I'm gyme, that's 
 what I am; gyme all through." 
 
 The captain looked at him. Huish sat there, preening 
 his sinister vanity, glorying in his precedency in evil; 
 and the villainous courage and readiness of the creature 
 shone out of him like a candle from a lantern. Dismay 
 and a kind of respect seized hold on Davis in his own 
 despite. Until that moment he had seen the clerk 
 always hanging back, always listless, uninterested, and 
 openly grumbling at a word of anything to do; and 
 now, by the touch of an enchanter's wand, he beheld 
 him sitting girt and resolved, and his face radiant. He 
 had raised the devil, he thought, and asked who was to 
 control him, and his spirits quailed. 
 
 "Look as long as you like," Huish was going on. 
 " You don't see any green in my eye. I ain't afryde of 
 Attwater, I ain't afryde of you, and I ain't afryde of 
 words. You want to kill people, that's wot you want; 
 but you want to do it in kid gloves, and it can't be done 
 that w'y. Murder ain't genteel, it ain't easy, it ain't 
 safe, and it tykes a man to do it. 'Ere's the man." 
 
 "Huish!" began the captain with energy, and then 
 stopped, and remained staring at him with corrugated 
 brows. 
 
 381
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 "Well, hout with it," said Huish. "'Ave you any- 
 think else to put up ? Is there any other chanst to try ? " 
 
 The captain held his peace. 
 
 "There you are, then," said Huish, with a shrug. 
 
 Davis fell again to his pacing. 
 
 "Oh, you may do sentry-go till you're blue in the 
 mug; you won't find anythink else," said Huish. 
 
 There was a little silence, the captain, like a man 
 launched on a swing, flying dizzily among extremes of 
 conjecture and refusal. 
 
 "But see," he said, suddenly pausing. "Can you ? 
 Can the thing be done ? It it can't be easy." 
 
 "If I get within twenty foot of 'im it'll be done; so 
 you look out," said Huish, and his tone of certainty was 
 absolute. 
 
 " How can you know that ?" broke from the captain 
 in a choked cry. "You beast, I believe you've done it 
 before ! " 
 
 "Oh, that's private affyres," returned Huish. "I 
 ain't a talking man." 
 
 A shock of repulsion struck and shook the captain. 
 A scream rose almost to his lips ; had he uttered it, he 
 might have cast himself at the same moment on the 
 debile body of Huish, might have picked him up, and 
 flung him down, and wiped the cabin with him in a 
 frenzy of cruelty that seemed half moral ; but the mo- 
 ment passed, and the abortive crisis left the man weaker. 
 The stakes were so high, the pearls on the one hand, 
 starvation and shame on the other. Ten years of pearls ! 
 The imagination of Davis translated them into a new, 
 glorified existence for himself and his family. The seat 
 of this new life must be in London, there were deadly 
 
 382
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 reasons against Portland, Maine, and the pictures that 
 came to him were of English manners. He saw his 
 boys marching in the procession of a school, with 
 gowns on, an usher marshalling them, and reading, as 
 he walked, in a great book. He was installed in a villa, 
 semi-detached, the name, "Rosemore," on the gate- 
 posts. In a chair on the gravel walk he seemed to sit 
 smoking a cigar, a blue ribbon in his buttonhole, victor 
 over himself and circumstances and the malignity of 
 bankers. He saw the parlour with red curtains, and 
 shells on the mantel-piece; and, with the fine inconsis- 
 tency of visions, mixed a grog at the mahogany table 
 ere he turned in. With that the Farattone gave one of 
 the aimless and nameless movements which (even in an 
 anchored ship and even in the most profound calm) re- 
 mind one of the mobility of fluids; and he was back 
 again under the cover of the house, the fierce daylight 
 besieging it all round and glaring in the chinks, and the 
 clerk, in a rather airy attitude, awaiting his decision. 
 
 He began to walk again. He aspired after the reali- 
 sation of these dreams, like a horse nickering for water; 
 the lust of them burned in his inside; and the only ob- 
 stacle was Attwater, who had insulted him from the 
 first. He gave Herrick a full share of the pearls ; he in- 
 sisted on it. Huish opposed him, and he trod the op- 
 position down, and praised himself exceedingly. He 
 was not going to use vitriol himself. Was he Huish 's 
 keeper? It was a pity he had asked, but after all 
 He saw the boys again in the school procession, with 
 the gowns he had thought to be so "tony " long since 
 And at the same time the incomparable shame of 
 the last evening blazed up in his mind. 
 
 383
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 " Have it your own way," he said hoarsely. 
 
 "Oh, I knew you would walk up," said Huish. 
 "Now for the letter. There's paper, pens, and ink. Sit 
 down, and I'll dictyte." 
 
 The captain took a seat and the pen, looked awhile 
 helplessly at the paper, then at Huish. The swing had 
 gone the other way; there was a blur upon his eyes. 
 " It's a dreadful business," he said, with a strong twitch 
 of his shoulders. 
 
 " It's rather a start, no doubt," said Huish. " Tyke 
 a dip of ink. That's it. William John Hattwater, Esq., 
 Sir:" he dictated. 
 
 " How do you know his name is William John ? " 
 asked Davis. 
 
 "Saw it on a packing-case," said Huish. "Got 
 that ? " 
 
 "No," said Davis. "But there's another thing. 
 What are we to write ? " 
 
 " Oh, my golly !" cried the exasperated Huish. "Wot 
 kind of man do you call yourself? I'm goin' to tell you 
 wot to write that's my pitch if you'll just be so 
 bloomin' condescendin' as to write it down ! William 
 John Hattwater, Esq., Sir:" he reiterated. And the 
 captain at last beginning half mechanically to move his 
 pen, the dictation proceeded : " It is with feelin 's of 
 sbyme and 'artfelt contrition that I approach you after 
 the yumiliatin' events of last night. Our Mr. 'Errick 
 has left the ship, and will have doubtless communicated 
 to you the nature of our 'opes. Needless to s'y, these 
 are no longer possible. Fate 'as declyred against us, 
 and we bow the 'ead. Well awyre as I am of the just 
 suspicions with w'ich I am regarded, I do not venture 
 
 384
 
 DAVID nND GOLIATH 
 
 to solicit the fyvour of an interview for myself; but in 
 order to put an end to a situytion w'icb must be equally 
 pyneful to all, I 'ave deputed my friend and partner, 
 Mr. J. L. Huisb, to I'y before you my proposals, and 
 w'icb by tbeir moderytion Witt, I trust, be found to 
 merit your attention. Mr. J. L. Huisb i& entirely un- 
 armed, I swear to Gawd! and wiU 'old 'is 'ands over 
 'is 'eadfrom tbe moment be begins to approach you. 1 
 am yourfytbful servant, John Dyvis. ' ' 
 
 Huish read the letter with the innocent joy of ama- 
 teurs, chuckled gustfully to himself, and reopened it 
 more than once after it was folded, to repeat the plea- 
 sure, Davis meanwhile sitting inert and heavily 
 frowning. 
 
 Of a sudden he rose; he seemed all abroad. "No! " 
 he cried. "No! It can't be! It's too much! It's 
 damnation! God would never forgive it! " 
 
 " Well, and 'oo wants him to ? " returned Huish, shrill 
 with fury. "You were damned years ago for the Sea 
 Rynger, and said so yourself. Well, then, be damned 
 for something else, and 'old your tongue." 
 
 The captain looked at him mistily. ' ' No, " he pleaded, 
 "no, old man, don't do it." 
 
 "'Ere now," said Huish, "I'll give you my ultimy- 
 tum. Go or st'y w'ere you are; I don't mind; I'm goin' 
 to see that man and chuck this vitriol in his eyes. If 
 you st'y I'll go alone; the niggers will likely knock me 
 on the 'ead, and a fat lot you'll be the better! But 
 there's one thing sure: I'll 'ear no more of your moon- 
 in', mullygrubbin' rot, and tyke it stryte." 
 
 The captain took it with a blink and a gulp. Mem- 
 ory, with phantom voices, repeated in his ears some- 
 
 9*
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 thing similar, something he had once said to Herrick, 
 years ago, it seemed. 
 
 "Now, gimme over your pistol," said Huish. "I 
 'ave to see all clear. Six shots, and mind you don't 
 wyste them." 
 
 The captain, like a man in a nightmare, laid down 
 his revolver on the table, and Huish wiped the cart- 
 ridges and oiled the works. 
 
 It was close on noon : there was no breath of wind, 
 and the heat was scarce bearable when the two men 
 came on deck, had the boat manned, and passed down, 
 one after another, into the stern-sheets. A white shirt 
 at the end of an oar served as a flag of truce ; and the 
 men, by direction, and to give it the better chance to be 
 observed, pulled with extreme slowness. The isle 
 shook before them like a place incandescent; on the face 
 of the lagoon blinding copper suns, no bigger than six- 
 pences, danced and stabbed them in the eyeball. There 
 went up from sand and sea, and even from the boat, a 
 glare of scathing brightness; and as they could only 
 peer abroad from between closed lashes, the excess of 
 light seemed to be changed into a sinister darkness, 
 comparable to that of a thunder-cloud before it bursts. 
 
 The captain had come upon this errand for any one 
 of a dozen reasons, the last of which was desire for its 
 success. Superstition rules all men ; semi-ignorant and 
 gross natures, like that of Davis, it rules utterly. For 
 murder he had been prepared; but this horror of the 
 medicine in the bottle went beyond him, and he seemed 
 to himself to be parting the last strands that united him 
 to God. The boat carried him on to reprobation, to 
 damnation ; and he suffered himself to be carried, pas- 
 
 386
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 sively consenting, silently bidding farewell to his bettei 
 self and his hopes. 
 
 Huish sat by his side in towering spirits that were not 
 wholly genuine. Perhaps as brave a man as ever lived, 
 brave as a weasel, he must still reassure himself with 
 the tones of his own voice; he must play his part to 
 exaggeration, he must out-Herod Herod, insult all that 
 was respectable, and brave all that was formidable, in a 
 kind of desperate wager with himself. So the young 
 soldier may jest as he goes into the battle; so perhaps, 
 of old, the highwaymen blasphemed on the scaffold. 
 
 "Golly, but it's 'otl" said he. " Cruel 'ot, I call it. 
 Nice d'y to get your gruel in! I s'y, you know, it 
 must feel awf ly peculiar to get bowled over on a d'y 
 like this. I'd rather have it on a cowld and frusty morn- 
 ing, wouldn't you ? [Singing.] 'Ere we go round tbe 
 mulberry bush on a cowld and frosty mornin'. [Spo- 
 ken.] Give you my word, I 'aven't thought o' that in 
 ten years; used to sing it at a hinfant school in 'Ack- 
 ney 'Ackney Wick it was. [Singing.] This is tbe 
 way tbe tyler does, tbe tyler does. [Spoken.] Bloomin' 
 'umbug. 'Ow are you off now, for the notion of a 
 future styte ? Do you cotton to the tea-fight view, or 
 the old red-'ot Boguey business ? " 
 
 "Oh, dry up," said the captain. 
 
 ' ' No, but I want to know, " said Huish. ' ' It's within 
 the sp'ere of practical politics for you and me, my boy ; 
 we may both be bowled over, one up, t'other down, 
 within the next ten minutes. It would be rather a lark, 
 now, if you only skipped across, came up smilin' t'other 
 side, and a hangel met you with a B. and S. under his 
 wing. 'Ullo, you'd s'y: 'come! I tyke this kind." 
 
 387
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 The captain groaned. While Huish was thus airing 
 and exercising his bravado, the man at his side was 
 actually engaged in prayer. Prayer, what for? God 
 knows. But out of his inconsistent, illogical, agitated 
 spirit, a stream of supplication was poured forth, inar- 
 ticulate as himself, earnest as death and judgment. 
 
 "Thou Gawd seest me!" continued Huish. " I re- 
 member I had that written in my Bible. I remember 
 the Bible, too, all about Abinadab and parties. Well, 
 Gawd! " said he, apostrophising the meridian, "you're 
 goin' to see a rum start presently, I promise you that! " 
 
 The captain bounded. 
 
 " I'll have no blasphemy! " he cried, "no blasphemy 
 in my boat." 
 
 "All right, cap," said Huish. "Anything to oblige. 
 Any other topic you would like to suggest, the ryne- 
 gyge, the lightnin' rod, Shykespeare, or the musical 
 glasses ? { Ere's conversytion on tap. Put a penny in 
 the slot, and 'ullo! 'ere they are!" he cried. "Now 
 or never! Is 'e goin' to shoot?" 
 
 And the little man straightened himself into an alert 
 and dashing attitude, and looked steadily at the enemy. 
 
 But the captain rose half up in the boat, with eyes 
 protruding. 
 
 " What's that ? " he cried. 
 
 " Wot's wot ? " said Huish. 
 
 "Those blamed things," said the captain. 
 
 And indeed it was something strange. Herrick and 
 Attwater, both armed with Winchesters, had appeared 
 out of the grove behind the figure-head ; and to either 
 hand of them, the sun glistened upon two metallic ob- 
 jects, locomotory like men, and occupying in the econ- 
 
 388
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 omy of these creatures the places of heads, only the 
 heads were faceless. To Davis, hit between wind and 
 water, his mythology appeared to have come alive, and 
 Tophet to be vomiting demons. But Huish was not 
 mystified a moment. 
 
 "Divers' 'elmets, you ninny! Can't you see?" he 
 said. 
 
 "So they are," said Davis, with a gasp. " And why ? 
 Oh, I see, it's for armour." 
 
 "Wot did I tell you?" said Huish. "Dyvid and 
 Goliar all the w'y and back." 
 
 The two natives (for they it was that were equipped 
 in this unusual panoply of war) spread out to right and 
 left, and at last lay down in the shade, on the extreme 
 flank of the position. Even now that the mystery was 
 explained, Davis was hatefully preoccupied, stared at 
 the flame on their crests, and forgot, and then remem- 
 bered with a smile, the explanation. 
 
 Attwater withdrew again into the grove, and Herrick, 
 with his gun under his arm, came down the pier alone. 
 About half way down he halted and hailed the boat. 
 
 " What do you want ? " he cried. 
 
 ' ' I'll tell that to Mr. Attwater, " replied Huish, stepping 
 briskly on the ladder. " I don't tell it to you, because 
 you plyed the trucklin' sneak. Here's a letter for him ; 
 tyke it, and give it, and be 'anged to you ! " 
 
 "Davis, is this all right?" said Herrick. 
 
 Davis raised his chin, glanced swiftly at Herrick and 
 away again, and held his peace. The glance was charged 
 with some deep emotion, but whether of hatred or fear, 
 it was beyond Herrick to divine. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I'll give the letter." He drew a 
 389
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 score with his foot on the boards of the gangway. " Till 
 I bring the answer, don't move a step past this." 
 
 And he returned to where Attwater leaned against a 
 tree, and gave him the letter. Attwater glanced it 
 through. 
 
 "What does that mean?" he asked, passing it to 
 Herrick. ' ' Treachery ? " 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so," said Herrick. 
 
 "Well, tell him to come on," said Attwater. "One 
 isn't a fatalist for nothing. Tell him to come on and 
 to look out." 
 
 Herrick returned to the figure-head. Half way down 
 the pier the clerk was waiting, with Davis by his side. 
 
 " You are to come along, Huish," said Herrick. " He 
 bids you look out, no tricks." 
 
 Huish walked briskly up the pier, and paused face to 
 face with the young man. 
 
 "Were is 'e ?" said he, and to Herrick's surprise, the 
 low-bred, insignificant face before him flushed suddenly 
 crimson and went white again. 
 
 "Right forward," said Herrick, pointing. "Now, 
 your hands above your head." 
 
 The clerk turned away from him and toward the fig- 
 ure-head, as though he were about to address to it his 
 devotions he was seen to heave a deep breath and 
 raised his arms. In common with many men of his 
 unhappy physical endowments, Huish's hands were 
 disproportionately Jong and broad, and the palms in 
 particular enormous; a four-ounce jar was nothing in 
 that capacious fist. The next moment he was plod- 
 ding steadily forward on his mission. 
 
 Herrick at first followed. Then a noise in his rear 
 390
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 startled him, and he turned about, to find Davis already 
 advanced as far as the figure-head. He came, crouch- 
 ing and open-mouthed, as the mesmerised may follow 
 the mesmeriser; all human considerations, and even the 
 care of his own life, swallowed up in one abominable 
 and burning curiosity. 
 
 "Halt!" cried Herrick, covering him with his rifle. 
 "Davis, what are you doing, man ? You are not to come." 
 
 Davis instinctively paused, and regarded him with a 
 dreadful vacancy of eye. 
 
 " Put your back to that figure-head, do you hear me ? 
 and stand fast! " said Herrick. 
 
 The captain fetched a breath, stepped back against 
 the figure-head, and instantly redirected his glances 
 after Huish. 
 
 There was a hollow place of the sand in that part, 
 and as it were a glade among the cocoa-palms, in which 
 the direct noonday sun blazed intolerably. At the far 
 end, in the shadow, the tall figure of Attwater was to 
 be seen leaning on a tree. Toward him, with his hands 
 over his head, and his steps smothered in the sand, the 
 clerk painfully waded. The surrounding glare threw 
 out and exaggerated the man's smallness ; it seemed no 
 less perilous an enterprise, this that he was gone upon, 
 than for a whelp to besiege a citadel. 
 
 " There, Mr. Whish. That will do," cried Attwater. 
 " From that distance, and keeping your hands up like a 
 good boy, you can very well put me in possession of 
 the skipper's views." 
 
 The interval betwixt them was perhaps forty feet; and 
 Huish measured it with his eye, and breathed a curse. 
 He was already distressed with labouring in the loose
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 sand, and his arms ached bitterly from their unnatural 
 position. In the palm of his right hand, the jar was 
 ready; and his heart thrilled, and his voice choked, as 
 he began to speak. 
 
 "Mr. Hattwater/'said he, "I don't know if ever you 
 'ad a mother " 
 
 "I can set your mind at rest: I had," returned Att- 
 water. " And henceforth, if I might venture to suggest 
 it, her name need not recur in our communications. I 
 should perhaps tell you that I am not amenable to the 
 pathetic." 
 
 " I am sorry, sir, if I 'ave seemed to tresparse on your 
 private feelin's," said the clerk, cringing and stealing a 
 step. "At least, sir, you will never pe'suade me that 
 you are not a perfec' gentleman. I know a gentleman 
 when I see him; and as such, I 'ave no 'esitation in 
 throwin' myself on your merciful consideration. It 
 'ard lines, no doubt; it's 'ard lines to have to hown your- 
 self beat; it's 'ard lines to 'ave to come and beg to you 
 for charity." 
 
 "When, if things had only gone right, the whole place 
 was as good as your own ? " suggested Attwater. " I 
 can understand the feeling." 
 
 "You are judging me, Mr. Attwater," said the clerk, 
 "and Gawd knows how unjustly! ' Thou Gawd 
 seest me,' was the tex' I 'ad in my Bible, w'ich my fa- 
 ther wrote it in with 'is own 'and upon the fly leaft." 
 
 " I am sorry I have to beg your pardon once more," 
 said Attwater; "but do you know, you seem to me to 
 be a trifle nearer, which is entirely outside of our bar- 
 gain. And I would venture to suggest that you take 
 one two three steps back; and stay there." 
 
 392
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 The devil, at this staggering disappointment, looked 
 out of Huish's face, and Attwater was swift to suspect. 
 He frowned, he stared on the little man, and considered. 
 Why should he be creeping nearer ? The next moment 
 his gun was at his shoulder. 
 
 " Kindly oblige me by opening your hands. Open 
 your hands wide let me see the fingers spread, you 
 dog throw down that thing you're holding!" he 
 roared, his rage and certitude increasing together. 
 
 And then, at almost the same moment, the indomi- 
 table Huish decided to throw, and Attwater pulled the 
 trigger. There was scarce the difference of a second 
 between the two resolves, but it was in favour of 
 the man with the rifle; and the jar had not yet left 
 the clerk's hand, before the ball shattered both. For 
 the twinkling of an eye, the wretch was in hell's ago- 
 nies, bathed in liquid flames, a screaming bedlamite; 
 and then a second and more merciful bullet stretched 
 him dead. 
 
 The whole thing was come and gone in a breath. 
 Before Herrick could turn about, before Davis could 
 complete his cry of horror, the clerk lay in the sand, 
 sprawling and convulsed. 
 
 Attwater ran to the body ; he stooped and viewed it ; 
 he put his finger in the vitriol, and his face whitened 
 and hardened with anger. 
 
 Davis had not yet moved ; he stood astonished, with 
 his back to the figure-head, his hands clutching it be- 
 hind him, his body inclined forward from the waist. Att- 
 water turned deliberately and covered him with his rifle. 
 
 "Davis," he cried, in a voice like a trumpet, "I give 
 you sixty seconds to make your peace with God." 
 
 393
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 Davis looked, and his mind awoke. He did not 
 dream of self-defence, he did not reach for his pistol. 
 He drew himself up instead to face death, with a quiv- 
 ering nostril. 
 
 ' ' I guess I'll not trouble the Old Man, " he said. ' ' Con- 
 sidering the job I was on, I guess it's better business to 
 just shut my face." 
 
 Attwater fired; there came a spasmodic movement 
 of the victim, and immediately above the middle of his 
 forehead, a black hole marred the whiteness of the fig- 
 ure-head. A dreadful pause; then again the report, and 
 the solid sound and jar of the bullet in the wood; and 
 this time the captain had felt the wind of it along his 
 cheek. A third shot, and he was bleeding from one 
 ear; and along the levelled rifle, Attwater smiled like 
 a red Indian. 
 
 The cruel game of which he was the puppet was 
 now clear to Davis; three times he had drunk of death, 
 and he must look to drink of it seven times more be- 
 fore he was despatched. He held up his hand. 
 
 "Steady!" he cried, "I'll take your sixty seconds." 
 
 "Good!" said Attwater. 
 
 The captain shut his eyes tight, like a child ; he held 
 his hands up at last with a tragic and ridiculous gesture. 
 
 " My God, for Christ's sake, look after my two kids," 
 he said; and then after a pause and a falter, "for 
 Christ's sake. Amen." 
 
 And he opened his eyes and looked down the rifle 
 with a quivering mouth. 
 
 "But don't keep fooling me long!" he pleaded. 
 
 "That all your prayer?" asked Attwater, with a 
 singular ring in his voice. 
 
 394
 
 DAVID AND GOLIATH 
 
 'Guess so," said Davis. 
 
 " So ? " said Attwater, resting the butt of his rifle on 
 the ground, "is that done? Is your peace made with 
 Heaven ? Because it is with me. Go, and sin no 
 more, sinful father. And remember that whatever you 
 do to others, God shall visit it again a thousand fold 
 upon your innocents." 
 
 The wretched Davis came staggering forward from 
 his place against the figure-head, fell upon his knees, 
 and waved his hands and fainted. 
 
 When he came to himself again, his head was on 
 Attwater's arm, and close by stood one of the men in 
 divers' helmets, holding a bucket of water, from which 
 his late executioner now laved his face. The memory 
 of that dreadful passage returned upon him in a clap; 
 again he saw Huish lying dead, again he seemed to 
 himself to totter on the brink of an unplumbed eter- 
 nity. With trembling hands he seized hold of the man 
 whom he had come to slay; and his voice broke from 
 him like that of a child among the nightmares of fever: 
 "Oh! isn't there no mercy? Oh! what must I do to 
 be saved ? " 
 
 "Ah ! " thought Attwater, " here is the true penitent"
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A TAIL-PIECE 
 
 ON a very bright, hot, lusty, strongly blowing noon, a 
 fortnight after the events recorded, and a month since 
 the curtain rose upon this episode, a man might have 
 been spied praying on the sand by the lagoon beach. A 
 point of palm-trees isolated him from the settlement; 
 and from the place where he knelt, the only work of 
 man's hand that interrupted the expanse was the 
 schooner FaraUone, her berth quite changed, and rock- 
 ing at anchor some two miles to windward in the 
 midst of the lagoon. The noise of the Trade ran very 
 boisterous in all parts of the island ; the nearer palm- 
 trees crashed and whistled in the gusts, those farther 
 off contributed a humming bass, like the roar of cities ; 
 and yet, to any man less absorbed, there must have 
 risen at times over this turmoil of the winds the sharper 
 note of the human voice from the settlement. There 
 all was activity. Attwater, stripped to his trousers and 
 lending a strong hand of help, was directing and en- 
 couraging five Kanakas ; from his lively voice, and their 
 more lively efforts, it was to be gathered that some 
 sudden and joyful emergency had set them in this bustle; 
 and the "Union Jack" floated once more on its staff. 
 But the suppliant on the beach, unconscious of their
 
 A TAIL-PIECE 
 
 voices, prayed on with instancy and fervour, and the 
 sound of his voice rose and fell again, and his counte- 
 nance brightened and was deformed with changing 
 moods of piety and terror. 
 
 Before his closed eyes, the skiff had been for some 
 time tacking towards the distant and deserted Faral- 
 lone ; and presently the figure of Herrick might have 
 been observed to board her, to pass for a while into the 
 house, thence forward to the forecastle, and at last to 
 plunge into the main hatch. In all these quarters, his 
 visit was followed by a coil of smoke; and he had 
 scarce entered his boat again and shoved off, before 
 flames broke forth upon the schooner. They burned 
 gayly; kerosene had not been spared, and the bellows 
 of the Trade incited the conflagration. About half-way 
 on the return voyage, when Herrick looked back, he 
 beheld the Farattone wrapped to the topmasts in leap- 
 ing arms of fire, and the voluminous smoke pursuing 
 him along the face of the lagoon. In one hour's time, 
 he computed, the waters would have closed over the 
 stolen ship. It so chanced that, as his boat flew before 
 the wind with much vivacity, and his eyes were con- 
 tinually busy in the wake, measuring the progress of 
 the flames, he found himself embayed to the northward 
 of the point of palms, and here became aware at the 
 same time of the figure of Davis immersed in his 
 devotion. An exclamation, part of annoyance, part of 
 amusement, broke from him, and he touched the helm 
 and ran the prow upon the beach not twenty feet 
 from the unconscious devotee. Taking the painter in 
 his hand, he landed, drew near, and stood over him. 
 And still the voluble and incoherent stream of prayer 
 
 397
 
 THE EBB TIDE 
 
 continued unabated. It was not possible for him to 
 overhear the suppliant's petitions, which he listened to 
 some while in a very mingled mood of humour and pity, 
 and it was only when his own name began to occur 
 and to be conjoined with epithets, that he at last laid 
 his hand on the captain's shoulder. 
 
 "Sorry to interrupt the exercise," said he, "but I 
 want you to look at the Farattone" 
 
 The captain scrambled to his feet, and stood gasping 
 and staring. "Mr. Herrick, don't startle a man like 
 that! " he said. " I don't seem someways rightly my- 
 self since " he broke off. "What did you say, any- 
 way? Oh, the Farattone," and he looked languidly 
 out 
 
 " Yes," said Herrick, " there she burns; and you may 
 guess from that what the news is." 
 
 "The Trinity Hatt, I guess," said the captain. 
 
 "The same," said Herrick, "sighted half an hour 
 ago, and coming up hand over fist" 
 
 "Well, it don't amount to a hill of beans," said the 
 captain, with a sigh. 
 
 "Oh, come, that's rank ingratitude!" cried Herrick. 
 
 "Well," replied the captain, meditatively, "you 
 mayn't just see the way that 1 view it in, but I'd 'most 
 rather stay here upon this island. I found peace here, 
 peace in believing. Yes, I guess this island is about 
 good enough for John Davis." 
 
 "I never heard such nonsense!" cried Herrick. 
 'What! with all turning out in your favour the way 
 it does, the Farattone wiped out, the crew disposed 
 of, a sure thing for your wife and family, and you your- 
 self Attwater's spoiled darling and pet penitent! " 
 
 398
 
 A TAIL-PIECE 
 
 "Now, Mr. Herrick, don't say that," said the cap- 
 tain, gently, "when you know he don't make no differ- 
 ence between us. But, oh, why not be one of us? 
 Why not come to Jesus right away, and let's meet in 
 yon beautiful land ? That's just the one thing wanted ; 
 just say 'Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!' 
 and He'll fold you in His arms. You see, I know; ! 
 been a sinner myself."
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.
 
 UCSOUTHERN 
 
 A 000 813 758