 Chapter 5 The Princess of Portman Square I am an only child. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and although there was no royal crust on it, yet no princess could be more comfortable in the purple than I was in the ordinary trappings of babyhood. From the cradle upwards I was surrounded with love and luxury. My pet name Princess fitted me like a glove. I was the autocrat of the nursery, and my power scarce diminished when I rose to the drying room. My parents were very obedient and did not even conceal from me that I was beautiful. In short, they did their best to spoil me, though I cannot admit that they succeeded. I lost them both before I was sixteen. My poor mother died first, and my poor father followed within a week. Whether from grief or from a cold cut through standing bare-headed in the churchyard, or from employing the same doctor, I cannot precisely determine. After the usual period of sorrow, I began to pick up a bit and go out under the care of my duena, a faded flower of the aristocracy whose declining years my guardian had soothed by quartering her on me. She was a gentle old spinster, the seventh daughter of a penniless peer, and though she has seen hard times and has almost been reduced to marriage, yet she has scant respect for my ten thousand a year. She has never lost the sense of condescension in living with me, and would be horrified to hear she is in receipt of a salary. It is to this sense of superiority on her part that I owe a good deal of the liberty I enjoy under her regime. She does not expect in me that rigid obedience to venerable forms and conventions which she prescribes for herself. She regards it as a privilege of the higher gentlewoman to be bound hand and foot by fashionable etiquette, and so long as my liberty does not degenerate into license, I am welcomed to as much as I please of it. She has continued to call me princess, finding doubtless some faint reverberation of pleasure in the magnificent syllables. I should add that her name is the honorable Miss Primpole, and that she is not afraid of the butler. Our townhouse was situated in Portman Square, and my parents tenanted it during the season. There is nothing very poetic about the square perhaps, not even in the summer, when the garden is in bloom. Yet it was here that I first learned to love. This dull parallelogram was the birthplace of a passion as spiritual and intangible as ever thrilled maiden's heart. I fell in love with a voice. It was a rich baritone voice, with a compass of two-and-a-half octaves rising from full-base organ notes to sweet flute-like tenor tones. It was a glorious voice, now resonant with marital ecstasy, now faint with mystic rapture. Its vibrations were charged with inexpressible emotion, and it sang of love and death and high heroic themes. I heard at first a few months after my father's funeral. It was night. I had been indoors all day, torpid and miserable, but roused myself at last and took a few turns in the square. The air was warm and scented. A cloudless moon flooded the roadway with mellow light and sketched in the silhouettes of the trees in the background. I had reached the opposite side of the square for the second time when the voice broke out. My heart stood still and I with it. In the soft summer air the voice rose and fell. It was accompanied on the piano, but it seemed in subtler harmony with the moonlight and the perfumed repose of the night. It came through an open window behind which the singer sat in the gloaming. With the first tremors of that voice my soul forgot its weariness in a strange sweet trance that trembled on pain. The song seemed to draw out all the hidden longing of my maiden soul as secret writing is made legible by fire. When the voice ceased a great blackness fell upon all things. The air grew bleak. I waited and waited, but the square remained silent. The footsteps of stray pedestrians, the occasional roll of a carriage alone, fell upon my anxious ear. I returned to my house, shivering as with cold. I had never loved before. I had read and reflected a great deal about love, and was absolutely ignorant of the subject. I did not know that I loved now. For that discovery only came later when I found myself wandering nightly to the other side of the parallelogram listening for the voice. Rarely, very rarely, was my pilgrimage rewarded, but twice or thrice a week the square became an enchanted garden, full of roses whose petals were music. Round that baritone voice I had built up an ideal man, tall and straight-limbed and stalwart, fair-haired and blue-eyed and noble-featured, like the hero of a northern saga. His soul was vast as the sea, shaken with the storms of passion dimpled with smiles of tenderness. His spirit was at once mighty and delicate, throbbing with elemental forces yet keen and swift to comprehend all subtleties of thought and feeling. I could not understand myself, yet I felt that he would understand me. He had the heart of a lion and of a little child. He was as merciful as he was strong, as pure as he was wise. To be with him were happiness, to feel his kiss ecstasy, to be gathered to his breast delirium, but alas he never knew that I was waiting under his window. I made several abortive attempts to discover who he was or to see him. According to the directory, the house was occupied by Lady Westerton. I concluded that he was her elder son, that he might be her husband, or some other ladies, ever even occurred to me. I do not know why I should have attached the voice to a bachelor any more than I can explain why he should be the eldest son rather than the youngest. But romance has a logic of its own. From the topmost window of my house I could see Lady Westerton's house across the trees, but I never saw him leave or enter it. Once a week went by without my hearing him sing. I did not know whether to think of him as a sick bird or as one flown to warmer climes. I tried to construct his life from his periods of song. I watched the lights in his window, my whole life circled round him. It was only when I grew pale and feverish, and was forced by the doctors and my guardian to go yachting, that my fancies gradually detached themselves from my blue-eyed hero. The sea salt freshened my thoughts. I became a healthy-minded girl again, caroling joyously in my cabin and taking pleasure in listening to my own voice. I threw my novels overboard, metaphorically, that is, and set the honorable Miss Prympole chatting instead, when the seascape paled upon me. She had a great fund of strictly respectable memories. Most people's recollections are of no use to anybody but the owner, but hers afforded entertainment for both of us. By the time I was back in London the voice was no longer part even of my dreams, though it seemed to belong to them. But for accident it might have remained forever a voice and nothing more. The accident happened at a musical afternoon in Kensington. I was introduced to a tall, fair, handsome blue-eyed guardsman, Captain Athelstan by name. His conversation was charming, and I took a lot of it, while Miss Prympole was busy flirting with a seductive Spaniard. You could not tell Miss Prympole was flirting except by looking at the man. In the course of the afternoon the hostess asked the captain to sing. As he went to the piano my heart began to flutter with a strange foreboding. He had no music with him, but plunged at once into the promontory chords. My agitation increased tenfold. He was playing the prelude to one of the voice's songs, a strange haunting song with a Schubert atmosphere, a song which I had looked for in vain among the classics. At once he was transfigured to my eyes. All my sleeping romantic fantasies woke to a delicious life, and in the instant in which I waited, with bated breath, for the outbreak of the voice at the well-known turn of the melody, it was borne in upon me that this was the only man I had ever loved, or would ever love, my saga hero, my Berserker, my Norse giant. When the voice started it was not my voice, it was a thin, throaty tenor, compared with the voice of Portman Square, it was as a tinkling rivulet to a rushing full-volumed river. I sank back on the lounge, hiding my emotions behind my fan. When the song was finished he made his way back through the bravas to my side. "'Sweetly pretty,' I murmured. "'The song or the singing?' he asked with a smile. "'The song,' I answered frankly. "'Is it yours?' "'No, but the singing is.' His good humour was so delightful that I forgave his not having my voice. What is its name? It is anonymous, like the composer. "'Who is he?' I must not tell. "'Can you give me a copy of the song?' He became embarrassed. I would with pleasure if it were mine, but the fact is I—I had no right to sing it at all, and the composer would be awfully vexed if he knew. "'Original composer?' "'He is indeed. He cannot bear to think of his songs being sung in public. "'Do you hear me? What a terrible mystery you are making of it!' I laughed. "'Oh, really there is no abracadabra about it. You misunderstand me. But I deserve it all for breaking faith and exploiting his lovely song so as to drown my beastly singing. "'You need not reproach yourself,' I said. I have heard it before. He started perceptibly. "'Impossible!' he gasped. "'Thank you,' I said, freezingly. "'But how? A little bird sang at me. It is you who are making the mystery now. Tit for tat, but I will discover yours. Not unless you are a witch. "'A what?' "'A witch.' "'I am,' I said enigmatically. So you see it's of no use hiding anything from me. Come tell me all, or I will belabor you with my broomstick. If you know, why should I tell you? I want to see if you can tell the truth.' "'No, I can't.' We both laughed. "'See what a cruel dilemma you place me in,' he said beseechingly. Tell me at least why he won't publish his songs. Is he too modest, too timid? Neither. He loves art for art's sake. That is all. "'I don't understand.' He writes to please himself. To create music is his highest pleasure. He can't see what it has got to do with anybody else. But surely he wants the world to enjoy his work? Why? That would be art for the world's sake. Art for fame's sake. Art for money's sake. What an extraordinary view! Why so? The true artist, the man to whom creation is rapture, surely he is his own world. Unless he is in need of money, why should he concern himself with the outside universe? My friend cannot understand why Schopenhauer should have troubled himself to chisel epigrams or Leoparty lyrics to tell people that life was not worth living. Had either been a true artist, he would have gone on living his own worthless life, unruffled by the applause of the mob. My friend can understand a poet translating into inspired song, the sacred secrets of his soul, but he cannot understand his scattering them broadcast through the country, still less taking a royalty on them. He says it is selling your soul in the market place, and almost as degrading as going on the stage. And do you agree with him? Not entirely, otherwise I should never have yielded to the temptation to sing his song tonight. Fortunately, he will never hear of it. He never goes into society, and I am his only friend. Dear me, I said sarcastically, is he as careful to conceal his body as his soul? His face grew grave. He has an affliction. He said in low tones. Oh, forgive me, I said remorsefully. Tears came into my eyes as the vision of the Norse giant gave away to that of an English hunchback. My adoring worship was transformed to an adoring matronly tenderness. Divinely gifted sufferer, if I cannot lean on thy strength, thou shalt lean on mine. So ran my thought till the mist cleared from my eyes, and I saw again the glorious Saga-hero at my side, and grew strangely confused and distraught. There is nothing to forgive, answered Captain Athelstan. You do not know him. You forget I am a witch, but I do not know him, it is true. I do not even know his name. Yet within a week I undertake to become a friend of his. He shook his head. You do not know him. I admitted that, I answered pertly. Give me a week, and he shall not only know me, he shall abjure those sublime principles of his at my request. The spirit of mischief moved me to throw down the challenge, or was it some deeper impulse? He smiled skeptically. Of course, if you know somebody who will introduce you, he began. Nobody shall introduce me, I interrupted. Well, he'll never speak to you first. You mean it would be unmaidingly for me to speak to him first. Well, I will bind myself to do nothing of which Mrs. Grundy should disapprove, and yet the result shall be as I say. Then I shall admit you are indeed a witch. You don't believe in my power, that is. Well, what will you wager? If you achieve your impossibility, you will deserve anything. Will you back your incredulity with a pair of gloves? With a hundred. Thank you, I am not a briar ruse. Let us say one pair, then. So be it. But no countermining. Promise me not to communicate with your mysterious friend in the interval. I promise, but how shall I know the result? I pondered. I will write. No, that would be hardly proper. Meet me in the Royal Academy, room six, at the portrait of a gentleman, about noon tomorrow week. A week is a long time, he sighed. I arched my eyebrows. A week, a long time for such a task, I exclaimed. Next day I called at the house of the voice. A gorgeous creature in plush opened the door. I want to see—to see—gracious, I've forgotten his name. I said in patent chagrin. I clucked my tongue, puckered my lips, tapped the step with my parasol, then smiled pitifully at the creature in plush. He turned out to be only human, for a responsive sympathetic smile flickered across his pompous face. You know, the singer, I said, as with a sudden inspiration. Oh, Lord Arthur, he said. Yes, of course! I cried with a little trill of laughter. How stupid of me! Please tell him I want to see him on an important matter. See, he's very busy, I'm afraid, Miss. Oh, but he'll see me, I said confidently. Yes, Miss, who shall I say, Miss? The Princess! He made a startled obeisance, and ushered me into a little room on the right of the hall. In a few moments he returned and said, his lordship will be down in a second, your highness. Sixty minutes seemed to go to that second, so wracked was I with curiosity. At last I heard a step outside, and a hand on the door, and at that moment a horrible thought flashed into my mind. What certainty was there that my singer was a hunchback? Suppose his affliction were something more loathely? What if he had a monstrous when? For the instant after his entry I was afraid to look up. When I did I saw a short, dark-haired young man, with proper limbs and refined features, but his face wore a blank expression, and I wondered why I had not divined before that my musician was blind. He bowed in advance towards me, he came straight in my direction, so that I saw he could see. The blank expression gave place to one of inquiry. I have ventured to call upon your lordship in reference to a charity-concert. I said sweetly, I am one of your neighbours living just across the square, and as the good work is to be done in this district I dared to hope that I could persuade you to take part in it. I happened to catch sight of my face in the glass of a chiffonniere as I spoke, and it was as pure and candid and beautiful as the face of one of Guido's angels. When I ceased I looked up at Lord Arthur's. It was spasmodically agitated, the mouth was working wildly, a nervous dread seized me. After what seemed an endless interval he uttered an explosive, put, following it up by four...two...g...g...g...g.... It is very kind of you, I interrupted mercifully, but I did not propose to ask you for a subscription. I wanted to enlist your services as a performer, but I fear I have made a mistake, I understood you saying. Inwardly I was furious with the stupid creature in plush for having misled me into such an unpleasant situation. I do—s—s—s," he answered. As he stood there hissing, the truth flashed upon me at last. I had heard that the most dreadful stammerers enunciate as easily as anybody else when they sing, because the measured swing of the time keeps them steady. My heart sank as I thought of the voice so mutilated. Poor young Pierre! Was this to be the end of all my beautiful visions? As cheerfully as I could, I cut short his cibolations. Oh, that's all right, then," I said, then I may put you down for a couple of items." He shook his head and held up his hands deprecatingly. "'Anything but that,' he stammered. "'Make me a patron, a committee-man, anything. I do not sing in public.' While he was saying this, I thought long and deeply. The affliction was, after all, less terrible than I had a right to expect, and I knew that from the advertisement columns that it was easily curable. Demosthenes, I remembered, had stoned it to death. I felt my love reviving as I looked into his troubled face, instinct with the double aristocracy of rank and genius. At the worst the singing voice was unaffected by the disability, and as for the conversational, well, there was consolation in the prospect of having the last word while one's husband was still having the first. In entendant I could have wished him to sing his replies instead of speaking them, for not only should I thus enjoy his voice, but the interchange of ideas would proceed less tardily. However, that would have made him into an operatic personage, and I did not want him to look so ridiculous as all that. It would be tedious to recount our interview at the length it extended to, suffice it to say that I gained my point. Without letting out that I knew of his theories of art for art's sake, I yet artfully pleaded that whatever one's views, charity alters cases, inverts everything, justifies anything. For instance, I said with charming naivete, I would not have dared to call on you but in its sacred name. He agreed to sing two songs, nae two of his own songs. I was to write to him particulars of time and place. He saw me to the door. I held out my hand, and he took it, and we looked at each other, smiling brightly. "'But I don't know your name,' he said suddenly. "'Princess what?' He spoke more fluently, now that he had regained his composure. "'Princess,' I answered, my eyes gleaming merrily, "'that is all. The honourable Miss Prymple will give me a character if you require one.' He laughed, his laugh was like the voice, and followed me with his eyes as I glided away. I had won my gloves, and in a day. I thought remorsefully of the poor saga hero destined to wait a week in suspense as to the result. But it was too late to remedy this, and the organization of the charity concert needed all my thoughts. I was in for it now, and I resolved to carry it through. But it was not so easy as I had lightly assumed. Getting the artists, of course, was nothing. There are always so many professionals out of work, or anxious to be brought out, and so many amateurs in search of amusement. I could have filled the Albert Hall with entertainers. Or did I anticipate any difficulty in disposing of the tickets? If you are at all popular in society you can get a good deal of unpopularity by forcing them on your friends. No, the real difficulty about this charity concert was the discovery of an object in aid of which to give it. In my innocence I had imagined that the world was simply bustling with unexploited opportunities for well-doing. Alas, I soon found that philanthropy is an overcrowded profession. There was not a single nook or corner of the universe, but had been ransacked by these restless freelances. Not a gap, not a cranny, but had been filled up. In vain I explored the map, in the hopes of lighting on some undiscovered hunting-ground in Far Cathay, or where the comm-scene sweeps the Afric Deserts. I found that the wants of the most benighted savages were carefully attended to. And that, even when they had none, they were thoughtfully supplied with them. Anxiously I scanned the newspapers in search of a calamity, the sufferers by which I might relieve, but only one happened during that week, and that was snatched from between my very fingers by a lady who had just been through the divorce court. In my despair I bethought myself of the preacher I sat under. He was a very handsome man, and published his sermons by request. I went to him, and I said, How is the church? It is all right, thank you, he said. Doesn't it want anything done to it? No, it is in perfect repair. My congregation is so very good. I groaned aloud. But isn't there some improvement that you would like? The last of the gargoyles was put up last week. Medieval architecture is always so picturesque. I have had the entire structure made medieval, you know. But isn't the outside in need of renovation? What, when I have just had it made medieval? But the interior there must be something defective somewhere. Not to my knowledge. But think, think! I cried desperately. The aisles, transept, nave, lectern, pews, chancel, pulpit, apps, porch, altercloths, organ, spires, is there nothing in need of anything? He shook his head. Wouldn't you like a colored window to somebody? All the windows are taken up. My congregation is so very good. A memorial brass, then? He mused. There is only one of my flock who has done anything memorable lately. My heart gave a great leap of joy. Then why do you neglect him? I asked indignantly. If we do not perpetuate the memory of virtue, he's alive. He interrupted. I bit my lips in vexation. I think you need a few more choristers, I murmured. Oh no, we are sending some away. The Sunday School Fund, how is that? I am looking about for a good investment for the surplus. Do you know of any? A good mortgage, perhaps? Is there none on the church? I cried with a flicker of hope. Heaven forbid! I cuddled my brains frantically. What do you think of a lightning rod? A premier necessity I never preach in a building unprotected by one. I made one last wild search. How about a raritas? He looked at me in awful, pained silence. I saw I had stumbled. I mean a new wing, I stammered. I am afraid you are not well this morning, said the preacher, patting my hand soothingly. Won't you come and talk it over, whatever it is, another time? No, no, I cried excitedly. It must be settled at once. I have it, a new peel of bells. What is the matter with the bells? He asked anxiously. There isn't a single one cracked. I saw his dubiety and profited by it. I learned afterwards it was due to his having no ear of his own. Cracked, perhaps not, I replied in contemptuous accents. But they deserved to be. No wonder the newspapers keep correspondences going on the subject. Yes, but what correspondents object to is the bells ringing at all. I don't wonder, I said. I don't say your bells are worse than the majority, or that I haven't got a specially sensitive ear for music, but I know that when I hear their harsh clanging I... Well, I don't feel inclined to go to church, and that's the truth. I am quite sure if you had a really musical set of chimes it would increase the spirituality of the neighborhood. How so? he asked skeptically. It would keep down swearing on Sunday. Oh, he pondered a moment, then said, but that would be a great expense. Indeed, I thought bells were cheap. Certainly, area bells, hand bells, sleigh bells, but church bells are very costly. There are only a few foundries in the kingdom. But why are you so concerned about my church? Because I am giving a charity concert, and I should like to devote the proceeds to something. A very exemplary desire, but I fear one bell is the most you could get out of a charity concert. I looked disappointed. What a pity! It would have been such a nice precedent to improve the tone of the church. The constant readers would have had to cease their letters. No, no, impossible. A constant reader seems to be so called because he is a constant writer. But there might have been leaders about it. Hardly sensational enough for that. Stay, I have an idea. In the beautiful ages of faith, when a church bell was being cast, the pious used to bring silver vessels to be fused with the bell-metal in the furnace, so as to give the bell a finer tone. A medieval practice is always so poetical. Perhaps I could revive it. My congregation is so very good. Good, I echoed, clapping my hands. But a concert will not suffice. We shall need a bazaar, said the preacher. Oh, but I must have a concert! Certainly bazaars include concerts. That was how the great church bazaar originated and how the reverent Milito Smith came to resurrect the beautiful medieval custom which brought him so much kudos and extracted such touching sentiments from hardened journalists. The bazaar lasted a week and raised a number of ladies in the social scale and married off three of my girlfriends and cut me off the visiting list of the Duchess of Dash. She was pining for a chance of coming out in a comic opera chanson, but this being a church bazaar, I couldn't allow her to kick up her heels. Everything could be bought at that bazaar from photographs of the reverent Milito Smith to impracticable mousetraps from bread and cheese to kisses. There were endless sideshows and six gypsy girls scattered about the rooms so that you could have your fortune told in six different ways. I should not like to say how much that bazaar cost me when the bill for the bells came in, but then Lord Arthur sang daily in the concert hall and I could also deduct the price of the pair of gloves Captain Athelstan gave me. For the captain honorably stood the loss of his wager, nay more cheerfully accepted his defeat, and there on the spot, before the portrait of another gentleman offered to enlist in the bazaar and very useful he proved too. We had to be together organizing it nearly all day and I don't know what I should have done without him. I don't know what his regiment did without him but I have never been able to find out when our gallant officers do their work. They seem always to be saving it up for a rainy day. I was never more surprised in my life than when on the last night of the bazaar boom amid the buzz of a brisk wind-up Lord Arthur and Captain Athelstan came into the little presidential sanctum which had been run up for me and requested a special interview. I can give you five minutes. I said, for I felt my finger was on the pulse of the bazaar and my time correspondingly important. They looked grateful, then embarrassed. Captain Athelstan opened his mouth and closed it. You had better tell her, he said nervously to Lord Arthur. No, no, no, no, no. What is it, Captain Athelstan? I interrupted, pointedly, for I only had five minutes. Princess, we both love you. Began the captain, blushing like a hobbly hoi and rushing in maydeus rays. I allowed them to call me Princess because it was not my Christian name. Is this the time when I am busy feeling the pulse of the bazaar? You gave us five minutes, pleaded the captain, determined to do or die, now he was in the thick of it. Go on, I said, I will forgive you everything, even your love of me, if you are only brief. We both love you, we are great friends, we have no secrets, we told each other, we are doubtful if you love either or which, we have come together. He fired off the short, sharp sentences as from a six-barreled revolver. Captain Athelstan, Lord Arthur, I said, I am deeply touched by the honor you have done your friendship and me. I will be equally frank and brief with you. I cannot choose either of you because I love you both. Like every girl I formed an ideal of a lover. I have been fortunate in finding my ideal in the flesh. I have been unfortunate in finding it in two pieces. Fate has bisected it and given the form to one and the voice to the other. My ideal looks like you, Captain Athelstan, and sings like you, Lord Arthur. It is a stupid position, I know, and I feel like the donkey between two bundles of hay, but under the circumstances I have no choice. They looked at each other half rapturously, half despairingly. Then what's to be done? cried the Captain. I don't know, I said hopelessly. Love seems not only blind, but a blind alley this time. Do you mean? asked Lord Arthur. How happy could I be with either? Were tothered, dear charmer, away? I was glad he's saying it because it precipitated matters. That is the precise position, I admitted. Oh, then, Arthur, my boy, I congratulate you, said the Captain, huskily. No, I'll go away, said the singer. They wrangled for full ten minutes, but the position remained a block. Gentlemen, I interposed, if either of you had consented to accept the other's sacrifice, the problem would have been solved. Only I should have taken the other, but two self-sacrifices are as bad as none. Then let us toss up for you, Princess, said the Captain impulsively. Oh no, I cried with a shudder. Submit my life to the chances of head or tail. It would make me feel like a murderess with you for gentlemen of the jury. A painful silence fell upon the sanctum. Unwitting of the tragedy playing within, all the fun of the fair went on without. Listen, I said at last, I will be the wife of him who wins me. Chance shall not decide but prowess. Like the Princesses of old, I will set you a task, whoever accomplishes it will win my hand. Agreed, they said eagerly, though not simultaneously. I, but what shall it be, I murmured. Why not a competition, suggested the Captain? Very well, a competition, provided you promised to fight fair and not play into each other's hands. They promised, and together we ex-cogitated and rejected all sorts of competitions. The difficulty was to find something in which each would have a fair chance. At length we arranged that they should play a game of chess, the winner to be mated. They agreed it would be a real match game. The five minutes had by this time lasted half an hour, so I dismissed them and hastened to feel the pulse of the bazaar, which was getting more and more feverish as the breakup drew nigh. They played the game in Lord Arthur's study. Lord Arthur was white and the Captain black. Everything was fair and above board, but they played rather slowly. Every evening I sent the butler over to make inquiries. The princess's compliments, he was told to say, and how is it today? It is getting on, they told him, and he came back with a glad face. He was a kind soul despite his calves and he thought there was a child dying. Once a week I used to go over and look at it. Ostensibly I called in connection with the bazaar accounts. I could not see any difference in the position from one week's end to another. There seemed to be a clump of ponds in the middle, with all the other pieces looking idly on. There was no thoroughfare anywhere. They told me it always came like that when you played cautiously. They said it was a French opening. I could not see any opening anywhere. It certainly was not the English way of fighting. Picture my suspense during those horrible weeks. Is this the way all match games are played? I said once. No, admitted Lord Arthur. We forgot to put a time limit. What's the time limit? I asked the Captain, wishing my singer could learn to put one to his sentences. So many moves must be made in an hour, usually 15. Otherwise the younger champion would always win, merely by outliving the elder. We forgot to include that condition. At length our butler brought back word that it couldn't last much longer. His face was grave and he gave the message in low tones. What a blessing! It's been lingering long enough. I wish they would polish it off. I murmured fretfully. After that I frequently caught him looking at me as if I were Lucretia Borgia. The end came suddenly. The butler went across to make the usual inquiry. He returned with a foolish face of horror and whispered, it is all over. It has been drawn by perpetual check. Great heavens! I cried. My consternation was so manifest that he forgave the utterance of a peevish moment. I put on my nicest hat at once and went over. We held a council of war afresh. Let's go by who catches the biggest trout, suggested the Captain. No, I said, I will not be angled for. Besides, the biggest is not grammatical. It should be the bigger. Thus reproved, the Captain grew silent and we came to a deadlock once more. I gave up the hunt at last. I think the best plan will be for you both to go away and travel. Go round the world, see fresh faces, try to forget me. One of you will succeed. But suppose we both succeed, asked the Captain. That would be more awkward than ever, I admitted. And if neither succeed, asked Lord Arthur at some length, I should say neither succeeds, I remarked severely. Neither takes a singular verb. Pardon me, said Lord Arthur with some spirit. The plurality is merely apparent. Succeed is subjunctive after if. Ah, true, I said. Then suppose you go round the world and I give my hand to whoever comes back and proposes to me first. Something like the man in Jules Verne, cried the Captain. Glorious! Except that it can be done quicker now, I said. Lord Arthur fell in joyously with the idea, which was a God sent to me for the worry of having about you two men whom you love and who love you cannot be easily conceived by those who have not been through it. They too were pining away and felt the journey would do them good. Captain Athelstan applied for three months furlough. He was to put a girdle round the earth from west to east, Lord Arthur from east to west. It was thought this would work fairly, as whatever advantages one outgoing route had over the other would be lost on the return. Each drew up his scheme and prepared his equipment. The starting point was to be my house and consequently this was also the goal. After forty-eight days had passed, the minimum time possible, I was to remain at home day and night, awaiting the telegram which was to be sent the moment either touched English soil again. On the receipt of the telegram, I was to take up my position at the front window on the ground floor with a white rose in my hair to show I was still on one and to wait there day and night for the arrival of my offer of marriage, which I was not to have the option of refusing. During the race they were not to write to me. The long-looked-for day of their departure duly arrived. Two handsoms were drawn up side by side in front of the house. A white rose in my hair I sat at the window, a parting smile, a wave of my handkerchief, and my lovers were off. In an instant they were out of sight. For a month they were out of mind, too. After the exhausting emotions I had undergone, this period of my life was truly halcyon. I banished my lovers from my memory and enjoyed what was left of the season and of my girlish freedom. In two months I should be an affianced wife and it behoved me to make the best of my short span of spinsterhood. The season waned, fashion drifted to coes, and I was left alone in empty London. Then my thoughts went back to the two travelers as day followed day my anxiety and curiosity mounted proportionately. The forty-eight days went by, but there was no wire. They passed slowly, oh so slowly, into fifty, while I waited, waited from dawn to midnight with ears pricked up for that double rat tat which came not or which came about something else. The sands of September dribbled out and my fate still hung in the balance. I went about the house like an unquiet spirit. In imagination I was seeing those two men sweeping towards me, one from the east of the world, one from the west. And there I stood, rooted to the spot, while from either side a man was speeding inevitably towards me across oceans and continents, through canals and tunnels, along deserts or rivers, pressing into his service every human and animal force and every blind energy that man had tamed. To my fevered imagination I seemed to be between the jaws of a Leviathan which were closing upon me at a terrific rate, yet which took days to snap together so wide were they apart, so gigantic was the monster. Which of the jaws would touch me first? The fifties mounted into the sixties but there was no telegram. The tension became intolerable. Again and again I felt tempted to fly but a lingering sense of honour kept me to my post. On the sixty-first day my patience was rewarded. Sitting at my window one morning I saw a telegraph boy sauntering along. He reached the gate, he paused. I rushed to the door and down the steps seized the envelope and tore it frantically open. Coming, but suppose all over, Arthur! I leaned on the gate half-fainting. When I went to my room I read the wire again and noted it had been handed in at Liverpool. In four or five hours at most I should cease to belong to myself. I communicated the news to the honourable Miss Prympole who congratulated me cordially. She made no secret of her joy that the noblemen had won. For my part I was still torn with conflicting emotions. Now that I knew it was to be the one I hankered after the other. Yet in the heart of the storm there was peace in the thought that the long suspense was over. I ordered a magnificent repast to be laid for the homecoming voyager which would also serve to celebrate our nobcholes. The honourable Miss Prympole consented to grace the board and the butler to surrender the choicest vintages garnered in my father's cellar. Two hours and a half dragged by. Then there came another wire. I opened it with some curiosity, but as my eye caught the words I almost swooned with excitement. It ran. Arrived, but presumed too late, Athelstan. With misty vision I strove to read the place of dispatch. It was dover. A great wave of hope surged in my bosom. My saga-hero might yet arrive in time. Half frenziedly I turned over the leaves of Bradshaw. No, after sending that wire he would just have missed the train to Victoria. Cruel, cruel! But stay, there was another route. He might have booked for Charing Cross. Yes, heaven be praised! If he did that he would just catch a train. And of course he would do that. Surely he would have planned out every possibility while crossing the channel. Have arranged for all. My captain, my blue-eyed burseker. But then Lord Arthur had had two and a half hours start. I turned to Liverpool and essayed to discover whether that was sufficient to balance the difference of the two distances from London. Alas, my head swam before I had traveled two stations. There was no less than four routes to Houston, to St. Pancras, to King's Cross, to Paddington. Still I made out that if he had kept his head very clear and been very, very fortunate he might just get level with the captain. But then on a larger route the chances of accidental delays were more numerous. On the whole the odds were decidedly in favour of the captain. But one thing was certain that they would both arrive in time for supper. I ordered an additional cover to be laid, then I threw myself upon a couch and tried to read. But I could not. Terrible as was the strain my thoughts refused to be distracted. The minutes crawled along. Gradually peace came back as I concluded that only by a miracle could Lord Arthur win. At last I jumped up with a start for the shades of evening were falling and my toilette was yet to make. I dressed myself in a dainty robe of white trimmed with sprays of wildflowers and I stuck the white rose in my hair, the symbol that I was yet unasked in wedlock, the white star of hope to the way-worn wanderer. I did my best to be the fairest sight the travellers should have seen in all the world. The honourable Miss Prympole started when she saw me. What have you been doing to yourself, Princess? She said, you're lovelier than I ever dreamed. And indeed the crisis had lent a flush to my cheek and a flash to my eye which I would not willingly repay. My bosom rose and fell with excitement. In half an hour I should be in my saga Hero's Arms. I went down to the ground floor front and seated myself at the open window and gazed at the square and the fiery streaks of sunset in the sky. The honourable Miss Prympole lay upon an ottoman less excited. Every now and again she asked, do you see anything, Princess? Nothing, I answered. Of course she did not take my answer literally. Several times cabs and carriages rattled past the window, but with no visible intention of drawing up. Dusk year, dusk year grew the September evening as I sat peering into the twilight. Do you see anything, Princess? Nothing. A moment after a handsome came dashing into sight, a head protruded from it. I uttered a cry and leaned forward straining my eyes. Captain Athelstan, yes, no, no, yes, no, no. Will it be believed that, such is the heart of woman, I felt a sensation of relief on finding the issue still postponed? For in the moment when the captain seemed to flash upon my vision, it was borne in upon me like a chilling blast that I had lost my voice. Never would that glorious music swell for me as I sat alone with my husband in the gloaming. The streaks of sunset faded into gray ashes. Do you see anything, Princess? Nothing. Even as I spoke I heard the gallop of hooves in the quiet square and, half paralyzed by the unexpected vision, I saw Lord Arthur dashing furiously up on horseback. Lord Arthur bronzed and bearded and travel-stained, but Lord Arthur beyond a doubt. He took off his hat and waved it frantically in the air when he caught sight of my white figure with the white rose of promise nestling in my hair. My poor saga hero! He reigned in his beautiful steed before my window and commenced his proposal breathlessly. Well, well, well... Even Mr Gladstone, if he had been racing as madly as Lord Arthur, might well have been flustered in his speech. The poor singer could not get out that first word, try as he would. At last it came out like a soda-water-cork and you with it. But at the bee there was, oh, dire to tell, another stoppage. fire, fire, hooray!" The dull roar of an advancing crowd burst suddenly upon our ears, mingled with the piercing exaltation of small boys. The thunderous clatter of the fire-engine seemed to rock the soil of the square. But neither of us took eyes off the other. B was out at last. The end was near. In another second I should say yes. Fire, fire! shrieked the small boys. M-my! Lord Arthur's gallant steed shifted uneasily. The fire-engine was thundering down upon it. W-w-w-w-will you be? The clarion notes of the captain rang out above the clatter of the fire-engine, from which he madly jumped. W-mine! the two travelers exclaimed together. Dead heat! I murmured, and fell back in a dead faint. My overwrought nerves could stand no more. Nevertheless it was a gay supper-party. The air was thick with travelers' tails, and the butler did not spare the champagne. We could not help being tickled by the quaint termination of the colossal globetrotting competition. And we soothed Lord Arthur's susceptibilities by insisting that if he had only remembered the shorter proposal formula employed by his rival, he would have won by a word. It was a pure fluke that the captain was able to tie, for he had not thought of telegraphing for a horse, but had taken a handsome at the station, and only exchanged to the fire-engine when he heard people shouting there was a fire in Seymour Street. Lord Arthur obliged five times during the evening, and the honourable Miss Prympole relaxed more than ever before, and accompanied him on the banjo. Before we parted I had been persuaded by my lovers to give them one last trial. That night three months I was to give another magnificent repast, to which they were both to be invited. During the interval each was to do his best to become famous, and at the supper-party I was to choose the one who was the more widely known throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. They were to place before me what proofs and arguments they pleased, and I was to decide whose name had penetrated to the greater number of people. There was to be no appeal from my decision, nor any limitation to what the candidates might do to force themselves upon the universal consciousness, so long as they did not merely advertise themselves at so much a column or poster. They could safely be trusted not to do anything infamous in the attempt to become famous, and so there was no need to impose conditions. I had a secret hope that Lord Arthur might thus be induced to bring his talents before the world and get over his objection to the degradation of public appearances. My hope was more than justified. I grieve to say neither strove to benefit his kind. His lordship went on the musical stage, made up as a costormonger, and devoted his wonderful voice and his musical genius to singing a cockney ballad with a chorus consisting merely of the words, ba, ba, ba, bootle-de, superseded sixteen times. It caught on like a first-class epidemic, ba, ba, ba, bootle-de microbes floated in every breeze. The cholera chorus raged from Piccadilly to Land's End, from Kensington to Johnna Grotes. The swarthy miners hewed the coal to it. It dropped from passing balloons, the sailors manned the capstan to it, and the sound of it superseded foghorns. Duchesses danced to it, and squalid infants cried for it. Divines with difficulty kept it out of their sermons. Philosophers drew weighty lessons from it, critics traced its history, and as it didn't mean anything the greatest Puritans hummed it inaccurately. Ba, ba, ba, bootle-de sang Lord Arthur nightly at six halls and three theatres, incidentally clearing off all the debts on the family estates, and, like a flock of sheep, the great British public took up the bleat, and in every hall and drying-room blossomed the big pearl buttons of the cockney-coaster monger. But Captain Athelstan came to the front far more easily, if less profitably. He sent a testimonial to the perfect cure elixir. The elixir was accustomed to testimonials from the suffering millions. The spelling generally had to be corrected before they were fit for publication. It also received testimonials which were useless, such as, I took only one bottle of your elixir and I got fourteen days. But a testimonial from a captain of the guards was a gold mine. The captains was the best name the elixir had ever had, and he had enjoyed more diseases than it had hitherto professed to cure. Astonished by its own success, the elixir resolved to make a big spurt and kill off all its rivals. For the next few months Captain Athelstan was rammed down the throats of all England. He came with the morning milk in all the daily papers. He arrived by the first post in a circular. He stared at people from every dead wall when they went out to business. He was with them at lunch, in little plaques and placards in every restaurant. He nodded at them in every bar, rode with them in every train and tram car, either on the wall or on the back of the ticket, joined them at dinner in the evening papers, and supplied the pipe lights after the meal. You took up a magazine and found he had slipped between the sheets. You went to bed and his diseased figure haunted your dreams. Life lost its sweetness, literature its charm. The loathsome phantasm of the complexly afflicted captain got between you and the sunshine. Stiff examination papers, compiled from the captain, were set at every breakfast table, and you were sternly interrogated as to whether you felt an all-gone sensation at the tip of your nose, and you were earnestly adjured to look at your old diseases. You began to read an eloquent description of the Alps, and lo, there was the captain perched on top. You started a thrilling story of the sea, and the captain bobbed up from the bottom. You began a poetical allegory concerning the Valley of the Shadow, and you found the captain had been living there all his life, till he came upon the elixir. A little innocent child remarked, Patter, it is almost bath-time, and you felt for your handkerchief in view of a touching domestic idol, but the captain froze your ears. Why have sun-stroke in India, you were asked, and the captain supplied the answer. Something came like a thief in the night, it was the captain. You were startled to see that there was a blight over all creation, but it turned out to be only the captain. Everything abutted on the captain, Shakespeare and the musical glasses, the Venus of Milo and the Mikado, day and night and all the seasons, the potato harvest and the Durham coal-strike, the advantages of early rising and the American Copyright Act. He was at the bottom of every passage, he lurked in every avenue, he was at the end of every perspective. The whole world was familiar with his physical symptoms and his sad history. The exploits of Julius Caesar were but a blur in the common mind, but everybody knew that the captain's skin grew gobble in blue, that the whites of his eyes turned green and his tongue stuck in his cheek, and that the rest of his organism behaved with corresponding gruesomeness. Everybody knew how they dropped off, petrified by my breath, and how his sympathetic friends told him in large capitals, you will never get better, captain. And how his weeping mother, anxious to soothe his last hours, remarked in reply to a request for another box of somebody else's pills, the only box you'll ever want will be a coffin. And how he thought it was only cholera. But how one dose of the elixir, which newborn babies clamored for in preference to their mother's milk, had baffled all their prognostications and made him a celebrity for life. In private the captain said that he really had these ailments, though he only discovered the fact when he read the advertisements of the elixir. But the mess had an inkling that it was all done for a wager, and christened him the perfect cure. To me he justified himself on the ground that he had scrupulously described himself as having his tongue in his cheek, and that he really suffered from love sickness, which was worse than all the ills the elixir cured. I need scarcely say that I was shocked by my lover's practical methods of acquiring that renown for which so many gifted souls have yearned in vain, though I must admit that both gentlemen retained sufficient sense of decorum to be revolted by the other's course of action. They remonstrated with each other gently but firmly. The result was that their friendship snapped, and a week before the close of the competition they crossed the channel to fight a duel. I got to hear of it in time, and wired to be loan that if they killed each other I would marry neither, that if only one survived I would never marry my lover's murderer, and that a duel excited so much gossip that if both survived they would be equally famous and the competition again a failure. These simple considerations prevented any mishap. The captain returned to his regiment, and Lord Arthur went on to the Riviera to wile away the few remaining days and to get extra advertisement out of not appearing at his halls through indisposition. At Monte Carlo he accidentally broke the bank, and explained his system to the interviewers. To my chagrin, for I was tired of seasawing, this brought him level with the captain again. I had been prepared to adjudicate in favor of the latter, on the ground that, although ba-ba-ba-boodle-de, was better known than the patent cura-lixer, yet the originator of the song remained unknown to many to whom the captain was a household word, and this in despite of the extra attention secured to Lord Arthur by his rank. The second supper-party was again sick-lead over with the pale cast of thought. "'No more competitions,' I said. "'You seem destined to tie with each other instead of with me. I will return to my original idea. I will give you a task which is not likely both will perform. I will marry the man who asks me, provided he comes, neither walking nor riding, neither sailing nor driving, neither skating nor sliding nor flying, neither by boat nor by balloon nor by bicycle, neither by swimming nor by floating nor by anybody carrying or dragging or pushing him, neither by any movement of hand or foot, nor by any extraordinary method whatever. Till this is achieved neither of you shall look upon my face again.' They looked aghast when I set the task. They went away, and I have not seen them from that day to this. I shall never marry now. So I may as well devote myself to the cause of the old maids you are so nobly championing.' She rolled up the manuscript. "'But,' said Lily excitedly, breaking in for the first time, what is the way you want them to come?' The Princess laughed a silvery laugh. "'No way! Don't you understand? It was a roundabout way of saying I was tired of them.' "'Oh!' said Lily. "'You see, I got the idea from a fairy tale,' said the Princess. There the doer evaded the conditions by being dragged at a horse's tail. I have guarded against this so that now the thing is impossible.' Again her mischievous laughter rang out through the misanthropic room. Lily smiled too. She felt certain Lord Silverdale would find no flaw in the Princess's honour, and she was exultant at so auspicious an accession. For the sake of formality, however, she told her that she would communicate her election by letter. The next day a telegram came to the club. Compelled to withdraw candidature, feet accomplished, Princess Hotel Metropole brightened. Lily aghast and excited, Lily wired back. How! and prepaid the reply. Lover happened to be here, came up in lift as I was waiting to go down. Still intensely peaked by curiosity and vexation, Lily telegraphed. Which! Leave you to guess! answered the electric current. CHAPTER VI The Moon Man's name was Wilkins, and he did nine-tenths of the interviews in that model of the new journalism. Wilkins was the man to catch the weasel asleep, hit off his features with a Kodak, and badger him the moment he awoke as to why he popped. Wilkins lived in a flat and chancery lane, and had his whiskey and his feet on the table when Silverdale turned the handle of the door in the gloaming. What do you want? said Wilkins gruffly. I have come to ask you a few questions, said Silverdale politely. But I don't know you, sir, said Wilkins stiffly. Don't you see I'm busy? It is true I am a stranger, but remember, sir, I shall not be so when I leave. I just want to interview you about that paragraph in the Moon stating, Look here! roared Wilkins, letting his feet slide from the table with a crash. Let me tell you, sir, I have no time to listen to your impertinence. My leisure is scant and valuable. I am a hard-worked man. I can't be pestered with questions from inquisitive busy bodies. What next, sir? What I write in the Moon is my business and nobody else's. Damn it all, sir, is there to be nothing private? Are you going to poke and pry into the concerns of the very journalist? No, sir, you have wasted your time as well as mine. We never allow the public to go behind what appears in our paper. But this is a mere private curiosity. What you tell me shall never be published. If it could be, I wouldn't tell it you. I never waste copy. Tell me I am willing to pay for the information. Who wrote the paragraph about Clarinda Bell and the Old Maid's Club? Go to the devil, roared Wilkins. I thought you would know more than he, said Silverdale, and left. Wilkins came downstairs on his heels in a huff and walked towards Ludgate Hill. Silverdale thought he would have another shot, and followed him unseen. The two men jumped into a train, and after an endless seeming journey arrived at the Crystal Palace. A monster balloon was going off from the grounds. Here Nickaldorf, the great Aeronaut, was making in solitude an experimental night excursion to Calais, as if anxious to meet his fate by moonlight alone. Wilkins rushed up to Nickaldorf, who was standing among the ropes giving directions. Go away, said Nickaldorf when he saw him. I have noddings to say to you. You makes me schvitzin'. He jumped into the car and bade the men let go. Ordinarily Wilkins would have been satisfied with this ample material for half a column, but he was still in a bad temper, and as the car was sailing slowly upwards he jumped in and the Aeronaut gave himself up for pumped. In an instant, moved by an irresistible impulse, Silverdale gave a great leap and stood by the moon-man's side. The balloon shot up and the roar of the crowd became a faint murmur as the planet flew from beneath their feet. Good evening, Mr. Wilkins, said Lord Silverdale. I should just like to interview you about— You jack-o'-napes, cried the moon-man, pale with anger. If you don't go away at once I'll kick you downstairs. My dear Mr. Wilkins, suavely replied Lord Silverdale, I will willingly go down, provided you accompany me. I am sure Herr Nickaldorf is anxious to drop both of us. Verklitsch, replied the Aeronaut. Well, lend us a parachute, said Silverdale. No, danks, Bibles never return bearish shoots. Well, we won't go without one. I forgot to bring mine with me. I didn't know I was going to have such a high old time. By what right, sir, said Mr. Wilkins, who had been struggling with an attack of speechlessness, do you persecute me like this? You are not a member of the Fourth Estate. No, I belong merely to the Second. Eh, what? Up here? I am Lord Silverdale. No, indeed, Lord Silverdale. Lord Silverdale, echoed the Aeronaut, letting two sandbanks fall into the clouds. Most people lose their ballast in the presence of the aristocracy. Oh, I am so glad I have long been anxious to meet your Lordship, said the Moon Man, taking out his notebook. What is your Lordship's opinion of the best fifty books for the Working Man's library? I have not yet written fifty books. Ah, said the Moon Man, carefully noting down the reply. And when is your Lordship's next book coming out? I cannot say. Thank you, said the Moon Man, writing it down. Will it be poetry or prose? It is as the critics shall decide. Is it true that your Lordship has been converted to Catholicism? I believe not. Then how does your Lordship account for the rumor? I have an indirect connection with a sort of new nunnery, which it is proposed to found, the Old Maid's Club. Oh, yes, the one that Clarenda Bell is going to join. Nonsense, who told you she was going to join? The Moon Man winced perceptibly at the question, as he replied indignantly, herself. Thank you, that's what I wanted to know. You may contradict it on the authority of the President. She only said so to get an advertisement. Then why give her two by contradicting it? That is the woman's cleverness. Let her have the advertisement rather than that her name should be connected with Miss Dalsamers. Very well. Tell me something please about the Club. It is not organized yet. It is to consist of young and beautiful women vowed to celibacy to remove the reproach of the term Old Maid. It is a noble idea, said the Moon Man, enthusiastically. Oh, what a humanitarian time we are having. Richard Silverdale, said Herr Nickeldorf, who had been listening with all his ears. I have to you give de-hospitality of my balloon. Will you, in return, take mine-frow into the Old Maid's Club? As a visitor, with pleasure, as she is a married woman. Nine, nine, I mean, as an Old Maid. Ich habe sick nicht noting. I do not require her any longer. Ah, then I'm afraid we can't. You see, she isn't an Old Maid. But she half-been. Ah, yes, but we do not recognize past services. Oh, Varum wasn't the Club founded before I married, groaned the Old German. Himmel, what a terrible mistake! It is to her I owe it that I am the most celebrated aeronaut in Der Ganzu Welt. It is the only profession in which I escape her device. She half-de-cuff, too weak to rise-mit-me. Ah, when I come up here, it is Himmel. Rather taking an unfair rise out of your partner, isn't it? queried the Moon-man with a sickly smile. And what would you have done in Vassaktman in my shoes? The Moon-man winced. Not put them on. Are you not yourself married? The Moon-man winced. No, I'm only engaged. Mine hair, said the Old German solemnly. I have nothing but trouble from you. You make to me mine life von burden. But I cannot see you going to the altar without putting out the hand to save you. It was stupid to yourself engage at all. But now that you have committed the mistake, stick to it. How do you mean? Keep yourself engaged. Do not change your condition any more. What do you say, Lord Silverdale? said the Moon-man anxiously. I am hardly an authority. You see, I have so rarely been married. It depends on the character of your betrothed. Does she long to be of service in the world? The Moon-man winced. Yes, that's why she fell in love with me. Thought a Moon-man must be all noble sentiment like the Moon itself. She is then young, said Silverdale musingly. Is she also beautiful? The Moon-man winced. Be witching. Why does your Lordship ask? Because her services might be valuable as an old maid. Oh, if you could only get Diana to see it in that hand. You seem anxious to be rid of her. I do, I confess it. It has been growing on me for some time. You see, hers is a soul perpetually seeking more light. She is always asking questions. This thirst for information would be made only more raging by marriage. You know what Stevenson says. To marry is to domesticate the recording angel. At present my occupations keep me away from her. But she answers my letters with as many queries as a constant reader. She wants to know all I say, do or feel, and I never see her without having to submit to a string of inquiries. It's like having to fill up a census paper once a week. If I don't see her for a fortnight she wants to know how I am the moment we meet. If this is so before marriage what will it be after, when her opportunities of buttonholing me will be necessarily more frequent? But I see nothing to complain of in that, said Lord Silverdale. Tender solicitude for one's betrothed is the usual thing with those really in love. You wouldn't like her to be indifferent to what you are doing, saying, feeling. The moon man winced. No, that's just the dilemma of it, Lord Silverdale. I am afraid your lordship does not catch my drift. You see, with another man it wouldn't matter. As your lordship says, he would be glad of it. But to me all that sort of things shop. And I hate shop. It's hard enough to be out interviewing all day without being reminded of it when you get home and want to put your slippers on the fender and your feet inside them and be happy. So if there's one thing in this world I can't put up with, it's shop after business hours. I want to forget that I get my gold in exchange for notes of interrogation. I shudder to be reminded that there are such things in the world as questions. I tremble if I hear a person invert the subject and predicate of a sentence. I can hardly bear to read poetry because the frequent inversions make the lines look as if they were going to be inquisitive. Now you understand why I was so discourteous to your lordship, and I trust that you will pardon the curt expression of my hypersensitive feelings. Now, too, you understand why I shrink from the prospect of marriage to the brink of which I once bounded so heedlessly. No, it is evident a life of solitude must be my portion. If I am ever to keep my wearied spirit in forgetfulness of my daily grind, if my nervous system is to be preserved from premature breakdown, I must have no one about me who has a right of interrogation, and my housekeeper must prepare my meals without even the preliminary, chop or steak, sir. My home life must be restful, peaceful, balsamic. It must exhale a paverous aroma of categorical proposition. But is there no way of getting a wife with a gift of categorical conversation? Please say, there is no way, etc., for unless you yourself speak categorically, the sentence is great on my ear. I can ask questions myself without experiencing the slightest inconvenience, but the moment I am myself interrogated, every nerve in me quivers with torture. No, I am afraid it is impossible to find a woman who will eschew the interrogative form of proposition, and limit herself to the affirmative and negative varieties. Who will, for mere love of me, invariably place the verb after the noun, and unalterably give the subject the precedence over the predicate. Often and often, when my Diana, in all her dazzling charms, looks up pleadingly into my face, I feel towards her as a hajjah whereas felt toward the suppliant Queen Esther, and I yearn to stretch out my reporter's pencil towards her, and to say, ask me what you will, even if it be half my income, so long as you do not ask me a question. But isn't there, I mean, there is such a thing obtainable as a dumb wife? Mutes are for funerals and not for marriages. Besides, then, everybody would be asking me why I married her. No, the more I think of it, the more I see the futility of my dream of matrimonial felicity. Why, a question lies at the very threshold of marriage. Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife? And to put up the bands is to loose upon yourself an interviewer in a white tie. No, leave me to my unhappy destiny. I must dream my weird. And anything your lordship can do in the way of enabling me to dre it by soliciting my Diana into the Old Maids' Club shall be received with the warmest thanksgiving, and will allow me to remain your lordship's most grateful and obedient servant, Daniel Wilkins. Enough, said Lord Silverdale, deeply moved. I will send her a circular. But do you really think you would be happy if you lost her? If, said the moon-man moodily, it would require a great many ifs to make me happy, as I once wrote, If cash were always present and business always paid, if skies were always pleasant and pipes were never laid, if toothache emigrated, dyspepsia disappeared, and babies were cremated and boys and girls were speared, if shirts were always creamy and buttons never broke, if eyes were always beamy and all could see a joke, if ladies never fumbled at railway pigeonholes, new villas never crumbled, and lawyers boasted souls, if beer was never swallowed and cooks were never drunk, and trades were never swallowed, and thoughts were never thunk, if sorrow never troubled and pleasure never cloyed, and animals were doubled and humans all destroyed, then, if there were no papers and more words rhymed with giving, existence would be capers and life be worth the living. Your lordship might give me a poem in exchange, concluded the Moon-man concededly, an advanced quote from your next volume say. Very well, and the peer-good-naturedly began to recite the first fit of an old English romance. Ye white moon sailed o'er ye dark blue vault, and safely steered mid-yee fleet of stars, and threw down smiles to ye ancient salt, while Venus flirted with winking Mars. Along ye sea-washed slippery slabs ye welks were stretching their weary limbs, while prior to going to bed ye crabs were softly chanting their evening hymns. At this point a sudden shock threw both bards off their feet, inverting them in a manner most disagreeable to the Moon-man. While they were dropping into poetry the balloon had been dropping into a wood, and the arrow-nut had thrown his grapnel into the branches of a tree. What's the matter? they cried. Change here for London, said the hare, phlegmatically, unless you want to go mit me to Calais. In five more minutes I shall be crossing the channel. No, no, put us down, said the Moon-man. I never could cross the channel. Oh, when are they going to make that tunnel? Thereupon he lowered himself into the tree, and Lord Silverdale followed his example. Guten Nacht, said the hare, folk-stone should be somewhere's about. Fordinately the Moon is out, and you may be able to find it. I say, shrieked the Moon-man, as the balloon began to free itself on its upward flight. How far off is it? I will not be. Was heist is? Interviewed. Guten Nacht. Soon the great sphere was no bigger than a star in the heavens. This is a nice go, said the Moon-man, when they had climbed down. Oh, don't trouble. I know the southeast coast well. There is sure to be a town within a four-mile radius. Then let's take a handsome, said the Moon-man. Wilkins, are you—I mean, you are—losing your mind, said Lord Silverdale, and linking the interviewer's arm in his, he fared forth into the darkness. Do you know what I thought, said Wilkins, as they undressed in the lonely roadside inn, for ballooning makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows, as I was sliding down the trunk with you on the branches above? No, what did you—I mean, you did think what? Well, I'm a bit superstitious, and I saw in the situation a forecast of my future. That tree typifies my genealogical tree, for when I have grown rich and prosperous by my trade there will be a pier perched somewhere on the upper branches. De Brett will discover him. Indeed I hope so, said the pier fervently, for in the happy time when you shall have retired from business you will be able to make Diana happy.