It is no use to throw a good thing

It was just like so many children. Sir Dinadan was so proud of his exploit that he could not keep from telling over and over again, to weariness, how the immortal idea happened to occur to him; and as is the way with humorists of his breed, he was still laughing at it after everybody else had got through. He was so set up that he concluded to make a speech -- of course a humorous speech. I think I never heard so many old played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was worse than the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was born, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years afterwards. It about convinced me that there isn't any such thing as a new joke possible. Everybody laughed at these antiquities -- but then they always do; I had noticed that, centuries later. However, of course the scoffer didn't laugh -- I mean the boy. No, he scoffed; there wasn't anything he wouldn't scoff at. He said the most of Sir Dinadan's jokes were rotten and the rest were petrified. I said "petrified" was good; as I believed, myself, that the only right way to classify the majestic ages of some of those jokes was by geologic periods. But that neat idea hit the boy in a blank place, for geology hadn't been invented yet. However, I made a note of the remark, and calculated to educate the commonwealth up to it if I pulled through. It is no use to throw a good thing away merely because the market isn't ripe yet. Now Sir Kay arose and began to fire up on his history-mill with me for fuel. It was time for me to feel serious, and I did. Sir Kay told how he had encountered me in a far land of barbarians, who all wore the same ridiculous garb that I did -- a garb that was a work of enchantment, and intended to make the wearer secure from hurt by human hands.

for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword

Sir, ye shall not so, said Merlin, for the knight is weary of fighting and chasing, so that ye shall have no worship to have ado with him; also, he will not lightly be matched of one knight living; and therefore it is my counsel, let him pass, for he shall do you good service in short time, and his sons, after his days. Also ye shall see that day in short space ye shall be right glad to give him your sister to wed. When I see him, I will do as ye advise me, said Arthur. Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scabbard upon you ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; therefore, keep well the scabbard always with you. So they rode into Carlion, and by the way they met with Sir Pellinore; but Merlin had done such a craft that Pellinore saw not Arthur, and he passed by without any words. I marvel, said Arthur, that the knight would not speak. Sir, said Merlin, he saw you not; for and he had seen you ye had not lightly departed. So they came unto Carlion, whereof his knights were passing glad. And when they heard of his adventures they marveled that he would jeopard his person so alone. But all men of worship said it was merry to be under such a chieftain that would put his person in adventure as other poor knights did." Chapter 4 Sir Dinadan The Humorist IT seemed to me that this quaint lie was most simply and beautifully told; but then I had heard it only once, and that makes a difference; it was pleasant to the others when it was fresh, no doubt. Sir Dinadan the Humorist was the first to awake, and he soon roused the rest with a practical joke of a sufficiently poor quality. He tied some metal mugs to a dog's tail and turned him loose, and he tore around and around the place in a frenzy of fright, with all the other dogs bellowing after him and battering and crashing against everything that came in their way and making altogether a chaos of confusion and a most deafening din and turmoil; at which every man and woman of the multitude laughed till the tears flowed, and some fell out of their chairs and wallowed on the floor in ecstasy.

So they rode till they came to a lake

This was the old man's tale. He said: "Right so the king and Merlin departed, and went until an hermit that was a good man and a great leech. So the hermit searched all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the king was there three days, and then were his wounds well amended that he might ride and go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said, I have no sword. No force *, said Merlin, hereby is a [* Footnote from M.T.: No matter.] sword that shall be yours and I may. So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. Lo, said Merlin, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that they saw a damsel going upon the lake. What damsel is that? said Arthur. That is the Lady of the lake, said Merlin; and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place as any on earth, and richly beseen, and this damsel will come to you anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon withal came the damsel unto Arthur and saluted him, and he her again. Damsel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder the arm holdeth above the water? I would it were mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur King, said the damsel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you what gift ye will ask. Well, said the damsel, go ye into yonder barge and row yourself to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin alight, and tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the ship, and when they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur took it up by the handles, and took it with him. And the arm and the hand went under the water; and so they came unto the land and rode forth. And then Sir Arthur saw a rich pavilion. What signifieth yonder pavilion? It is the knight's pavilion, said Merlin, that ye fought with last, Sir Pellinore, but he is out , he is not there; he hath ado with a knight of yours, that hight Egglame, and they have fought together, but at the last Egglame fled, and else he had been dead, and he hath chased him even to Carlion, and we shall meet with him anon in the highway. That is well said, said Arthur, now have I a sword, now will I wage battle with him, and be avenged on him.

that same old weary tale that he hath told

I looked at the boy in sorrow; and as I looked I saw the cloud of a deep despondency settle upon his countenance. I followed the direction of his eye, and saw that a very old and white-bearded man, clothed in a flowing black gown, had risen and was standing at the table upon unsteady legs, and feebly swaying his ancient head and surveying the company with his watery and wandering eye. The same suffering look that was in the page's face was observable in all the faces around -- the look of dumb creatures who know that they must endure and make no moan. "Marry, we shall have it a again," sighed the boy; "that same old weary tale that he hath told a thousand times in the same words, and that he WILL tell till he dieth, every time he hath gotten his barrel full and feeleth his exaggeration-mill a-working. Would God I had died or I saw this day!" "Who is it?" "Merlin, the mighty liar and magician, perdition singe him for the weariness he worketh with his one tale! But that men fear him for that he hath the storms and the lightnings and all the devils that be in hell at his beck and call, they would have dug his entrails out these many years ago to get at that tale and squelch it. He telleth it always in the third person, making believe he is too modest to glorify himself -maledictions light upon him, misfortune be his dole! Good friend, prithee call me for evensong." The boy nestled himself upon my shoulder and pretended to go to sleep. The old man began his tale; and presently the lad was asleep in reality; so also were the dogs, and the court, the lackeys, and the files of men-at-arms. The droning voice droned on; a soft snoring arose on all sides and supported it like a deep and subdued accompaniment of wind instruments. Some heads were bowed upon folded arms, some lay back with open mouths that issued unconscious music; the flies buzzed and bit, unmolested, the rats swarmed softly out from a hundred holes, and pattered about, and made themselves at home everywhere; and one of them sat up like a squirrel on the king's head and held a bit of cheese in its hands and nibbled it, and dribbled the crumbs in the king's face with naive and impudent irreverence. It was a tranquil scene, and restful to the weary eye and the jaded spirit.

state the case exactly according to

Every eye was fastened with severe inquiry upon Sir Kay. But he was equal to the occasion. He got up and played his hand like a major -- and took every trick. He said he would state the case exactly according to the facts; he would tell the simple straightforward tale, without comment of his own; "and then," said he, "if ye find glory and honor due, ye will give it unto him who is the mightiest man of his hands that ever bare shield or strake with sword in the ranks of Christian battle -- even him that sitteth there!" and he pointed to Sir Launcelot. Ah, he fetched them; it was a rattling good stroke. Then he went on and told how Sir Launcelot, seeking adventures, some brief time gone by, killed seven giants at one sweep of his sword, and set a hundred and forty-two captive maidens free; and then went further, still seeking adventures, and found him (Sir Kay) fighting a desperate fight against nine foreign knights, and straightway took the battle solely into his own hands, and conquered the nine; and that night Sir Launcelot rose quietly, and dressed him in Sir Kay's armor and took Sir Kay's horse and gat him away into distant lands, and vanquished sixteen knights in one pitched battle and thirty-four in another; and all these and the former nine he made to swear that about Whitsuntide they would ride to Arthur's court and yield them to Queen Guenever's hands as captives of Sir Kay the Seneschal, spoil of his knightly prowess; and now here were these half dozen, and the rest would be along as soon as they might be healed of their desperate wounds. Well, it was touching to see the queen blush and smile, and look embarrassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir Launcelot that would have got him shot in Arkansas, to a dead certainty. Everybody praised the valor and magnanimity of Sir Launcelot; and as for me, I was perfectly amazed, that one man, all by himself, should have been able to beat down and capture such battalions of practiced fighters. I said as much to Clarence; but this mocking featherhead only said: "An Sir Kay had had time to get another skin of sour wine into him, ye had seen the accompt doubled."

But I came to ask your immediate help

"Whereas - if I may make a probable guess, and it should be a matter which may be admitted in - shall I say in friendly confidence? - you were actually in no danger at all, being in the confidence of our own police?" Kindell met this direct and most unexpected attack with a smile which showed him to be equal to his opponent's craft. "What," he asked in a noncommittal tone, "should make you think that?" "It was Myra's idea rather than mine. It was something she overheard - the inevitable chatter of the hotel - which gave it to her - but it has some support in the fact that you are in London now." "And they arrested me as a sign of their friendly regard? should have preferred that they had shown it in other ways. But perhaps Myra was also able to explain why they did that?" "If she was, she did not confide to me. But now you are with us again you can explain it all. That is, if you would like to look in tomorrow at an earlier hour. She has retired tonight, having one of those headaches which will occur when she has nothing more urgent upon her mind." "I am afraid tomorrow might be too late." "Too late? My suggestion was that you should make an earlier call." "So I understood. You have politely asked me to go. But I came to ask your immediate help." "Then why not have said so at once? If it be within reason and within my power it is not likely to be refused." Professor Blinkwell said this in a tone of friendly rebuke, and Kindell felt that it was time for a retort which it would be less easy to turn aside. "It is your influence with Mrs. Collinson that I am anxious to have."

and would be ready to buy it at any cost

But the doubt was enough to justify almost any violence or any trick which would release her from what he felt must be, at best, some form of detention against her will. He knew that he was dealing with ruthless and frightened men - men who would think only of their own security, and would be ready to buy it at any cost. They must be attacked now, without a moment's delay, and without reservation of any weapon he had. Yet when the Professor met him with a pose of amity he saw that it might be best to let him show his hand somewhat further before exposing his own. He said, "Even when they are less than satisfied, they cannot go far without proof." "Under the French system of judicial enquiry," the Professor answered, "I should have said that they can go quite a long way." His voice had a faint note of distaste, as though he disapproved of a system of justice inferior to that of his native land, as an Englishman would be likely to do. He added: "I should not have expected that you would be so promptly released unless their suspicions have found another object. Did you hear anything to suggest that they have solved the mystery of who the murderer could have been?" "I heard a rumour that they had become interested in the movements of one of the waiters at the hotel." Professor Blinkwell looked mildly interested. "Yes," he said doubtfully, "it is a possible idea. Yet what motive could he have had? Perhaps homicidal mania should be considered. There are cases of epilepsy which have had such unhappy results." Kindell felt that he was gaining nothing by these exchanges. He became delusively frank in his reply: "I doubt whether epilepsy would be a sufficient explanation. There is another matter in which the man has acted in a way which may admit of innocent explanation, but it is hard to guess what it can be." "Indeed? Then he is presumably under arrest, which will explain the promptness of your release?" "That is more than I can say. But the matter which I was about to explain did not come to my knowledge until I had returned to London. He used my name in an audacious manner, evidently thinking that I should be detained in Paris for a longer time than I was."

he rose and switched off the radio

A maid-servant was at the door. "If you please, sir, Mr. Kindell has called, and would like to see you " "Kindell, Rachel? . . . Oh, yes. I will see the young man. As the girl withdrew, he rose and switched off the radio. "Ruth," he said to his wife, who was already preparing to leave the room, "I don t think you'll want to stay. . . . Nor you, Myra." He waited for the moment that must pass before his wife left, and continued: "This is an occasion on which discretion of speech is imperative. Extreme discretion. You had better leave it entirely to me." Myra rose also, though with less readiness than her aunt, who, besides that she was a professional invalid, which is an exacting occupation, always made it clear that she took no interest in her husband's business affairs. But Myra had no doubt of her own capacity to avoid indiscretions of speech, and would have been interested to hear a conversation which her uncle, she did not doubt, would be able to lead in his own way. Curiosity urged her to remain. But there was no time to argue, and the idea of refusing obedience did not enter her mind. Rather sulkily she withdrew and Professor Blinkwell was alone when Kindell entered the room. The Professor led the conversation at once. He grasped his visitor's hand with his maximum of cordiality as he said suavely: "This is an unexpected pleasure. I must congratulate you upon having convinced the S?ret? that you were not involved in that dreadful crime - as it is easy to see that you must have done, or you would not be in London now." In the brief period which he had had for reflection as he had been driven from Scotland Yard to the Professor's door, Kindell had decided that the time for caution had gone. He did not know in what peril Irene might be, nor how great might be the importance of time.

deal with her in a way which would

But he had not known whom she was till it was too late. He felt that she should have warned him earlier. The treatment he had received was unfair. Being stirred to indignation by the view of the course of events, he felt a lively hatred of its author, which assisted his resolution to deal with her in a way which would remove the fear of her ever standing in the witness-box to testify against him. It might seem to superficial consideration to be a perilous course, but actually it was the one in which safety lay. Yet precipitate action - - ? No. He remembered a counsel of priceless wisdom he had once been privileged to hear from Professor Blinkwell's lips. A valid though subtle distinction had been drawn between the course adopted, in which boldness might often reduce pisk, and the method of execution, in which caution must be the unvarying rule. The Professor had argued, with illuminating illustrations, that this rule is often reversed, by which peril and failure come. Many who are cautious in the design are careless in the detail of what they do. . . . At this point in his reflections he touched the bell. He said "Take the young lady some tea." Chapter 30 A Skermish Of Deadly Words PROFESSOR BLINKWELL SAT in the lounge with his wife and niece. He was engaged upon the study of a chemical formula of some complexity, which had been sent to him by a brother scientist who was anxious to obtain the benefit of his opinion upon an unexpected difficulty which he had encountered in the course of experimental work. A radio programme of light music was occupying the attention of the ladies sufficiently to secure their contented silence and allow the concentration that the subject required. If his thoughts strayed to the dangerous imbecility of Mr. Snacklit, and its probable consequences, he gave no sign of such deviation. And, indeed, there may have been none, for. Professor Blinkwell had the exceptional quality of mind which will make reality of its own pretence. He had decided that an attitude of utter aloofness to the criminalities which, his intelligence told him, would be the natural result of the orders he had issued was the right one to adopt for his own security. He dismissed them forthwith from his mind. They were matters in which he had no part. Of which he had no knowledge. Which could have no approval from him. . . .

Pondering the problem with slower brains

He had thought of bribery, but that held a risk. The man might refuse the offered notes. He might accept them and still report the whole incident to the police. He knew that Professor Blinkwell did not approve of risks. He made it a rule not to incur them. Here was illustration of that. He had suggested - it might be said ordered - the two murders, and what was there that could be urged against him, even though every word should have been recorded. He had said that Snacklit must deal with his trouble in his own way. Who could blame him for that? Snacklit observed this without resentment, for he knew that Professor Blinkwell urged the same elaborate cautions on others which he practised himself. The drastic action which he now directed was (he would have said) the path of safety now. And as to the man, Snacklit agreed. Indeed, the return of the taxi to the Holborn cab rank, which was the one thing which had been done instantly, as the Professor had advised, was a preliminary to the action against him that the occasion required. That could be no cause for worry. Enquiry (if there should be any, which would depend upon the existence of near relatives and their dispositions) would be moderate at most, and that he would ever be traced to Snacklit House was an extreme improbability. Even if he were, against the blank denials which would be given, what proof would there be? That was, if the girl should be silenced. Professor Blinkwell had seen that at once. Pondering the problem with slower brains, though he was far from a dull man, Snacklit saw it also. To destroy the girl would rouse a far louder outcry than would follow the disappearance of any taxi-driver in London. Taxi-drivers are a numerous race. Ambassadors' daughters are rare, and correspondingly valuable. Yet to destroy the driver and let her live might be most dangerous of all. He regretted now that he had led her to his own home. He should have driven in any other direction rather than that. So he saw now.

stood stiff and tall against the evening sky

The cylinder was already opened in the centre of the pit, and on the farther edge of the pit, amid the smashed and gravel-heaped shrubbery, one of the great fighting-machines, deserted by its occupant, stood stiff and tall against the evening sky. At first I scarcely noticed the pit and the aylinder, although it has been convenient to describe them first, on account of the extraordinary glittering mechanism I saw busy in the excavation, and on account of the strange creatures that were crawling slowly and painfully across the heaped mould near it. The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one of those complicated fabrics that have since been called handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder. These, as it extracted them, were lifted out and deposited upon a level surface of earth behind it. Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The fighting-machines were co-ordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely realise that living quality. I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet would have been much better without them.

and for a long time we crouched motionless

I touched the curate's leg, and he started so violently that a mass of plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud impact. I gripped his arm, fearing he might cry out, and for a long time we crouched motionless. Then I turned to see how much of our rampart remained. The detachment of the plaster had left a vertical slit open in the debris, and by raising myself cautiously across a beam I was able to see out of this gap into what had been overnight a quiet suburban roadway. Vast, indeed, was the change that we beheld. The fifth cylinder must have fallen right into the midst of the house we had first visited. The building had vanished, completely smashed, pulverised, and dispersed by the blow. The cylinder lay now far beneath the original foundations-deep in a hole, already vastly larger than the pit I had looked into at Woking. The earth all round it had splashed under that tremendous impact--"splashed" is the only word --and lay in heaped piles that hid the masses of the adjacent houses. It had behaved exactly like mud under the violent blow of a hammer. Our house had collapsed backward; the front portion, even on the ground floor, had been destroyed completely; by a chance the kitchen and scullery had escaped, and stood buried now under soil and ruins, closed in by tons of earth on every side save towards the cylinder. Over that aspect we hung now on the very edge of the great circular pit the Martians were engaged in making. The heavy beating sound was evidently just behind us, and ever and again a bright green vapour drove up like a veil across our peephole.

and there I must have dozed again

Outside there began a metallic hammering, then a violent hooting, and then again, after a quiet interval, a hissing like the hissing of an engine. These noises, for the most part problematical, continued intermittently, and seemed if anything to increase in number as time wore on. Presently a measured thudding and a vibration that made everything about us quiver and the vessels in the pantry ring and shift, began and continued. Once the light was eclipsed, and the ghostly kitchen doorway became absolutely dark. For many hours we must have crouched there, silent and shivering, until our tired attention failed. . . . At last I found myself awake and very hungry. I am inclined to believe we must have spent the greater portion of a day before that awakening. My hunger was at a stride so insistent that it moved me to action. I told the curate I was going to seek food, and felt my way towards the pantry. He made me no answer, but so soon as I began eating the daint noise I made stirred him up and I heard him crawling after me. Part 2 Chapter 2 After eating we crept back to the scullery, and there I must have dozed again, for when presently I looked round I was alone. The thudding vibration continued with wearisome persistence. I whispered for the curate several times, and at last felt my way to the door of the kitchen. It was still daylight, and I perceived him across the room, lying against the triangular hole that looked out upon the Martians. His shoulders were hunched, so that his head was hidden from me. I could hear a number of noises almost like those in an engine shed; and the place rocked with that beating thud. Through the aperture in the wall I could see the top of a tree touched with gold and the warm blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or so I remained watching the curate, and then I advanced, crouching and stepping with extreme care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor.

the wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles

Our situation was so strange and incomprehensible that for three or four hours, until the dawn came, we scarcely moved. And then the light filtered in, not through the window, which remained black, but through a triangular aperture between a beam and a heap of broken bricks in the wall behind us. The interior of the kitchen we now saw greyly for the first time. The window had been burst in by a mass of garden mould, which flowed over the table upon which we had been sitting and lay about our feet. Outside, the soil was banked high against the house. At the top of the window frame we could see an uprooted drainpipe. The floor was littered with smashed hardware; the end of the kitchen towards the house was broken into, and since the daylight shone in there, it was evident the greater part of the house had collapsed. Contrasting vividly with this ruin was the neat dresser, stained in the fashion, pale green, and with a number of copper and tin vessels below it, the wallpaper imitating blue and white tiles, and a couple of coloured supplements fluttering from the walls above the kitchen range. As the dawn grew clearer, we saw through the gap in the wall the body of a Martian, standing sentinel, I suppose, over the still glowing cylinder. At the sight of that we crawled as circumspectly as possible out of the twilight of the kitchen into the darkness of the scullery. Abruptly the right interpretation dawned upon my mind. "The fifth cylinder," I whispered, "the fifth shot from Mars, has struck this house and buried us under the ruins!" For a time the curate was silent, and then he whispered: "God have mercy upon us!" I heard him presently whimpering to himself. Save for that sound we lay quite still in the scullery; I for my part scarce dared breathe, and sat with my eyes fixed on the faint light of the kitchen door. I could just see the curate's face, a dim, oval shape, and his collar and cuffs.

Then things came to me slowly

And then followed such a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of fragments upon our heads. I was knocked headlong across the floor against the oven handle and stunned. I was insensible for a long time, the curate told me, and when I came to we were in darkness again, and he, with a face wet, as I found afterwards, with blood from a cut forehead, was dabbing water over me. For some time I could not recollect what had happened. Then things came to me slowly. A bruise on my temple asserted itself. "Are you better?" asked the curate in a whisper. At last I answered him. I sat up. "Don't move," he said. "The floor is covered with smashed crockery from the dresser. You can't possibly move without making a noise, and I fancy THEY are outside." We both sat quite silent, so that we could scarcely hear each other breathing. Everything seemed deadly still, but once something near us, some plaster or broken brickwork, slid down with a rumbling sound. Outside and very near was an intermittent, metallic rattle. "That!" said the curate, when presently it happened again. "Yes," I said. "But what is it?" "A Martian!" said the curate. I listened again. "It was not like the Heat-Ray," I said, and for a time I was inclined to think one of the great fighting-machines had stumbled against the house, as I had seen one stumble against the tower of Shepperton Church.

and I should have to punish you if you passed

"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson severely, "that is not a proper way of expressing yourself.  I am housekeeper here, and I've been inspecting." "Shall I tell him you've been inspectin'?" asked the girl keenly. "Children of your age should speak when they are spoken to," replied her mother, still more severely. "You cannot comprehend my motives and duties, and I should have to punish you if you passed any remarks upon my actions." "Well," said Jane apprehensively, "I only hope we'll soon have a chance to fix up them drawers, for if he should open 'em we'd have to tramp again, and we will anyway if you don't help me get supper." "You are mistaken, Jane," responded Mrs. Mumpson with dignity. "We shall not leave this roof for three months, and that will give me ample time to open his eyes to his true interests.  I will condescend to these menial tasks until he brings a girl who will yield the deference due to my years and station in life." Between them, after filling the room with smoke, they kindled the kitchen fire.  Jane insisted on making the coffee and then helped her mother to prepare the rest of the supper, doing, in fact, the greater part of the work.  Then they sat down to wait, and they waited so long that Mrs. Mumpson began to express her disapproval by rocking violently.  At last, she said severely, "Jane, we will partake of supper alone." "I'd ruther wait till he comes." "It's not proper that we should wait.  He is not showing me due respect.  Come, do as I command." Mrs. Mumpson indulged in lofty and aggrieved remarks throughout the meal and then returned to her rocker.  At last, her indignant sense of wrong reached such a point that she commanded Jane to clear the table and put away the things. "I won't," said the child.

was overcome by a sort of panic

Meanwhile, Jane was endeavoring to put things back as they were before and found it no easy task.  As the light declined she was overcome by a sort of panic, and, huddling the things into the drawers as fast as possible, she locked them up.  Then, seizing her mother's hand and pulling the abstracted woman to her feet, she cried, "If he comes and finds us here and no supper ready, he'll turn us right out into the rain!" Even Mrs. Mumpson felt that she was perhaps reaching conclusions too fast and that some diplomacy might be necessary to consummate her plans.  Her views, however, appeared to her so reasonable that she scarcely thought of failure, having the happy faculty of realizing everything in advance, whether it ever took place or not. As she slowly descended the stairs with the rocking chair, she thought, "Nothing could be more suiterble.  We are both about the same age; I am most respecterbly connected--in fact, I regard myself as somewhat his superior in this respect; he is painfully undeveloped and irreligious and thus is in sore need of female influence; he is lonely and down-hearted, and in woman's voice there is a spell to banish care; worst of all, things are going to waste.  I must delib'rately face the great duty with which Providence has brought me face to face.  At first, he may be a little blind to this great oppertunity of his life--that I must expect, remembering the influence he was under so many years--but I will be patient and, by the proper use of language, place everything eventually before him in a way that will cause him to yield in glad submission to my views of the duties, the privileges, and the responserbilities of life." So active was Mrs. Mumpson's mind that this train of thought was complete by the time she had ensconced herself in the rocking chair by the fireless kitchen stove.  Once more Jane seized her hand and dragged her up. "You must help," said the child. "I 'spect him every minnit and I'm scart half to death to think what he'll do, 'specially if he finds out we've been rummagin'."

she reflected aloud

"He won't like it," interposed Jane. "In the responserble persition I have assumed," replied Mrs. Mumpson with dignity, "I must consider not what he wants, but what is best for him and what may be best for others." Jane had too much curiosity herself to make further objection, and the keys were brought.  It was astonishing what a number of keys Mrs. Mumpson possessed, and she was not long in finding those which would open the ordinary locks thought by Holcroft to be ample protection. "I was right," said Mrs. Mumpson complacently. "A musty odor exudes from these closed receptercles,.  Men have no comprehension of the need of such caretakers as I am." Everything that had ever belonged to poor Mrs. Holcroft was pulled out, taken to the window, and examined, Jane following, as usual, in the wake of her mother and putting everything to the same tests which her parent applied.  Mrs. Holcroft had been a careful woman, and the extent and substantial character of her wardrobe proved that her husband had not been close in his allowances to her.  Mrs. Mumpson's watery blue eyes grew positively animated as she felt of and held up to the light one thing after another. "Mrs. Holcroft was evidently unnaturally large," she reflected aloud, "but then these things could be made over, and much material be left to repair them, from time to time.  The dresses are of somber colors, becoming to a lady somewhat advanced in years and of subdued taste." By the time that the bed and all the chairs in the room were littered with wearing apparel, Mrs. Mumpson said, "Jane, I desire you to bring the rocking chair.  So many thoughts are crowding upon me that I must sit down and think." Jane did as requested, but remarked, "The sun is gettin' low, and all these things'll have to be put back just as they was or he'll be awful mad." "Yes, Jane," replied Mrs. Mumpson abstractedly and rocking gently, "you can put them back.  Your mind is not burdened like mine, and you haven't offspring and the future to provide for," and, for a wonder, she relapsed into silence.  Possibly she possessed barely enough of womanhood to feel that her present train of thought had better be kept to herself.  She gradually rocked faster and faster, thus indicating that she was rapidly approaching a conclusion.

Now that his mind was at rest about her falling out

His efforts were useless.  He glanced with rueful dismay over his shoulder as he thought, "If she falls out, I don't see how on earth I'll ever get her back again." Fortunately the seat slipped back a little, and she soon slid down into a sort of mountainous heap on the bottom of the wagon, as unmindful of the rain as if it were a lullaby.  Now that his mind was at rest about her falling out, and knowing that he had a heavy load, Holcroft let the horses take their own time along the miry highway. Left to her own devices by Holcroft's absence, Mrs. Mumpson had passed what she regarded as a very eventful afternoon and evening.  Not that anything unusual had happened, unless everything she said and did may be looked upon as unusual; but Mrs. Mumpson justly felt that the critical periods of life are those upon which definite courses of action are decided upon.  In the secret recess of her heart--supposing her to possess such an organ--she had partially admitted to herself, even before she had entered Holcroft's door, that she might be persuaded into marrying him; but the inspection of his room, much deliberate thought, and prolonged soliloquy, had convinced her that she ought to "enter into nuptial relations," as her thought formulated itself.  It was a trait of Mrs. Mumpson's active mind, that when it once entered upon a line of thought, it was hurried along from conclusion to conclusion with wonderful rapidity. While Jane made up Mr. Holcroft's bed, her mother began to inspect, and soon suffered keenly from every painful discovery.  The farmer's meager wardrobe and other belongings were soon rummaged over, but one large closet and several bureau drawers were locked. "These are the receptercles of the deceased Mrs. Holcroft's affects," she said with compressed lips. "They are moldering useless away.  Moth and rust will enter, while I, the caretaker, am debarred.  I should not be debarred.  All the things in that closet should be shaken out, aired, and carefully put back.  Who knows how useful they may be in the future!  Waste is wicked.  Indeed, there are few things more wicked than waste.  Now I think of it, I have some keys in my trunk."

as matters were explained to her

"By jocks!" he ejaculated sympathetically, "but you have hard lines, Jim.  What in thunder would I do with two such widdy women to look after my house!" Chapter 9 Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission As Holcroft drove through the town, Mrs. Wiggins, who, as matters were explained to her, had expressed her views chiefly by affirmative nods, now began to use her tongue with much fluency. "Hi 'ave a friend 'herhabouts," she said, "an' she's been a-keepin' some of my things.  Hi'll be 'olden to ye, master, hif ye'll jes stop a bit hat the door whiles hi gets 'em.  Hif ye'll hadvance me a dollar or so on me wages hit'll be a long time hafore I trouble ye hagain." The farmer had received too broad a hint not to know that Mrs. Wiggins was intent on renewing her acquaintance with her worst enemy.  He briefly replied, therefore, "It's too late to stop now.  I'll be coming down soon again and will get your things." In vain Mrs. Wiggins expostulated, for he drove steadily on.  With a sort of grim humor, he thought of the meeting of the two "widdy women," as Tom had characterized them, and of Mrs. Mumpson's dismay at finding in the "cheap girl" a dame of sixty, weighing not far from two hundred. "If it wasn't such awfully serious business for me," he thought, "it would be better'n going to a theater to see the two go on.  If I haven't got three 'peculiar females' on my hands now, I'd like to hear of the man that has." When Mrs. Wiggins found that she could not gain her point, she subsided into utter silence.  It soon became evident in the cloudy light of the moon that she was going to sleep, for she so nodded and swayed about that the farmer feared she would tumble out of the wagon.  She occupied a seat just back of his and filled it, too.  The idea of stepping over, sitting beside her, and holding her in, was inexpressibly repugnant to him.  So he began talking to her, and finally shouting at her, to keep her awake.

and when I have further added that the two cuts

His clothes, hung above him, showed that he had been himself conscious of his danger--they were clothes that had disguised him as a French artisan. For a few moments, but not for longer, I forced myself to see these things through the glass screen. I can write of them at no greater length, for I saw no more. The few facts in connection with his death which I subsequently ascertained (partly from Pesca and partly from other sources), may be stated here before the subject is dismissed from these pages. His body was taken out of the Seine in the disguise which I have described, nothing being found on him which revealed his name, his rank, or his place of abode. The hand that struck him was never traced, and the circumstances under which he was killed were never discovered. I leave others to draw their own conclusions in reference to the secret of the assassination as I have drawn mine. When I have intimated that the foreigner with the scar was a member of the Brotherhood (admitted in Italy after Pesca's departure from his native country), and when I have further added that the two cuts, in the form of a T, on the left arm of the dead man, signified the Italian word "Traditore," and showed that justice had been done by the Brotherhood on a traitor, I have contributed all that I know towards elucidating the mystery of Count Fosco's death. The body was identified the day after I had seen it by means of an anonymous letter addressed to his wife. He was buried by Madame Fosco in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. Fresh funeral wreaths continue to this day to be hung on the ornamental bronze railings round the tomb by the Countess's own hand. She lives in the strictest retirement at Versailles. Not long since she published a biography of her deceased husband. The work throws no light whatever on the name dhat was really his own or on the secret history of his life--it is almost entirely devoted to the praise of his domestic virtues, the assertion of his rare abilities, and the enumeration of the honours conferred on him. The circumstances attending his death are very briefly noticed, and are summed up on the last page in this sentence--"His life was one long assertion of the rights of the aristocracy and the sacred principles of Order, and he died a martyr to his cause." The Story Begun By Walter Hartright Chapter 3 The summer and autumn passed after my return from Paris, and `rought no changes with them which need be noticed here. We lived so simply and quietly that the income which I was now steadily earning sufficed for all our wants.

and the account they were giving of

A great crowd clamoured and heaved round the door. There was evidently something inside which excited the popular curiosity, and fed the popular appetite for horror. I should have walked on to the church if the conversation of two men and a woman on the outskirts of the crowd had not caught my ear. They had just come out from seeing the sight in the Morgue, and the account they were giving of the dead body to their neighbours described it as the corpse of a man--a man of immense size, with a strange mark on his left arm. The moment those words reached me I stopped and took my place with the crowd going in. Some dim foreshadowing of the truth had crossed my mind when I heard Pesca's voice through the open door, and when I saw the stranger's face as he passed me on the stairs of the hotel. Now the truth itself was revealed to me--revealed in the chance words that had just reached my ears. Other vengeance than mine had followed that fated man from the theatre to his own door--from his own door to his refuge in Paris. Other vengeance than mine had called him to the day of reckoning, and had exacted from him the penalty of his life. The moment when I had pointed him out to Pesca at the theatre in the hearing of that stranger by our side, who was looking for him too--was the moment that sealed his doom. I remembered the struggle in my own heart, when he and I stood face to face--the struggle before I could let him escape me--and shuddered as I recalled it. Slowly, inch by inch, I pressed in with the crowd, moving nearer and nearer to the great glass screen that parts the dead from the living at the Morgue--nearer and nearer, till I was close behind the front row of spectators, and could look in. There he lay, unowned, unknown, exposed to the flippant curiosity of a French mob! There was the dreadful end of that long life of degraded ability and heartless crime! Hushed in the sublime repose of death, the broad, firm, massive face and head fronted us so grandly that the chattering Frenchwomen about me lifted their hands in admiration, and cried in shrill chorus, "Ah, what a handsome man!" The wound that had killed him had been struck with a knife or dagger exactly over his heart. No other traces of violence appeared about the body except on the left arm, and there, exactly in the place where I had seen the brand on Pesca's arm, were two deep cuts in the shape of the letter T, which entirely obliterated the mark of the Brotherhood.

but I don't know the man

Just before I reached the landing I saw his door opened from the inside--a long, delicate, nervous hand (not my friend's hand certainly) held it ajar. At the same time I heard Pesca's voice saying eagerly, in low tones, and in his own language--"I remember the name, but I don't know the man. You saw at the Opera he was so changed that I could not recognise him. I will forward the report--I can do no more." "No more need be done," answered the second voice. The door opened wide, and the light-haired man with the scar on his cheek--the man I had seen following Count Fosco's cab a week before--came out. He bowed as I drew aside to let him pass--his face was fearfully pale--and he held fast by the banisters as he descended the stairs. I pushed open the door and entered Pesca's room. He was crouched up, in the strangest manner, in a corner of the sofa. He seemed to shrink from me when I approached him. "Am I disturbing you?" I asked. "I did not know you had a friend with you till I saw him come out." "No friend," said Pesca eagerly. "I see him to-day for the first time and the last." "I am afraid he has brought you bad news?" "Horrible news, Walter! Let us go back to London--I don't want to stop here--I am sorry I ever came. The misfortunes of my youth are very hard upon me," he said, turning his face to the wall, "very hard upon me in my later time. I try to forget them--and they will not forget ME!" "We can't return, I am afraid, before the afternoon," I replied. "Would you like to come out with me in the meantime?" "No, my friend, I will wait here. But let us go back to-day--pray let us go back." I left him with the assurance that he should leave Paris that afternoon. We had arranged the evening before to ascend the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with Victor Hugo's noble romance for our guide. There was nothing in the French capital that I was more anxious to see, and I departed by myself for the church. Approaching Notre Dame by the river-side, I passed on my way the terrible dead-house of Paris--the Morgue.

a serious consideration recurred to me

His own engagements had not allowed him leisure time to undertake the errand, and he had most kindly suggested that it should be transferred to me. I could have no hesitation in thankfully accepting the offer, for if I acquitted myself of my commission as I hoped I should, the result would be a permanent engagement on the illustrated newspaper, to which I was now only occasionally attached. I received my instructions and packed up for the journey the next day. On leaving Laura once more (under what changed circumstances!) in her sister's care, a serious consideration recurred to me, which had more than once crossed my wife's mind, as well as my own, already--I mean the consideration of Marian's future. Had we any right to let our selfish affection accept the devotion of all that generous life? Was it not our duty, our best expression of gratitude, to forget ourselves, and to think only of HER? I tried to say this when we were alone for a moment, before I went away. She took my hand, and silenced me at the first words. "After all that we three have suffered together," she said "there can be no parting between us till the last parting of all. My heart and my happiness, Walter, are with Laura and you. Wait a little till there are children's voices at your fireside. I will teach them to speak for me in THEIR language, and the first lesson they say to their father and mother shall be--We can't spare our aunt!" My journey to Paris was not undertaken alone. At the eleventh hour Pesca decided that he would accompany me. He had not recovered his customary cheerfulness since the night at the Opera, and he determined to try what a week's holiday would do to raise his spirits. I performed the errand entrusted to me, and drew out the necessary report, on the fourth day from our arrival in Paris. The fifth day I arranged to devote to sight-seeing and amusements in Pesca's company. Our hotel had been too full to accommodate us both on the same floor. My room was on the second story, and Pesca's was above me, on the third. On the morning of the fifth day I went upstairs to see if the Professor was ready to go out.

It was strange to look back and to see

The message conveyed to us "Mr. Fairlie's best congratulations," and requested to know whether "we contemplated stopping in the house." I sent back word that the only object for which we had entered his doors was accomplished--that I contemplated stopping in no man's house but my own--and that Mr. Fairlie need not entertain the slightest apprehension of ever seeing us or hearing from us again. We went back to our friends at the farm to rest that night, and the next morning--escorted to the station, with the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole village and by all the farmers in the neighbourhood--we returned to London. As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the distance, I thought of the first disheartening circumstances under which the long struggle that was now past and over had been pursued. It was strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of assistance had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The gain (on Mr. Kyrle's own showing) would have been more than doubtful--the loss, judging by the plain test of events as they had really happened, certain. The law would never have obtained me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The law would never have made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count. The Story Begun By Walter Hartright Chapter 2 Two more events remain to be added to the chain before it reaches fairly from the outset of the story to the close. While our new sense of freedom from the long oppression of the past was still strange to us, I was sent for by the friend who had given me my first employment in wood engraving, to receive from him a fresh testimony of his regard for my welfare. He had been commissioned by his employers to go to Paris, and to examine for them a fresh discovery in the practical application of his Art, the merits of which they were anxious to ascertain.

said the man with the pipe

    "Now," he said, "I want two of you to follow this misshapen dwarf, and find out where he comes from. I want to get hold of the scoundrels who sent him to me."     "I will be one," said the man with the pipe.     "Very well, Fred."     "And I will go with Fred," said a long limbed fellow who had been a Kansas cowboy.     "I accept you, Otto. Go armed, and don't lose sight of him."     "Shall you send the money?"     "Not I. I will send a letter that will encourage them to hope for it. I want to gain time."     "Any instructions, Jefferson?"     "Only this, if you see these men, capture or kill them."     "All right." Chapter 34 A Bloody Conflict     This was the letter that was handed to Caesar:     I have received your note. I must have time to think, and time perhaps to get hold of the gold. Don't harm a hair of the boy's head. If so, I will hunt you to death.     JEFFERSON PETTIGREW.     P.S. -- Meet me tomorrow morning at the rocky gorge at the foot of Black Mountain. Ten o'clock.     Caesar took the letter, and bent his steps in the direction of the place where he had tethered his horse. He did not observe that he was followed by two men, who carefully kept him in sight, without attracting attention to themselves.

That is a new kind of rascality

    "That is well. If they should harm a hair of his head I wouldn't rest till I had called them to account. Where have they got the boy concealed?"     "I couldn't tell you, massa."     "You mean, you won't tell me."     "Yes. It would be as much as my life is worth."     "Humph, well! I suppose you must be faithful to your employer. Do you know that these men want me to pay five thousand dollars for the return of the boy?"     "Yes, I heard them talking about it."     "That is a new kind of rascality. Do they expect you to bring back an answer?"     "Yes, massa."     "I must think. What will they do to the boy if I don't give them the money?"     "They might kill him."     "If they do -- but I must have time to think the matter over. Are you expected to go back this afternoon?"     "Yes."     "Can you get back? It must be a good distance."     "I can get back."     "Stay here. I will consult some of my friends and see if I can raise the money."     "Very well, massa." One of those whom Jefferson called into consultation was the person who had guided Caesar to the Griffin Mine.     Quickly the proprietor of the Miners' Rest unfolded the situation.

You are a little shrimp

    "That's so. You are a little shrimp. I declare."     A walk of twenty minutes brought them to the Griffin Mine. Jefferson Pettigrew was standing near, giving directions to a party of miners.     "Jefferson," said the man with the pipe, "here's a chap that wants to see you on business of importance. That is, he says it is."     Jefferson Pettigrew wheeled round and looked at Caesar.     "Well," he said, "what is it?"     "I have a letter for you, massa."     "Give it to me."     Jefferson took the letter and cast his eye over it. As he read it his countenance changed and became stern and severe.     "Do you know what is in this letter?" he asked.     "Yes."     "Come with me."     He led Caesar to a place out of earshot.     "What fiend's game is this?" he demanded sternly.     "I can't tell you, massa; I'm not in it."     "Who are those men that have written to me?"     "I don't know their right names. I calls 'em Massa John and Massa Dick."     "It seems they have trapped a boy friend of mine, Rodney Ropes. Did you see him?"     "Yes; I gave him a good dinner."

he left his horse

    We must now follow the messenger who had gone to Oreville with a letter from Rodney's captors.     As instructed, he left his horse, or rather Rodney's, tethered at some distance from the settlement and proceeded on foot to the Miners' Rest. His strange appearance excited attention and curiosity. Both these feelings would have been magnified had it been known on what errand he came.     "Where can I find Mr. Jefferson Pettigrew?" he asked of a man whom he saw on the veranda.     "At the Griffin Mine," answered the other, removing the pipe from his mouth.     "Where is that?"     "Over yonder. Are you a miner?"     "No. I know nothing about mines."     "Then why do you want to see Jefferson? I thought you might want a chance to work in the mine."     "No; I have other business with him -- business of importance," added the black dwarf emphatically.     "If that is the case I'll take you to him. I am always glad to be of service to Jefferson."     "Thank you. He will thank you, too."     The man walked along with a long, swinging gait which made it difficult for Caesar to keep up with him.     "So you have business with Jefferson?" said the man with the pipe, whose curiosity had been excited.     "Yes."     "Of what sort?"     "I will tell him," answered Caesar shortly.     "So its private, is it?"     "Yes. If he wants to tell you he will."     "That's fair. Well, come along! Am I walking too fast for you?"     "Your legs are much longer than mine."

It was all out now

    "But why should you? I am only a poor boy."     "You are the friend of Jefferson Pettigrew. He is a rich man. If he wants you back he must pay a round sum."     It was all out now! These men were emulating a class of outlaws to be found in large numbers in Italy and Sicily, and were trading upon human sympathy and levying a tax upon human friendship. Chapter 33 Rodney's Discovery     There was a good reason for Rodney's excitement. The walls of the subterranean passage revealed distinct and rich indications of gold. There was a time, and that not long before, when they would have revealed nothing to Rodney, but since his residence at Oreville he had more than once visited the mines and made himself familiar with surface indications of mineral deposit.     He stopped short and scanned attentively the walls of the passage.     "If I am not mistaken," he said to himself, "this will make one of the richest mines in Montana. But after all what good will it do me? Here am I a prisoner, unable to leave the cave, or communicate with my friends. If Mr. Pettigrew knew what I do he would feel justified in paying the ransom these men want."     Rodney wondered how these rich deposits had failed to attract the attention of his captors, but he soon settled upon the conclusion that they had no knowledge of mines or mining, and were ignorant of the riches that were almost in their grasp.     "Shall I enlighten them?" he asked himself.     It was a question which he could not immediately answer. He resolved to be guided by circumstances.     In order not to excite suspicion he retraced his steps to the apartment used by his captors as a common sitting room -- carefully fixing in his mind the location of the gold ore.

That'll be bad for the old man

    "Who holds it?"     "The squire. They do say he is goin' to foreclose. That'll be bad for the old man. It'll nigh about break his heart I expect."     "Can't uncle raise the money to pay him?"     "Who is there round here who has got any money except the squire?"     "That's so."     "Where are you goin' to stop, Jeff?"     "I guess I'll stop at the tavern tonight, but I'll go over and call on uncle this evening." Chapter 25 Jefferson Pettingrew's Home     News spreads fast in a country village. Scarcely an hour had passed when it was generally known that Jefferson Pettigrew had come home from Montana with a few hundred dollars in money, bringing with him a rich boy who could buy out all Burton. At least that is the way the report ran.     When the two new arrivals had finished supper and come out on the hotel veranda there were a dozen of Jefferson Pettigrew's friends ready to welcome him.     "How are you, Jefferson, old boy?" said one and another.     "Pretty well, thank you. It seems good to be home."     "I hear you've brought back some money."     "Yes, a few hundred dollars."     "That's better than nothing. I reckon you'll stay home now."     "I can't afford it, boys."     "Are ye goin' back to Montany?"

I wish my father had left me

    "How rich do you think?"     "Shouldn't wonder if he might be worth a hundred thousand."     "You don't say! Why, he beat Squire Sheldon."     "Oh, yes, Squire Sheldon wouldn't be considered rich in New York."     "How did he get his money?"     "His father left him a fortune."     "Is that so? I wish my father had left me a fortune."     "He did, didn't he?"     "Yes, he did! When his estate was settled I got seventy five dollars, if you call that a fortune. But I say, what brings the boy to Burton?"     "His friendship for me, I expect. Besides he may invest in a place."     "There's the old Morse place for sale. Do you think he'd buy that?"     "It wouldn't be nice enough for him. I don't know any place that would be good enough except the squire's."     "The squire wouldn't sell."     "Oh, well, I don't know as Rodney would care to locate in Burton."     "You're in luck to get such a friend. Say, do you think he would lend you a hundred dollars if you were hard up?"     "I know he would. By the way, Hector, is there any news? How is my uncle?"     "I think the old man is worrying on account of his mortgage."

Is it a good place to make money

    "Are you going to stay home now?"     "For a little while. I may go back to Montana after a bit."     "Is it a good place to make money?"     "I made five hundred dollars."     "Thats only a little more than a hundred dollars a year.     Frank Dobson has saved as much as that and he's stayed right here in Burton."     "I'm glad of that," said Pettigrew heartily. "Frank is a rousing good fellow. If it hadn't been for him I couldn't have gone to Montana."     "It doesn't seem to have done you much good, as I can see."     "Oh, well, I am satisfied. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Rodney Ropes of New York."     "Glad to meet you," said Hector with a jerk of the head.     "Rodney, won't you sit inside? I want to sit outide with Hector."     "All right, Mr. Pettigrew."     "Who is that boy?" asked Hector with characteristic Yankee curiosity, as he seized the lines and started the horses.     "A rich young fellow from New York. I got acquainted with him there."     "Rich is he?" Jefferson Pettigrew nodded.

in an off hand way

    "Yes, but I should value more money that I had made myself."     Above five o'clock on Monday afternoon Mr. Pettigrew and Rodney reached Burton. It was a small village about four miles from the nearest railway station. An old fashioned Concord stage connected Burton with the railway. The driver was on the platform looking out for passengers when Jefferson Pettigrew stepped out of the car.     "How are you, Hector?" said the miner, in an off hand way.     "Why, bless my soul if it isn't Jeff!" exclaimed the driver, who had been an old schoolmate of Mr. Pettigrew's.     "I reckon it is," said the miner, his face lighting up with the satisfaction he felt at seeing a home face.     "Why, you ain't changed a mite, Jeff. You look just as you did when you went away. How long have you been gone?"     "Four years!"     "Made a fortune? But you don't look like it. That's the same suit you wore when you went away, isn't it?"     Mr. Pettigrew laughed.     "Well no, it isn't the same, but it's one of the same kind."     "I thought maybe you'd come home in a dress suit."     "It isn't so easy to make a fortune, Hector."     "But you have made something, ain't you?"     "Oh, yes, when I went away I hadn't a cent except what I borrowed. Now I've got five hundred dollars."     "That ain't much."     "No, but it's better than nothing. How much more have you got, Hector?"     "Well, you see I married last year. I haven't had a chance to lay by."     "So you see I did as well as if I had stayed at home."

He was a true friend

    "I shall enjoy the way the old man will look down upon me very much as a millionaire looks down upon a town pauper."     "How will he look upon me?"     "He will be very polite to you, for he will think you richer than himself."     "On the whole, we are going to act a comedy, Mr. Pettigrew. What is the name of the man who lent you money to go to Montana?"     "A young carpenter, Frank Dobson. He lent me a hundred dollars, which was about all the money he had saved up."     "He was a true friend."     "You are right. He was. Everybody told Frank that he would never see his money again, but he did. As soon as I could get together enough to repay him I sent it on, though I remember it left me with less than ten dollars in my pocket.     "I couldn't bear to think that Frank would lose anything by me. You see we were chums at school and always stood by each other. He is married and has two children."     "While you are an old bachelor."     "Yes; I ain't in a hurry to travel in double harness. I'll wait till I am ready to leave Montana, with money enough to live handsomely at home."     "You have got enough now."     "But I may as well get more. I am only thirty years old, and I can afford to work a few years longer."     "I wish I could be sure of being worth fifty thousand dollars when I am your age."     "You have been worth that, you tell me."

are in a good vein for laughter

We made shift to roast the other two, by putting them close to the burning spirits; and that with better success. And then we uncorked the bottle of wine, and sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. It rained smartly. Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes no nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business; and people well steeped and stupefied in the open air are in a good vein for laughter. From this point of view, even egg a la papier offered by way of food may pass muster as a sort of accessory to the fun. But this manner of jest, although it may be taken in good part, does not invite repetition; and from that time forward, the Etna voyaged like a gentleman in the locker of the Cigarette. It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch was over and we got aboard again and made sail, the wind promptly died away. The rest of the journey to Villevorde, we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring air; and with now and then a puff, and now and then a spell of paddling, drifted along from lock to lock, between the orderly trees. It was a fine, green, fat landscape; or rather a mere green water- lane, going on from village to village. Things had a settled look, as in places long lived in. Crop-headed children spat upon us from the bridges as we went below, with a true conservative feeling. But even more conservative were the fishermen, intent upon their floats, who let us go by without one glance. They perched upon sterlings and buttresses and along the slope of the embankment, gently occupied. They were indifferent, like pieces of dead nature. They did not move any more than if they had been fishing in an old Dutch print. The leaves fluttered, the water lapped, but they continued in one stay like so many churches established by law. You might have trepanned every one of their innocent heads, and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line below their skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breasting up mountain torrents with a salmon rod; but I do dearly love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever and a day, by still and depopulated waters. At the last lock, just beyond Villevorde, there was a lock-mistress who spoke French comprehensibly, and told us we were still a couple of leagues from Brussels. At the same place, the rain began again. It fell in straight, parallel lines; and the surface of the canal was thrown up into an infinity of little crystal fountains. There were no beds to be had in the neighbourhood. Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside and address ourselves to steady paddling in the rain.

who is never ill nor well,

He may take his afternoon walk in some foreign country on the banks of the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own fireside. There is not enough exercise in such a life for any high measure of health; but a high measure of health is only necessary for unhealthy people. The slug of a fellow, who is never ill nor well, has a quiet time of it in life, and dies all the easier. I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy any position under heaven that required attendance at an office. There are few callings, I should say, where a man gives up less of his liberty in return for regular meals. The bargee is on shipboard--he is master in his own ship--he can land whenever he will--he can never be kept beating off a lee-shore a whole frosty night when the sheets are as hard as iron; and so far as I can make out, time stands as nearly still with him as is compatible with the return of bed-time or the dinner-hour. It is not easy to see why a bargee should ever die. Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a beautiful reach of canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore to lunch. There were two eggs, a junk of bread, and a bottle of wine on board the Arethusa; and two eggs and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the Cigarette. The master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs in the course of disembarkation; but observing pleasantly that it might still be cooked a la papier, he dropped it into the Etna, in its covering of Flemish newspaper. We landed in a blink of fine weather; but we had not been two minutes ashore before the wind freshened into half a gale, and the rain began to patter on our shoulders. We sat as close about the Etna as we could. The spirits burned with great ostentation; the grass caught flame every minute or two, and had to be trodden out; and before long, there were several burnt fingers of the party. But the solid quantity of cookery accomplished was out of proportion with so much display; and when we desisted, after two applications of the fire, the sound egg was little more than loo-warm; and as for a la papier, it was a cold and sordid fricassee of printer's ink and broken egg-shell.

It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear

A good breeze rustled and shivered in the rows of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear; but down between the banks, the wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer by. Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow-path with a 'C'est vite, mais c'est long.' The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we met or overtook a long string of boats, with great green tillers; high sterns with a window on either side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower- pot in one of the windows; a dinghy following behind; a woman busied about the day's dinner, and a handful of children. These barges were all tied one behind the other with tow ropes, to the number of twenty-five or thirty; and the line was headed and kept in motion by a steamer of strange construction. It had neither paddle-wheel nor screw; but by some gear not rightly comprehensible to the unmechanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a small bright chain which lay along the bottom of the canal, and paying it out again over the stern, dragged itself forward, link by link, with its whole retinue of loaded skows. Until one had found out the key to the enigma, there was something solemn and uncomfortable in the progress of one of these trains, as it moved gently along the water with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy alongside dying away into the wake. Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal barge is by far the most delightful to consider. It may spread its sails, and then you see it sailing high above the tree-tops and the windmill, sailing on the aqueduct, sailing through the green corn-lands: the most picturesque of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot-pace as if there were no such thing as business in the world; and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the same spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery how things ever get to their destination at this rate; and to see the barges waiting their turn at a lock, affords a fine lesson of how easily the world may be taken. There should be many contented spirits on board, for such a life is both to travel and to stay at home. The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along; the banks of the canal slowly unroll their scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge floats by great forests and through great cities with their public buildings and their lamps at night; and for the bargee, in his floating home, 'travelling abed,' it is merely as if he were listening to another man's story or turning the leaves of a picture-book in which he had no concern.

which need not here be specified

For though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scots phrase) barnacled. There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, which need not here be specified. She spoke to us very fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners of the present day in England, and obligingly corrected us when we attempted to answer. But as we were dealing with a woman, perhaps our information was not so much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes to pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It is good policy, and almost necessary in the circumstances. If a man finds a woman admire him, were it only for his acquaintance with geography, he will begin at once to build upon the admiration. It is only by unintermittent snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would have said, 'are such ENCROACHERS.' For my part, I am body and soul with the women; and after a well- married couple, there is nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of the divine huntress. It is no use for a man to take to the woods; we know him; St. Anthony tried the same thing long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all accounts. But there is this about some women, which overtops the best gymnosophist among men, that they suffice to themselves, and can walk in a high and cold zone without the countenance of any trousered being. I declare, although the reverse of a professed ascetic, I am more obliged to women for this ideal than I should be to the majority of them, or indeed to any but one, for a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging as the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I think of the slim and lovely maidens, running the woods all night to the note of Diana's horn; moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free as they; things of the forest and the starlight, not touched by the commotion of man's hot and turbid life--although there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer--I find my heart beat at the thought of this one. 'Tis to fail in life, but to fail with what a grace! That is not lost which is not regretted. And where--here slips out the male--where would be much of the glory of inspiring love, if there were no contempt to overcome? Chapter 2 On The WilleBroek Canal Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. The water of the canal stood at about the drinking temperature of tea; and under this cold aspersion, the surface was covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and the easy motion of the boats under each stroke of the paddles, supported us through this misfortune while it lasted; and when the cloud passed and the sun came out again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at-home humours.

A barge or two went past laden with hay

But we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature; and not a man among us will go to the head of the march to sound the heady drums. It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went past laden with hay. Reeds and willows bordered the stream; and cattle and grey venerable horses came and hung their mild heads over the embankment. Here and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy shipping-yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The wind served us well up the Scheldt and thereafter up the Rupel; and we were running pretty free when we began to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way on the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green and pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, and here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spectacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with every minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge over the river, indicated the central quarters of the town. Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing: that the majority of the inhabitants have a private opinion that they can speak English, which is not justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to our intercourse. As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think it is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the street; and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the company of three uncommunicative engineer apprentices and a silent bagman. The food, as usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I have never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal among this pleasing people; they seem to peck and trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit: tentatively French, truly German, and somehow falling between the two. The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with no trace of the old piping favourite, save where two wires had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer apprentices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the bagman; but talked low and sparingly to one another, or raked us in the gaslight with a gleam of spectacles.