 Chapter 1 of Bealby A Holiday This is a LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Bealby A Holiday by H. G. Wells Chapter 1. Young Bealby Goes to Chance Sub-Chapter 1 The cat is the offspring of a cat and the dog of a dog. But butlers and ladies-maids do not reproduce their kind. They have other duties. So their successes have to be sought among the prolific, and particularly among the prolific on great estates. Such are gardeners, but not under gardeners, gamekeepers and coachmen, but not lodge people, because their years are too great and their lodge is too small. And among those to whom this opportunity of entering service came was Young Bealby, who is the stepson of Mr. Darlin, the gardener of Chance. Everyone knows the glory of Chance. It's façade, it's two towers, the great marble pond, the terraces where the peacocks walk and the lower lake with the black and white swans, the great park and the avenue, the view of the river winding away across the blue country, and of the Chance Velasquez, but that is now in America, and the Chance Rubens, which is in the National Gallery, and the Chance Porcelain, and the Chance Past History. It was a refuge for the old faith. It had priest holes and secret passages, and how at last the marquee had to let Chance to the Laxton's, the peptonized milk and baby soother people for a long term of years. It was a splendid chance for any boy to begin his knowledge of service and so great an establishment, and only the natural perversity of human nature can explain the violent objection Young Bealby took to anything of the sort. He did. He said he did not want to be a servant, and that he would not go and be a good boy and try his very best in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him at Chance. On the contrary, he communicated these views suddenly to his mother as she was preparing a steak and kidney pie in the bright little kitchen of the gardener's cottage. He came in with his hair all ruffled and his face hot and distinctly dirty, and his hands in his trousers' pockets in the way he had been repeatedly told not to. Mother, he said, I'm not going to be a Stuart's boy at the house anyhow, not if you tell me to, not till you're blue in the face, so that's all about it. This delivered he remained panting, having no further breath left in him. His mother was a thin, firm woman. She paused in her rolling of the dough until he had finished, and then she made a strong, broadening sweep of the rolling pin and remained facing him, leaning forward on that implement with her head a little on one side. You will do, she said, whatsoever your father has said you will do. He isn't my father, said Young Bealby. His mother gave a snapping nod of the head expressive of extreme determination. Anyhow, I ain't going to do it, said Young Bealby, and feeling the conversation was difficult to sustain. He moved towards the staircase door with a view to slamming it. You'll do it, said his mother, right enough. You see whether I do, said Young Bealby, and then got in his door slam rather hurdledly because of steps outside. Mr. Darling came in out of the sunshine a few moments later. He was a large, many-pocketed, earthy, whiskered man with a clean shaven, determined mouth, and he carried a large pale cucumber in his hand. I told him, he said. What did he say, asked his wife. Nothing, said Mr. Darling. He says he won't, says Mrs. Darling. Mr. Darling regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. I never see such a boy, said Mr. Darling. Why he's got to. Sub-Chapter 2 But Young Bealby maintained an obstinate fight against the inevitable. He had no gift of lucid exposition. I ain't going to be a servant, he said. I don't see what right people have making a servant of me. You've got to be something, said Mr. Darling. Everybody's got to be something, said Mrs. Darling. Then let me be something else, said Young Bealby. I'd say you'd like to be a gentleman, said Mr. Darling. I wouldn't mind, said Young Bealby. You've got to be what your opportunities give you, said Mr. Darling. Young Bealby became breathless. Why shouldn't I be an engine driver, he asked. All oily, said his mother, and getting yourself killed in an accident and got to pay fines. You'd like to be an engine driver. Or a soldier. Oh, Swaddy, said Mr. Darling decisively. Or the sea. With that weak stomach of yours, said Mrs. Darling. Besides which, said Mr. Darling, it's been a range for you to go up to the house the very first of next month, in your box and everything ready. Young Bealby became very red in the face. I won't go, he said very faintly. You will, said Mrs. Darling. If I have to take you by the collar and the slack of your breeches to get you there. Sub-Chapter 3 The heart of Young Bealby was a cold lefire within his breast as, unassisted, he went across the dewy park up to the great house, whither his box was to follow him. He thought the world a rotten show. He also said, apparently, to two doze and a fawn, if you think I'm going to stand it, you know, you're jolly well mistaken. I do not attempt to justify his prejudice against honorable usefulness in a domestic capacity. He had it. Perhaps there is something in the air of Highbury where he had spent the past eight years of his life that leads to democratic ideals. It is one of those new places where estates seem almost forgotten. Perhaps, too, there was something in the Bealby Strain. I think he would have objected to any employment at all. Here there, too, he had been a remarkably free boy with a considerable gusto about his freedom. Why should that end? The Little Village Mix School had been a soft job for his cockney wits, and for a year and a half he had been Top Boy. Why not go on being Top Boy? Instead of which, under threats, he had to go across the sunlit corner of the park through that slanting morning sunlight which had been so often the prelude to golden days of leafy wanderings. He had to go past the corner of the laundry where he had so often played cricket with a coachman's boys, already swallowed up into the working world. He had to follow the laundry wall to the end of the kitchen, and there where the steps go down and underground as well to the sunlight. Farewell to childhood, boyhood, freedom. He had to go down and along the stone corridor to the pantry, and there he had to ask for Mr. Merkelson. He paused on the top step and looked up at the blue sky across which a hawk was slowly drifting. His eyes followed the hawk out of sight, beyond a cypress bow. But indeed he was not thinking about the hawk. He was not seeing the hawk. He was struggling with the last wild impulse of his farial nature. Why not sling it, his farial nature was asking? Why not even now do a bunk? It would have been better for him, perhaps, and better for Mr. Merkelson, and better for Shantz if he had yielded to the whisperer of the tempter. But his heart was heavy within him and he had no lunch, and never a penny. One can do but a very little bunk on an empty belly. Must was written all over him. He went down the steps. The passage was long and cool and at the end of it was a swing door. Through that and then to the left he knew one had to go past the still room and so to the pantry. The maids were at breakfast in the still room with the door open. The grimace he made in passing was intended rather to entertain than to insult. In any how a chap must do something with his face and then he came to the pantry and into the presence of Mr. Merkelson. Mr. Merkelson was in his short sleeves and generally disheveled, having an early cup of tea and an atmosphere full of the bleak memories of overnight. He was an ample man with a large nose, a vast underlip and mutton-chopped side whiskers. His voice would have suited a succulent parrot. He took out a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and regarded it. Ten minutes past seven, young man, he said, isn't seven o'clock. Young Bilby made no articulate answer. Just stand there for a minute, said Mr. Merkelson. When I'm at liberty I'll run through your doozies. And almost ostentatiously he gave himself up to the enjoyment of his cup of tea. Three other gentlemen in Deschabus sat at table with Mr. Merkelson. They regarded young Bilby with attention, and the youngest, a red-haired, bare-faced youth in shirt sleeves and a green apron, was moved to a grimace that was clearly designed to echo the scowl on young Bilby's features. The fury that had been subdued by a momentary awe of Mr. Merkelson revived in gathered force. Young Bilby's face became scarlet, his eyes filled with tears and his mind with a need for movement. But he wouldn't stand it. He turned round abruptly and made for the door. Where on earth you going to? cried Mr. Merkelson. He shy cried the second footman. Steady on cried the first footman and had him by the shoulder in the doorway. Let me go howl the new recruit, struggling. I won't be a blooming servant, I won't. Here cried Mr. Merkelson, just stipulating with his teaspoon. Bring him to the end of the table there. What's this about a blooming servant? Bilby suddenly, blubbering, was replaced at the end of the table. May I ask what's this about a blooming servant? asked Mr. Merkelson. Sniff and silence. Did I understand you to say that you ain't to be a blooming servant, young Bilby? Yes, said young Bilby. Thomas said Mr. Merkelson, just smacked his head. Smacked it rather hard. Things too rapid to relate occurred. So you'd bite wood, you said, Thomas. Ah, said Mr. Merkelson. Got him, that one. Just smack his head once more, said Mr. Merkelson. And now you just stand there, young man, until I'm at liberty to attend to you further, said Mr. Merkelson, and finish his tea slowly and eloquently. The second footman rubbed his shin thoughtfully. If I got to smack his head much, he said, eat better change into his slippers. Take him to his room, said Mr. Merkelson, getting up. See, he washes the grief and grubbiness off his face in the hand wash at the end of the passage. And make him put on his slippers. Then show him how to lay the table in the steward's room. Sub Chapter 4 The duties to which Bilby was introduced struck him as perplexingly various, undesirably numerous, uninteresting and difficult to remember. And also he did not try to remember them very well, because he wanted to do them as badly as possible. And he thought that forgetting would be a good way of starting at that. He was beginning at the bottom of the ladder. To him it fell to wait on the upper servants, and the green bay's door at the top of the service staircase was the limit of his range. His room was a small wedge-shaped department under some steps leading to the servants' hall, lit by a window that did not open, and they gave upon the underground passage. He received its instructions in a state of crumpled mutiny-ness, but for a day his desire to be remarkably impossible was more than counterbalanced by his respect for the large, able hands of the four man's servants, his seniors, and by a disclination to be returned too promptly to the gardens. Then in a tentative manner he broke two plates and got his head smacked by Mr. Murgelson himself. Mr. Murgelson gave a staccato slab quite as powerful as Thomas's, but otherwise different. The hand of Mr. Murgelson was large and fat, and he got his effects by dash. Thomas's was horny and lingered. After that young billed be put salt in the teapot in which the housekeeper made tea. But that he observed she washed out with hot water before she put in the tea. It was clear that he had wasted his salt, which ought to have gone into the kettle. Next time, the kettle. Beyond telling him his duties almost excessively, nobody conversed with young billed be during the long hours of his first day in service. At midday dinner in the servants' hall, he made one of the kitchen maids giggle by pulling faces and tend to be delicately suggestive of Mr. Murgelson. But that was his nearest approach to disinterested human intercourse. When the hour for retirement came, get out of it, go to bed, you dirty little kicker, said Thomas. We've had about enough of you for one day. Young billed be sat for a long time on the edge of his bed, weighing the possibilities of arson and poison. He wished he had some poison, some sort of poison with a medieval manner, poison that hurts before it kills. Also he produced a small penny pocketbook with a glazed black cover and blue edges. He headed one page of this, Murgelson, and entered beneath it three black crosses. Then he opened an account to Thomas, who was manifestly destined to be his principal creditor. Bilby was not a forgiving boy. At the village school they had been too busy making him a good churchman to attend to things like that. There were a lot of crosses for Thomas. And while Bilby made the sinister memoranda downstairs, Lady Laxton, for Laxton had bought a baronetcy for twenty thousand down to the party funds, and tipped to the whip over the peptonized milk flotation. Lady Laxton, a couple of floors above Bilby's ruffled head, mused over her approaching weekend party. It was an important weekend party. The Lord Chancellor of England was coming. Never before had she had so much as a member of the cabinet at Chaunce. He was coming, and do what she would, she could not help but connect it with her very strong desire to see the Master of Chaunce in the clear scarlet of a deputy lieutenant. Peter would look so well in that. The Lord Chancellor was coming, and to meet him and to circle about him there were Lord John Woodenhouse and Slinkerbond. The Countess of Barracks and Mrs. Rampond Philby, the novelist with her husband Rampond Philby, there was Professor Tambra, the philosopher, and there were four smaller, though quite good people who would run about very satisfactorily among the others. At least she thought they would run about very satisfactorily amongst the others, not imagining any evil of her cousin Captain Douglas. All this good company and chaunts, though Lady Laxton with a pleasant realization of progressive successes, but at the same time one must confess that she felt a certain diffidence. In her heart of heart she knew she had not made this party. It had happened to her. How it might go on happening to her she did not know. It was beyond her control. She hoped very earnestly that everything would pass off well. The Lord Chancellor was as big a guest as any she had had. One must grow as one grows, but still being easy and friendly with him would be, she knew a tremendous effort, rather like being easy and friendly with an elephant. She was not good at conversation. The task of interesting people taxed her and puzzled her. It was slinker-bond, the whip who would arrange the whole business after it must be confessed a hint from Sir Peter. Laxton had complained that the government was neglecting this part of the country. They ought to show up more than they do in the county, said Sir Peter, and add it almost carelessly. I could easily put anybody up at shots. There were to be two select dinner parties in a large but still select Sunday lunch to let in the countryside to the spectacle of the Laxtons taking their new proper place at shots. It was not only the sense of her deficiencies that troubled Lady Laxton. There were also her husband's excesses. He had, it was of no use disguising it, rather too much the manner of an employer. He had a way of getting how could one put it. Confident at dinner, and Murgelson seemed to delight in filling up his glass, then he would contradict a good deal. She felt that Lord Chancellors, however, the sort of men one doesn't like. Then the Lord Chancellors was said to be interested in philosophy, a difficult subject. She had got Tambra to talk to him about that. Tambra was a professor of philosophy at Oxford, so that was sure to be all right. But she wish she knew one or two good safe things to say in philosophy herself. She had long felt the need of a secretary, and now she felt it more than ever. If she had a secretary she could just tell him what it was she wanted to talk about and he could get her one or two of the right books and mark the best passages and she could learn it all up. She feared, it was a worrying fear that Laxton would say right out and very early in the weekend that he didn't believe in philosophy. He had a way of saying he didn't believe in large things like that. Art, philanthropy, novels and so on. Sometimes he said, I don't believe in all of this. Art or whatever it was. She had watched people's faces when he had said it and she had come to the conclusion that saying you don't believe in things isn't the sort of thing people say nowadays. It was wrong somehow but she did not want to tell Laxton directly that it was wrong. He would remember if she did but he had a way of taking such things rather badly at the time. She hated him to take things badly. If one could invent some little hint she whispered to herself she had often wished she was better at hints. She was, you see, a gentle woman, modest, kindly. Her people were quite good people. Poor, of course. But she was not clever. She was anything but clever. And the lives of these captains of industry need to be very clever indeed if they are to escape isolation. They get the titles in the big places and all that sort of thing. People don't at all intend to isolate them but there is nevertheless an inadvertent avoidance. Even as she uttered these words, if one could invent some little hint, beably down there less than 40 feet away through the solid floor below her feet and a little to the right was wetting his stump of pencil as wet as he could in order to sufficiently emphatic 14th cross on the score sheet of the doomed Thomas. Most of the other 13 marks were done with such hard-breathing emphasis that the print of them went more than halfway through that little blue-edged book. Sub Chapter 5 The arrival of the weekend guests in Presbylby at first merely as a blessed influence that withdrew the four men-servants into an unknown world on the other side of the Green Bay's door. But then he learned that it also involved the appearance of five new persons, two valets, and three maids for whom places had to be laid in the stewards room. Otherwise Lady Laxton's social arrangements had no more influence upon the mind of Bealby than the private affairs of the Emperor of China. There was something going on up there beyond even his curiosity. All he heard of was a distant coming and going of vehicles and some slight talk to which he was inattentive while the coachmen and grooms were having a drink in the pantry. Till these maids and valets appeared, they seemed to him to appear suddenly out of nothing, like slugs after rain. Black and rather shiny, sitting about inactively and quietly consuming small matters. He disliked them, and they regarded him without affection or respect. Who cared? He indicated his feelings towards them as soon as he was out of the stewards room by a gesture of the hand and nose, venerable only by reason of its antiquity. He had things more urgent to think about than strange valets and maids. Thomas had laid hands on him, jeered at him, inflicted shameful indignities on him, and he wanted to kill Thomas in some frightful manner, but if possible, unattrusively. If he had been a little Japanese boy, this would have been an entirely honorable desire. It would have been Bushito and all that sort of thing. In the gardener's steps on however, it is undesirable. Thomas on the other hand, having remarked the red light of revenge in Bealby's eye and being secretly afraid, felt that his honor was concerned in not relaxing his persecutions. He called him kicker, and when he did not answer to that name, he called him snorter, bleeder, snooks, and finally tweaked his ear. Then he saw fit to assume that Bealby was deaf and that ear tweaking was the only available method of address. This led onto the convention of a sign language whereby ideas were communicated to Bealby by means of painful, but frequently quite ingeniously symbolical freedoms with various parts of his person. Also, Thomas affected to discover uncleanliness in Bealby's head and seceded after many difficulties in putting it in a sink full of lukewarm water. Meanwhile, young Bealby devoted such scanty time as he could give to reflection to debating whether it is better to attack Thomas suddenly with a carving knife or throw a light at lamp. The large pantry ink pot of pewter might be effective in its way, he thought, but he doubted whether in the event of a charge it had sufficient stopping power. It was also curiously attracted by a long two-pronged toasting fork that hung at the side of the pantry fireplace. It had reach. Over all these dark thoughts and ill-conceived emotions, Mr. Mergelson prevailed, large yet speedy, speedy yet exact, parroting orders and making plump gestures, performing duties and seeing that duties were performed. Matters came to a climax late on Saturday night at the end of a trying day, just before Mr. Mergelson went round to lock up and turn out the lights. Thomas came into the pantry close behind Bealby, who greatly belated through his own inefficiency, was carrying a tray of glasses from the Stuart's room, applied an un-gentle hand to his neck and in a smart and painful manner. At the same time, Thomas remarked, Brrr! Bealby stood still for a moment and then put down his tray on the table and making peculiar sounds as he did so, resorted very rapidly to the toasting fork. He got a prong into Thomas' chin at the first prod. How swift are the changes of the human soul? At the moment of his thrust, young Bealby was a primordial savage, so soon as he saw this incredible piercing of Thomas' chin, for all the care that Bealby had taken it might just as well have been Thomas' eye, he moved swiftly through the ages and became a simple Christian child. He abandoned violence and fled. The fork hung for a moment from the visage of Thomas like a twisted beard of brass and then rattled on the ground. Thomas clapped his hand to his chin and fled. You little, he never found the right word, which perhaps is just as well. Instead he started in pursuit of Bealby. Bealby, in his sudden horror of his own act, and Thomas fled headlong into the passage and made straight for the service stairs that went up into a higher world. He had little time to think. Thomas with a red smeared chin appeared in pursuit. Thomas the Avenger. Thomas really roused. Bealby shot through the Green Bay's door and the pursuing footman pulled up only just in time not to follow him. Only just in time. He had an instinctive instant anxious fear of great dangers. He heard something, a sound as though the young of some very large animal head squeaked feebly. He had a glimpse of something black and white, enlarged. Then something, some glass thing, smashed. He heard the Green Bay's door which was wobbling on its brass hinges. Controlled his panting breath and listened. A low rich voice was ejaculating. It was not Bealby's voice. It was the voice of some substantial person being quietly but deeply angry. There were the ejaculations restrained in tone but not in quality of a ripe and well-stored mind. No boys then stuff. Then very softly Thomas pushed open the door just widely enough to see and as instantly let it fall back into place. Very gently and yet with an alert rapidity he turned around and stole down the service stairs. His superior officer appeared in the passage below. Mr. Mergelson he cried. I say Mr. Mergelson what's up? said Mr. Mergelson. He's gone. Who? Bealby. Who? This almost hopefully. No. Where? Up there. I think he ran against somebody. Mr. Mergelson scrutinized his abordinates face for a second. Then he listened intently. Both men listened intently. Have to fetch him out of that said Mr. Mergelson, suddenly preparing for brisk activity. Thomas bent lower over the banisters. A lower chancellor he whispered with white lips and the sideways gesture of his head. What about him? said Mergelson, arrested by something in the manner of Thomas. Thomas's whisper became so fine that Mr. Mergelson drew nearer to catch it and put up a hand to his ear. Thomas repeated the last remark. He's just through there on the landing cursing and swearing horrible things more like a mad turkey than a human being. Where as Bealby he must have run into him, said Thomas after consideration. But now, where is he? Thomas pantomined infinite perplexity. Mr. Mergelson reflected and sided upon his line. He came up the service staircase, lifted his chin, and with an air of meat, officiousness went through the green door. There was no one now on the landing. There was nothing remarkable on the landing except a broken tumbler. But halfway up the grand staircase stood the Lord Chancellor. Under one arm the great jurist carried a soda water siphon, and he grasped a decanter of whiskey in his hand. He turned sharply at the sound of the green-based door and bent upon Mr. Mergelson the most terrible eyebrows that ever surely adorned a legal visage. He was very red in the face and savage looking. Was it you, he said with a threatening gesture of the censor, and his voice betrayed a noble indignation? Was it you who slapped me behind? Slapped you behind? Me, Lord? Slapped me behind? Don't I speak plainly? I... such... a lippity, me, Lord. Idiot, I ask you a plain question with almost inconceivable alacrity. Mr. Mergelson rushed up three steps, leap forward and caught the siphon slip from the lordship's arm. He caught it, but at a price. He overset and clasped me it in his hand, struck his lordship first with a siphon on the left shin, and then butted him with a face that was still earnestly respectful in the knees. His lordship's legs were driven sideways so that they were no longer beneath his center of gravity. With a monosyllabic remark of a typographical nature, his lordship collapsed upon Mr. Mergelson. The decanter flew out of his grasp and smashed presently with emphasis upon the landing below. The siphon, escaping from the wreckage of Mr. Mergelson and drawn no doubt by a natural affinity, rolled noisily from step to step in pursuit of the decanter. It was a curious little procession that hurried down the great staircase of chants that night. First the whiskey, like a winged carbanger, with a pedestrian siphon in pursuit. Then the great lawyer, gripping the great butler by the tails of his coat and punching furiously, then Mr. Mergelson trying wildly to be respectful, even in disaster. First the Lord Chancellor dived over Mr. Mergelson, grappling as he passed. Then Mr. Mergelson, attempting explanations, was pulled backwards over the Lord Chancellor. Then again the Lord Chancellor was ready for a giddy but vindictive moment uppermost. A second rotation and they reached the landing. Bang! There was a deafening report. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Bealby A Holiday This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Bealby A Holiday by H. G. Wells Chapter 2 A Weekend at Chance Sub Chapter 1 The Weekend Visit is a form of entertainment peculiar to Great Britain. It is a thing that could have been possible only in a land essentially aristocratic and mellow, in which even the observance of the Sabbath has become mellow. At every London terminus on a Saturday afternoon the outgoing trains have an unusually large proportion of first-class carriages and a peculiar abundance of rich-looking dressing bags provoke the covetous eye. A discrete activity of valets and maids mingles with the stimulated alertness of the staff. One marks celebrities in gay raiment. There is an indefinable air of distinction upon platform and bookstore. Sometimes there are carriages reserved for especially privileged parties. There are greetings. And so you are coming to No, this time it is Chance. The place where they found the Rubens. Who has it now? Through this cheerfully prosperous throng went the Lord Chancellor with his high nose, those eyebrows of his which he seemed to be able to furl or unfurl at will, and his expression of tranquil self-sufficiency. He was going to Chance for his party and not for his pleasure. But there was no reason for him to appear upon his face. He went along preoccupied, pretending to see nobody, leaving to others the disadvantage of the greeting. In his right hand he carried a small important bag of leather. Under his left arm he bore a philosophical work by Dr. McTaggart. Three illustrated papers, the fortnightly review, the day's times, the hibbert journal, Punch, and two blue books. His lordship never quite knew the limits set to what he could carry under his arm. His man, Candler, followed therefore at a suitable distance with several papers that had already been dropped, alert to retrieve any further losses. At the large bookstore they passed close by Mrs. Rampound Pilby, who, according to her custom, was feigning to be a member of the general public and was asking the clerk about her last book. The Lord Chancellor saw Rampound Pilby hovering at hand and deftly failed to catch his eye. He loathed the Rampound Pilby's. He speculated for a moment what sort of people could possibly stand Mrs. Pilby's vast pretensions, even from Saturday to Monday. One dinner party on her right hand had glutted him for life. He chose a corner seat, took possession of both it and the seat opposite it in order to have somewhere to put his feet. Left Candler to watch over and pack in his hand luggage and went high up the platform, remaining there with his back to the world rather like a bigger, more aquiline Napoleon in order to evade the great novelist. In this he was completely successful. He returned, however, to find Candler on the verge of a personal conflict with a very fair young man in gray. He was so fair as to be almost an albino, except that his eyes were quick and brown. He was blushing the brightest pink and speaking very quickly. These two places, said Candler, breathless with the badness of his case, are engaged. All the—very well, said the very fair young man with his eyebrows and mustache looking very pale by contrast. Have it so, but do permit me to occupy the middle seat of the carriage with a residuary interest in the semi-gentleman's place. You little know, young man, whom you are calling a semi-gentleman, said Candler, whose speciality was grammar. Here he is, said the young gentleman. Which place will you have, my lord? asked Candler, abandoning his case altogether. Facing, said the Lord Chancellor, slowly unfurling the eyebrows and scowling at the young man in grey. Then I'll have the other, said the very fair young man talking very glibly. He spoke with a quick low voice, like one who forces himself to keep going. You see, he said, addressing the great jurist with the extreme familiarity of the courageously nervous. I've gone into this sort of thing before. First, mind you, I have a far look for a vacant corner. I'm not the sort to spoil sport, but if there isn't a vacant corner I look for traces of a semi-gentleman. A semi-gentleman is one who has a soft cap and not an umbrella. His friend in the opposite seat has the umbrella, or he has an umbrella with a soft cap. Or a waterproof and not a bag. Or a bag and not a waterproof. And a half interest in a rug. That's what I call a semi-gentleman. You see the idea? Sort of divided beggar. Nothing in any way offensive. Sir, said the Lord Chancellor, interrupting in a voice of concentrated passion, I don't care a wrap what you call a semi-gentleman. Will you get out of my way? Just as you please, said the very fair young gentleman, and going a few paces from the carriage door he whistled for the boy with the papers. He was bearing up bravely. Pinkin, said the very fair young gentleman almost breathlessly, black and white, what's all these others? Atheneum? Sporting and dramatic? Righto and a? What? Do I look the sort that buys a spectator? You don't know, my dear boy? Where is your Savoie fair? Sub-Chapter 2 The Lord Chancellor was a philosopher and not easily perturbed. His severe manner was consciously assumed never much more than skin deep. He had already furled his eyebrows and dismissed his vis-a-vis from his mind before the train started. He turned over the Hibbert Journal and read in it with a large tolerance. Dimly, on the outskirts of his consciousness the very fair young man hovered as a trifling annoyance, as something pink and hot rustling a sheet of discordant shade of pink, as something that got in the way of his legs and whistled softly some trivial, cheerful air, just to show how little it cared. Presently, very soon, this vague trouble would pass out of his consciousness altogether. The Lord Chancellor was no mere amateur of philosophy. His activities in that direction were a part of his public meditation. He lectured on religion and aesthetics. He was affluent Hegelian. He spent his holidays, it was understood, in the absolute, at any rate in Germany. He would sometimes break into philosophy at dinner-tables and particularly over the dessert and be more luminously incomprehensible while still apparently sober than almost anyone. An article in the Hibbert caught and held his attention. It attempted to define a new and doubtful variety of infinity. You know, of course, that there are many sorts and species of infinity, and that the absolute is just the king among infinities as the lion is king among beasts. I say, said a voice coming out of the world of relativity and coughing the cough of those who break a silence, you aren't going to chance, are you? The Lord Chancellor returned slowly to earth. Just seen your label, said the very, very young man. You see, I'm going to chance. The Lord Chancellor remained outwardly serene. He reflected for a moment and then he fell into that snare which is more fatal to great lawyers and judges perhaps than to any other class of men. The snare of the crushing repartee. One had come into his head now, a beauty. Then we shall meet there, he said in his suavist manner. Well, rather, it would be a great pity, said the Lord Chancellor with an effective blandness using a kind of wry smile that he employed to make things humorous. It would be a great pity, don't you think, to anticipate that pleasure. And having smiled the retort well home with his head a little on one side, he resumed with large leisurely movements the reading of his hibbert journal. Got me there, young man belatedly looking boiled to a turn and after a period of restlessness settled down to an impatient perusal of black and white. There's a whole blessed weekend, of course, the young man remarked presently without looking up from his paper and apparently pursuing some obscure meditations. A vague uneasiness crept into the Lord Chancellor's mind continued to appear to peruse. Out of what train of thought could such a remark arise? His weakness for crushing retort had a little betrayed him. It was, however, only when he found himself upon the platform of Chelsom, which as everyone knows is the station for chants, and discovered Mr. and Mrs. Rampound Pilby upon the platform looking extraordinarily like a national monument and its custodian that the Lord Chancellor began to realize that he was in the grip of fate and that the service he was doing his party by week-ending with the Laxton's was likely to be not simply joyless but disagreeable. Well, anyhow, he had MacTaggart and he could always work in his own room. Sub-Chapter 3 By the end of dinner the Lord Chancellor was almost at the end of his large but clumsy endurance. He kept his eyebrows furrowed only by the most strenuous relaxation of his muscles. And within he was a sea of silent blasphemes. All sorts of little things had accumulated. He exercised an unusual temperance with the port and old brandy his host pressed upon him, feeling that he dared not relax lest his rage had its way with him. The cigars were quite intelligent at any rate, and he smoked and listened with a faintly perceptible disdain to the conversation of the other men. At any rate Mrs. Rampound Pilby was out of the room. The talk had arisen out of a duologue that had preceded the departure of the ladies. A duologue of timbers about apparitions and the reality of the future life. Sir Peter Laxton released from the eyes of his wife was at liberty to say he did not believe in all this stuff. It was just thought transference and fancy and all that sort of thing. His declaration did not arrest the flow of feeble instances and experiences into which such talk invariably degenerates. His lordship remained carelessly attentive, his eyebrows unfurled but drooping, his cigar upward at an acute angle. He contributed no anecdotes, content now and then to express himself compactly by some brief sentence of pure Hegelian, much as Mohammedan might spit. Why, come to that? They say Chaunce is haunted, said Sir Peter. I suppose we could have a ghost here in no time if I chose to take it on. Rare place for a ghost, too. The very fair young man of the train had got a name now and was Captain Douglas. When he was not blushing too brightly, he was rather good-looking. He was a distant cousin of Lady Laxton's. He impressed the Lord Chancellor as unabashed. He engaged people in conversation with a cheerful familiarity that excluded only the Lord Chancellor. And even at the Lord Chancellor he looked ever and again. He pricked up his ears at the mention of ghosts and afterwards when the Lord Chancellor came to think things over, it seemed to him that he had caught a curious glance of the Captain's bright little brown eye. What sort of ghost, Sir Peter? Chains? Eh? No? Nothing of that sort, it seems. I don't know much about it. I wasn't sufficiently interested. No? Sort of spook that bangs about and does you a mischief. What's its name? Thundergeist? Poltergeist? The Lord Chancellor supplied carelessly in the pause. Runs its hand over your hair in the dark. Taps your shoulder. All nonsense. But we don't tell the servants. Sort of thing I don't believe in. Easily explained. What with panelling and secret passages and priests' souls and all that? Priests' souls? Douglas was excited. Where they hid? Perfect rabbit-worn. There's one going out from the drawing room alcove. Quite a good room in its way. But you know, a note of wrath crept into Sir Peter's voice. They didn't treat me fairly about these priests' souls. I ought to have had a sketch and a plan of these priests' souls. When a chap is given possession of a place, he ought to be given possession. Well, I don't know where half of them are myself. That's not possession. Else we might re-furnish them and do them up a bit. I guess they're pretty musty. Captain Douglas spoke with his eye on the Lord Chancellor. Sure there isn't a murdered priest in the place, Sir Peter? he asked. Nothing of the sort, said Sir Peter. I don't believe in these priests' souls. Half of them never had priests in them. It's all pretty tidy rod, I expect, come to the bottom of it. The conversation did not get away from ghosts and the secret passages the men went to the drawing-room. If it seemed likely to do so, Captain Douglas pulled it back. He seemed to delight in the silly particulars. The sillier they were, the more he was delighted. The Lord Chancellor was a little preoccupied by one of those irrational suspicions that will sometimes afflict the most intelligent of men. Why did Douglas want to know all the particulars about the chants of ghosts? Why every now and then did he glance with that odd expression at one's face a glance half appealing and half amused? Amused. It was a strange fancy, but the Lord Chancellor could almost have sworn that the young man was laughing at him. At dinner he had had that feeling at times of being talked about. He had glanced along the table to discover the Captain and a rather plain woman. That idiot Timber's wife, she probably was, with their heads together looking up at him quite definitely and both manifestly pleased by something Douglas was telling her. What was it Douglas had said in the train? Something like a threat? But the exact words had slipped the Lord Chancellor's memory. The Lord Chancellor's preoccupation was just sufficient to make him a little unwary. He drifted into grappling distance of Mrs. Rampound Pilby. Her voice caught him like a lasso and drew him in. Well, and how is Lord Mageridge now? she asked. What on earth is one to say to such an impertinence? She was always like that. She spoke to a man of the caliber of Lord Bacon as though she was speaking to a schoolboy home for the holidays. She had an invincible air of knowing all through everybody. It gave rather confidence to her work than charm to her manner. Do you still go on with your philosophy, she said? No. shouted the Lord Chancellor. Losing all self-control for the moment and waving his eyebrows about madly. No. I go off with it. For your vacations? A. Lord Mageridge. How I envy you great lawyers for your long vacations. I never get a vacation. Always we poor authors are pursued by our creations. Sometimes it's typescript. Sometimes it's proof. Not that I really complain of proofs. I confess to a weakness for proofs. Sometimes, alas, it's criticism. Such undisserting criticism. The Lord Chancellor began to think very swiftly of some tremendous lie that would enable him to escape at once without incivility from Lady Laxton's drawing-room. Then he perceived that Mrs. Rampound Pilby was asking him is that the Captain Douglas or his brother who's in love with the actress-woman? The Lord Chancellor made no answer. What he thought was great silly idiot. How should I know? I think it must be the one. The one who had to leave porch-mouth and disgrace because of the raging scandal. He did nothing there, they say, but organized practical jokes. Some of them were quite subtle practical jokes. He's a cousin of our hostess. That perhaps accounts for his presence. The Lord Chancellor's comment betrayed the drift of his thoughts. He'd better not try that sort of thing on here, he said. I abominate clowning. Drawing-room did not last very long. Even Lady Laxton could not miss the manifest gloom of her principal guest. And after the good-night and barley-water and lemonade on the great landing, Sir Peter led Lord Marderidge by the arm. He hated being led by the arm but still spacious apartment that was called the study. The Lord Chancellor was now very thirsty. He was not used to abstinence of any sort, but Sir Peter's way of suggesting a drink roused such a fury of resentment in him that he refused tertially and conclusively. There was nobody else in the study but Captain Douglas, who seemed to hesitate upon the verge of some familiar address, and Lord Woodenhouse, who was thirsty too, and held a vast tumbler of whiskey and soda with a tinkle of ice in it, on his knee in a way annoying to a parched man. The Lord Chancellor helped himself to a cigar and assumed the middle of the fireplace with an air of contentment but he could feel the self-control running out of the heels of his boots. Sir Peter, after a quite unsuccessful invasion of his own hearth-rug, the Lord Chancellor stood like a rock, secured the big arm-chair, stuck his feet out towards his distinguished guest and resumed a talk that he had been holding with Lord Woodenhouse about firearms. Margelson had as usual been too attentive to his master's glass, and the fine edge was off Sir Peter's deference. I always have carried firearms, he said, and I always shall. Used properly they are a great protection, even in the country, how are you to know who you're going to run up against anyway? But you might shoot and hit something, said Douglas. Properly used. I said, properly used. Whipping out a revolver at a man. That's not properly used. Almost as bad as pointing it at him, which is pretty certain to make him fly straight at you if he's got an ounce of pluck. But I said properly used, and I mean properly used. The Lord Chancellor tried to think about that article on infinities while appearing to listen to this fool's talk. He used revolvers. Armed with such eyebrows as his it was natural for him to despise revolvers. Now I've got some nice little barkers upstairs, said Sir Peter. I'd almost welcome a burglar just to try them. If you shoot a burglar, said Lord Woodenhouse, abruptly with a gust of that ill temper that was frequent at chance towards bedtime, when he's not attacking you it's murder. Sir Peter held up an offensively pacifying hand. I know that, he said. You'd needn't tell me that. He raised his voice a little to increase his already excessive accentuations. I said properly used. Ion took the Lord Chancellor unaware, and he caught it dexterously with his hand. Then he saw Douglas hastily pull at his little blonde mustache to conceal a smile. Grinning ape. What was there to smile at? The man had been smiling all the evening. Up to something? Now let me tell you, said Sir Peter. Let me tell you the proper way to use a revolver. You whip it out and instantly let fly at the ground. You should never let anyone see a revolver ever before they hear it. See? You let fly at the ground first off. And the concussion stuns them. It doesn't stun you. You expect it. They don't. See? There you are. Five shots left. Master of the situation. I think Sir Peter I'll bid you good night, said the Lord Chancellor, allowing his eye to rest for one covetous moment on the decanter and struggling with the devil of pride. Sir Peter made a gesture of extreme friendliness from his chair, expressive of the Lord Chancellor's freedom to do whatever he pleased at chance. I may perhaps tell you a little story that happened once in a while. My eyes won't keep open any longer, said Captain Douglas suddenly, with a whirl of his knuckles into his sockets and stood up. Lord Woodenhouse stood up too. You see, said Sir Peter, standing also but sticking to his subject and his hearer, this was when I was younger than I am now. You must understand, there is no doubt about a bit between business and pleasure. Under such circumstances one goes into parts of a foreign town where one wouldn't go if one was older and wiser. Captain Douglas left Sir Peter and Woodenhouse to it. He emerged on the landing and selected one of the lighted candlesticks upon the table. Lord, he whispers, in soliloquy, and then perceived the Lord Chancellor regarding him with suspicion and his favour from the ascending staircase. He attempted ease. For the first time since the train incident, he addressed Lord Muggeridge. I gather, my lord, don't believe in ghosts, he said. No, sir, said the Lord Chancellor. I don't. They won't trouble me tonight. They won't trouble any of us. Fine old house anyhow, said Captain Douglas. The Lord Chancellor disdained to reply. He went on his way upstairs. Sub Chapter 4 When the Lord Chancellor sat down before the thoughtful fire in the fine old panelled room assigned to him, he perceived that he was too disturbed to sleep. This was going to be an infernal weekend. The worst weekend he had ever had. Mrs. Rampound Pilby maddened him. Timber, who was a pragmatist, which stands in the same relation to a Hegelian that a small dog does to a large cat, exasperated him. He loathed Laxton, detested Rampound Pilby, and feared, as far as he was capable of fearing anything, Captain Douglas. There was no refuge, no soul in the house to whom he could turn for consolation and protection from these others. Slinker Bond could talk only of the affairs of the party, and the Lord Chancellor, being Lord Chancellor, long since lost any interest in the affairs of the party. Woodenhouse could talk of nothing. The women were astonishingly negligible. There were practically no pretty women. There ought always to be pretty young women for a Lord Chancellor. Pretty young women who can at least seem to listen. And he was honestly thirsty. His room was supplied only with water, stuff you used to clean your teeth, and nothing else. No good thinking about it. He decided that the best thing he could do to compose himself before turning in would be to sit down at the writing table and write a few sheets of Hegelian about that infinity article in the Hibbert. There is indeed no better consolation for a troubled mind than the Hegelian exercises. They lifted above everything. He took off his coat and sat down to this beautiful amusement. But he had scarcely written a page before his thirst became a torment. He kept thinking of that great tumbler Woodenhouse had held. Golden. Cool and stimulating. What he wanted was a good stiff whiskey and a cigar. One of Laxton's cigars. The only good thing in his entertainment so far. And then philosophy. Even as a student he had been a worker of the Teutonic type. Never abstemious. He thought of ringing and commanding these comforts and then it occurred to him that it was a little late to ring for things. Why not fetch them from the study himself? He opened his door and looked out upon the great staircase. It was a fine piece of work, that staircase. Low, broad, dignified. There seemed to be nobody about. The lights were still on. He listened for a little while and went with a soft swiftness that was still quite dignified downstairs to the study. The study Redolent of Sir Peter. He made his modest collection. Lord Margarage came near to satisfaction as he emerged from the study that night at Chaunce, then at any other moment during this ill-advised weekend. In his pocket were four thoroughly good cigars. In one hand he held a cut glass decanter of whiskey. In the other a capaceous tumbler. Under his arm, with that confidence in the unlimited portative power of his arm that nothing could shake, he had tucked the siphon. His soul rested upon the edge of tranquility like a bird that has escaped the fowler. He was already composing his next sentence about that new variety of infinity. Then something struck him from behind and impelled him forward a couple of faces. It was something hairy, something in the nature, he thought afterwards, of a worn broom. And also there were two other things, softer and a little higher on each side. Then it was he made that noise like the young of some large animal. He dropped the glass in a hasty attempt to save the siphon. What in the name of heaven he cried and found himself alone. Captain Douglas, the thought leapt to his mind. But indeed it was not Captain Douglas, it was Bealby. Bealby in panic flight from Thomas. And how was Bealby to know that this large, richly laden man was the Lord Chancellor of England? Never before had Bealby seen anyone in evening dress except a butler. And so he supposed this was just some larger, finer kind of butler that they kept upstairs. Some larger, finer kind of butler blocking the path of escape. Bealby had taken in the situation with the rapidity of a hunted animal. The massive form blocked the door to the left. In the playground of the village school Bealby had been preeminent for his dodging. He moved as quickly as a lizard. His little hands, his head, poised with the skill of a practised butter, came against that mighty back, and then Bealby had dodged into the study. But it seemed to Lord Margaridge, staggering over his broken glass and circling about defensively, that this fearful indignity could come only from Captain Douglas. Fullery, blub, blub, sham poltergeist, imbeciles. He said as much, believing that this young man and possibly Confederates were within hearing. He said as much, hotly. He went on to remark of an unphilosophical tendency about Captain Hurley, and about army officers, practical joking, Laxton's hospitalities, chants, Thomas, you will remember, heard him. Nothing came of it. No answer. Not a word of apology. At last in a great dungeon and with a kind of wariness about his bag, the Lord Chancellor, with things more spoiled for him than ever, went on his way upstairs. When the green bay's door opened behind him, he turned like a shot, and a large foolish-faced butler appeared. Lord Margaridge, with a scepter-like motion of the decanter, very quietly and firmly asked him a simple question, and then the lunatic must needs leap up three stairs and dive suddenly and upsettingly at his legs. Lord Margaridge was paralyzed with amazement. His legs were struck from under him. He uttered one brief topographical cry. To Sir Peter, unfortunately, it sounded like help. For a few seconds the impressions that rushed upon Lord Margaridge were too rapid for adequate examination. He had a compelling fancy butler. Things culminated in a pistol shot, and then he found himself sitting on the landing beside a disgracefully disheveled man-servant, and his host was running downstairs to them with a revolver in his hand. On occasion Lord Margaridge could produce a tremendous voice. He did so now. For a moment he stared panting at Sir Peter, emphasized by a pointing finger came the voice. Never had it been so charged with emotion. What does this mean, you, sir? he shouted. What does this mean? It was exactly what Sir Peter had intended to say. Sub Chapter 5 Explanations are detestable things. And anyhow it isn't right to address your host as you, sir. Sub Chapter 6 Throughout the evening the persuasion had grown in Lady Laxton's mind that all was not going well with the Lord Chancellor. It was impossible to believe he was enjoying himself, but she did not know how to give things a turn for the better. Clever women would have known, but she was clever that she did not even try. Thing after thing had gone wrong. How was she to know that there were two sorts of philosophy, quite different? She had thought philosophy was philosophy. But it seemed that there were these two sorts, if not more, a round, large sort that talked about the absolute and was scornfully superior and rather terrible. And a jabby pointed sort that called people tender or tough and was generally much too familiar. To bring them together was just mixing trouble. There ought to be little books for hostesses explaining these things. Then it was extraordinary that the Lord Chancellor, who was so tremendously large and clever, wouldn't go and talk to Mrs. Rampound who was also so tremendously large and clever. Repeatedly, Lady Laxton had tried to get them into touch with one another. Until at last the Lord Chancellor had said distinctly and deliberately when she had suggested his going across to the imminent writer, God forbid. Her dream of a large, clever duologue that she could afterwards recall with together shattered. She thought the Lord Chancellor uncommonly hard to please. These weren't the only people for him. Why couldn't he chat party secrets with Slinker Bond or say things to Lord Woodenhouse? You could say anything you liked to Lord Woodenhouse or talk with Mr. Timber. Mrs. Timber had given him an excellent opening. She had asked, wasn't it a dreadful anxiety always to have the great seal to mind? He had simply grunted. And then why did he keep on looking so dangerously at Captain Douglas? Perhaps tomorrow things would take a turn for the better. One can at least be hopeful even if one is not clever, one can be that. From such thoughts as these it was that this unhappy hostess was riled by a sound of smashing glass, a rumpus, and a pistol shot. She stood up. She laid her hand on her heart. She said, oh, and gripped her dressing table for support. After a long time and when it seemed that it was now nothing more than a hubbub of voices in which her husbands could be distinguished clearly, she crept out very softly upon the upper landing. She perceived her cousin, Captain Douglas, looking extremely fair and frail and untrustworthy in a much too gorgeous kimono dressing gown of embroidered Japanese silk. I can assure you, my lord, he was saying in a strange, high-pitched, deliberate voice, on my word of honour as a soldier, that I know absolutely nothing about it. Sure it wasn't all imagination, my lord, Sir Peter asked with his inevitable infelicity. She decided to lean over the ball of strutting and asked very quietly and clearly, Lord Margaret, please, is anything the matter? Sub-Chapter 7 All human beings are egotists, but there is no egotism to compare with the egotism of the very young. Bilby was so much the centre of his world that he was incapable of any interpretation of this shouting and uproar, this smashing of decanters and firing of pistol shots, except in reference to himself. He supposed it to be a hue and cry. He supposed that he was being hunted, hunted by a pack of great butlers hounded on by the irreparably injured Thomas. The thought of upstairs gentle-folks passed quite out of his mind. He snatched up a faked Syrian dagger that lay in the capacity of a paper knife on the study-table, concealed himself under the chinst valence of a sofa, adjusted its rumpled skirts neatly, and awaited the issue of events. For a time, events did not issue. They remained talking noisily upon the great staircase. Bilby could not hear what was said, but most of what was said appeared to be flat contradiction. Perchance, whispered Bilby to himself, gathering courage, perchance we have eluded them, a breathing space. At last a woman's voice mingled with the others and seemed a little to assuage them. Then it seemed to Bilby that they were dispersing to beat the house for him. Good night, again, then, said someone. That puzzled him. But he decided it was a blind. He remained very, very still. He heard a clicking in the apartment. The blue parlor it was called between the study and the dining-room. Electric light? Then someone came into the study. Bilby's eye was as close to the ground as he could get it. He was breathless. He moved his head with circumspection. The valence was translucent but not transparent. Below it there was a crack of vision, a strip of carpet, the casters of chairs. Among these things he perceived feet, not ankles. It did not go up to that, but just feet. Large, flatish feet. A pair. They stood still Bilby's hand lighted on the hilt of his dagger. The person above the feet seemed to be surveying the room or reflecting. Drunk. All fools either drunk or mad. That's about the truth of it, said a voice. Mergalson. Angry, but parody and unmistakable. The feet went across to the table and there were faint sounds of refreshment, discreetly administered. Then a moment of profound stillness. Ah! said the voice at last. A voice renewed. Then the feet went to the passage door, halted in the doorway. There was a double click. The lights went out. Bilby was in absolute darkness. Then a distant door closed and silence followed upon the dark. Mr. Mergalson descended to a pantry ablaze with curiosity. The Lord Chancellor's going dotting, said Mr. Mergalson. Replying to the inevitable question, that's what's up. I tried to save the Blessed Siphon, said Mr. Mergalson. Pursuing his narrative. And he sprang on me like a leopard. I suppose he thought I wanted to take it away from him. He'd broke a glass or a glass or a glass. He'd broke a glass already. Oh! I don't know. There it was. Lying on the landing. Here's where he bit my hand, said Mr. Mergalson. A curious little sight if you occurred to Thomas. Where's young kicker all this time, he asked? Lord, said Mr. Mergalson. All them other things. They clean drove him out of my head. I suppose he's up there, hiding somewhere. He paused. As I consulted the eye of Thomas. He's got behind a curtain or something, said Mr. Mergalson. Where where he can have got to, said Mr. Mergalson. Can't be bothered about him, said Mr. Mergalson. I expect he'll sneak down to his room when things are quiet, said Thomas, after reflection. No good going and looking for him now, said Mr. Mergalson. Things upstairs. They got to settle down. But in the small hours Mr. Mergalson awakened and thought of Bealby and wondered whether he was in bed. This became so great and uneasiness that about the hour of dawn he got up and went along the passage of Bealby's compartment. Bealby was not there and his bed had not been slept in. That sinister sense of gathering misfortunes which comes to all of us at times in the small hours was so strong in the mind of Mr. Mergalson that he went on and told Thomas of this disconcerting fact. Thomas woke with difficulty and rather crossly, but sat up at last after the gravity of Mr. Mergalson's mood. If he's found hiding about upstairs after all this upset, said Mr. Mergalson, and left the rest of his sentence to a sympathetic imagination. Now it's light, said Mr. Mergalson, after a slight pause. I think we better just go round and have a look for him, both of us. So Thomas clad himself provisionally upstairs very softly and began a series of furtive sweeping movements, very much in the spirit of Lord Kitchener's historical sweeping movements in the Transvaal, through the stately old rooms in which Bealby must be lurking. Sub Chapter 8 Man is the most restless of animals. There is an incessant urgency in his nature. And he is well off. And so it was that Bealby's comparative security under the sofa became presently too irksome to be endured. He seemed to himself to stay there for ages, but as a matter of fact he stayed there only twenty minutes. Then with eyes tempered to the darkness he first struck out an alert, attentive head, then crept out and remained for the space of half a minute on all fours surveying the indistinct blackness about him. Then he knelt up. Then he stood up. Then with arms extended and cautious steps he began an exploration of the apartment. The passion for exploration grows with what it feeds upon. Presently Bealby was feeling his way into the blue parlor and then round by its shuttered and curtained windows to the dining-room. His head was now full of the idea of some shelter more permanent, less pervious to housemaids than that sofa. He knew enough now of domestic routines to know that upstairs in the early morning was much routed by housemaids. He found many perplexing turns and corners and finally got into the dining-room fireplace where it was very dark and kicked against some fire-irons. That made his heart beat fast for a time. Then groping on past it he found in the darkness what few people could have found in the day. The stud that released the panel that hid the opening of the way that led to the priest-hole. He felt the thing open and halted perplexed. In that corner there wasn't a ray of light. For a long time he was trying to think what this opening could be. And then he concluded it was some sort of back way from downstairs. Well, anyhow it was all exploring. With an extreme gingerliness he got himself through the panel. He closed it almost completely behind him. Careful investigation brought him to the view that he was in a narrow passage of brick or stone that came in a score of paces to a spiral staircase going both up and down. Up this he went and presently breathed cool night air and had a glimpse of stars through a narrow slit-like window almost blocked by ivy. What was very disagreeable something scampered. When Bilby's heart recovered he went on up again. He came to the priest-hole a capacious cell six feet square with a bench-bed and a little table and chair. It had a small door upon the stairs that was open and a niche covered. Here he remained for a time. Then restlessness made him explore a cramped passage. He had to crawl along it for some yards. That came presently into a curious space with wood on one side and stone on the other. Then ahead, most blessed thing, he saw light. He went blundering toward it and then stopped appalled. From the other side of this wooden wall the right of him had come a voice. Come in, said the voice, a rich, masculine voice that seemed scarcely two yards away. Bilby became rigid. Then after a long interval he moved as softly as he could. The voice soliloquized. Bilby listened intently and then when all was still again crept forward two paces more towards the gleam. It was a peephole. The unseen speaker was walking about. Bilby listened and the sound of his beating heart mingled with the pad-pad of slippered footsteps. Then with a brilliant effort his eye was at the chink. All was still again. For a time he was perplexed by what he saw. A large pink shining dome against a deep greenish-gray background. At the base of the dome was a kind of interrupted hedge, brown and leafless. Then he realized that he was looking at the top of a head and two enormous eyebrows. The rest was hidden. Nature surprised Bilby into a penetrating sniff. Now, said the occupant of the room suddenly he was standing up. Bilby saw a long hairy neck sticking out of a dressing gown and walking to the side of the room. I won't stand it, said the great voice. I won't stand it, apes foolery. Then the Lord Chancellor began rapping at the paneling about his apartment. Hollow. It all sounds hollow. Only after a long interval did Bilby presume his writing. All night long that rat behind the Wainscott troubled the Lord Chancellor. Whenever he spoke, whenever he moved about, it was still. Whenever he composed himself to write it began to rustle and blunder. Again and again it sniffed. An annoying kind of sniff. At last the Lord Chancellor gave up his philosophical relaxation and went to bed. Turned out the lights and attempted sleep. But this only intensified his sense of an uneasy sniffing presence close to him. When the light was out it seemed to him that this thing, whatever it was, instantly came into the room and set the floor creaking and snapping. A thing perpetually attempting something and perpetually thwarted. The Lord Chancellor did not sleep a wink. The first feeble infiltration of day found him sitting up in bed wearily raffled. And now surely someone was going along the passage outside. A great desire to hurt somebody very much seized upon the Lord Chancellor. Perhaps he might hurt that dismal farcer upon the landing. No doubt it was Douglas sneaking back to his own room after the night's efforts. The Lord Chancellor slipped on his dressing gown of purple silk. Very softly indeed did he open his bedroom door and very warily peep out. He heard the soft pad of feet upon the staircase. He crept across the broad passage of beautiful old ballast routing. Down below he saw Murgleson. Murgleson again in a shameful dishevel going like a snake, like a slinking cat, like an assassin into the door of the study. Rage filled the great man's soul. Gathering up the skirt of his dressing gown he started in a swift yet noiseless pursuit. He followed Murgleson through the little parlour and into the dining-room. And then he saw it all. There was a panel open and Murgleson very cautiously going in. Of course they had got at him through the priest-hole. They had been playing on his nerves. All night they had been doing it. No doubt in relays the whole house was in this conspiracy. With his eyebrows spread like the wings of a fighting cock the Lord Chancellor in five vast noiseless strides had crossed the intervening space and gripped the butler by his collarless shirt as he was disappearing. It was like a hawk striking a sparrow. Murgleson felt himself clutched, glanced over his shoulder and seeing that fierce familiar face again close to his own, pitiless, vindictive, lost all sense of human dignity and yelled like a lost soul. Sub-Chapter 9 Sir Peter Laxton was awakened from an uneasy sleep by the opening of the dressing-room door that connected his room with his wife. He sat up astonished and stared at her white face. Its pallor exaggerated by the cold light of dawn. Peter, she said, I'm sure there's something more going on. Something more going on? Something shouting and swearing. You don't mean she nodded. The Lord Chancellor, she said, in an awe-stricken whisper, he's added again downstairs in the dining-room. Sir Peter seemed disposed at first to receive this quite passively. He said, I'm sure there's something more going on quite passively. Then he flashed into extravagant wrath. I'm damned, he cried, jumping violently out of bed. If I'm going to stand this, not if he was a hundred Lord Chancellors. He's turning the place into a ballet lunatic asylum. Once one might excuse but to start in again, what's that? What? They both stood still listening. Faintly yet quite distinctly came the agonized cry of some imperfectly educated person. Help! Here. Where's my trousers? cried Sir Peter. He's murdering Murgleson. There isn't a moment to lose. Sub Chapter Until Sir Peter returned, Lady Laxton sat quite still, just as he had left her on his bed, aghast. She could not even pray. The sun had still to rise. The room was full of that cold, weak, inky light, light without warmth, knowledge without faith, existence without courage that creeps in before the day. She waited. In such a mood women have waited for massacre. Downstairs a raucous shouting. She thought of her happy childhood upon the Yorkshire Wolves, before the idea of weekend parties had entered her mind. The heather, the little birds, kind things, a tear ran down her cheek. Sub Chapter Then Sir Peter stood before her again, alive still, but breathless and greatly ruffled. She put her hands to her heart. She would be brave. Yes, she said, tell me. He's as mad as a hatter, said Sir Peter. She nodded for more. She knew that. Has he killed anyone, she whispered? He looked uncommonly like trying, said Sir Peter. She nodded, her lips tightly compressed. Says Douglas will either have to leave the house or he does. But Douglas, I know, but he won't hear a word. But why Douglas? I tell you he's as mad as a hatter. Persecution mania. People tapping and bells ringing under his pillow all night. That sort of idea. And furious. I tell you, he frightened me. He was awful. He's given Myrtleson a black eye. Hit him, you know, with his fist. Caught him in the passage to the priest-hole. How they got there, I don't know, or him like a madman. But what has Douglas done? I know, I asked him, but he won't listen. He's just off his head. Says Douglas has got the whole household trying to work a ghost on him. I tell you, he's off his nut. Husband and wife looked at each other. Of course, if Douglas didn't mind just going off to oblige me, said Sir Peter, at last. It might calm him, he explained. You see, it's all so infernally awkward. Is he back in his room? Yes. Waiting for me to decide about Douglas. Walking up and down. For a little while their minds remained prostrate and inactive. They'd been so looking forward to the lunch, she said, with a joyless smile. The country. She could not go on. You know, said Sir Peter, one thing, I'll see to it myself. I won't have him have a single drop of liquor more if we have to search his room. What I shall say to him at breakfast, she said, I don't know. Sir Peter reflected. There's no earthly reason why you should be brought into it at all. Your line is to know nothing about it. Show him you know nothing about it. Ask him. Ask him if he's had a good night. End of chapter 2. Recording by narrator J.