The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 161, May 1904

by Various

CHAPTER II.—HOW I BECAME DESTINED FOR THE STAGE.

arose one September morning, my heart leaping with some vague thought of coming joy. It was eight o'clock. I pressed my forehead against the window-panes and gazed out, looking at I know not what. I had been roused with a start in the midst of a beautiful dream, and I rushed towards the light, as if in the hope of finding in the infinite space of the grey sky some explanation of the feelings that possessed me—the anxiety, and yet the bliss, of expectation. Expectation of what? I could not have answered that question then, any more than after much reflection I can do so now. I was on the eve of my fourteenth birthday, and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled for me.

"I HAD BEEN ROUSED WITH A START IN THE MIDST OF A BEAUTIFUL DREAM."

From a Drawing by G. Clairin.

As if hypnotized by what was taking place in my mind, I remained with my forehead pressed against the window-pane, gazing in imagination through the halo of vapour formed by my breath at houses, palaces, carriages, jewels, pearls, which passed in fantasy before my eyes. Oh! what pearls there were! And there were princes and kings also; yes, I saw even kings! Oh! how fast imagination travels when left by its enemy, reason, free to roam alone! In my fancy I proudly rejected the princes, I rejected the kings, I refused the pearls and the palaces, and I declared that I was going to be a nun. For in the infinite grey sky I had caught a glimpse of the convent of Grand Champ, of my white bedroom, and of the small lamp that swung to and fro above the little Virgin which our hands had decorated with flowers. The king offered me a throne, but I preferred the throne of our Mother Superior, and I entertained a vague ambition to occupy it on some distant day. The king was heart-broken and dying of despair. Yes, mon Dieu! I preferred to the pearls that were offered me by princes the pearls of the rosary I was telling with my fingers; and no costume could compete in my mind with the black barège veil that fell like a soft shadow over the snowy white cambric that encircled the beloved faces of the nuns of Grand Champ.

I do not know how long I had been dreaming thus when I heard my mother's voice asking our old servant, Marguerite, if I were awake. With one bound I was back in bed, and I buried my face under the sheet. Mamma half-opened the door very gently and I pretended to wake up.

"How lazy you are to-day!" she said. I kissed her, and answered in a coaxing tone, "It is Thursday, and I have no music lesson."

"And are you glad?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," I replied, promptly.

My mother frowned; she adored music, and I hated the piano. She was so fond of music that, although she was then nearly thirty, she took lessons herself in order to encourage me to practise. What horrible torture it was! I used very wickedly to do my utmost to set at variance my mother and my music mistress. They were both of them excessively short-sighted. When my mother had practised a new piece three or four days she knew it by heart, and played it fairly well, to the astonishment of Mlle. Clarisse, my insufferable old teacher, who held the music in her hand and read every note with her nose nearly touching the page. One day I heard, with joy, a quarrel beginning between mamma and this disagreeable person, Mlle. Clarisse.

"There, that's a quaver!"

"No, there's no quaver!"

"This is a flat!"

"No, you forget the sharp! How absurd you are!" added my mother, perfectly furious.

A few minutes later my mother went to her room and Mlle. Clarisse departed, muttering as she left.

As for me, I was choking with laughter in my bedroom, for one of my cousins, who was very musical, had helped me to add sharps, flats, and quavers to the music-sheet, and we had done it with such care that even a trained eye would have had difficulty in immediately discerning the fraud. As Mlle. Clarisse had been sent off, I had no lesson that day. Mamma gazed at me a long time with her mysterious eyes—the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life—and then she said, speaking very slowly:—

"After luncheon there is to be a family council."

I felt myself turning pale.

"All right," I answered; "what frock am I to put on, mamma?" I said this merely for the sake of saying something and to keep myself from crying.

"Put on your blue silk; you look more staid in that."

Just at this moment my sister Jeanne opened the door boisterously, and with a burst of laughter jumped on to my bed and, slipping under the sheets, called out: "I'm there!" Marguerite had followed her into the room, panting and scolding. The child had escaped from her just as she was about to bath her, and had announced: "I'm going into my sister's bed." Jeanne's mirth at this moment, which I felt was a very serious one for me, made me burst out crying and sobbing. My mother, not understanding the reason of this grief, shrugged her shoulders, told Marguerite to fetch Jeanne's slippers, and, taking the little bare feet in her hands, kissed them tenderly.

MME. BERNHARDT'S SISTER, JEANNE, AT THE AGE AT WHICH SHE IS DESCRIBED IN THIS CHAPTER.

From a Photo. by Delintraz.

I sobbed more bitterly than ever. It was very evident that mamma loved my sister more than me, and this preference, which did not trouble me in an ordinary way, hurt me sorely now.

Mamma went away quite out of patience with me. The nervous state in which I was, together with my anxiety and grief, had quite exhausted me. I fell asleep again and was roused by Marguerite, who helped me to dress, as otherwise I should have been late for luncheon. The guests that day were Aunt Rosine; Mlle. de Brabender, my governess, a charming creature whom I have always regretted; my godfather, and the Duc de Morny, a great friend of my godfather and of my mother. The luncheon was a melancholy meal for me, as I was thinking all the time about the family council. Mlle. de Brabender, in her gentle way and with her affectionate words, insisted on my eating. My sister burst out laughing when she looked at me.

"Your eyes are as little as that," she said, putting her small thumb on the tip of her forefinger, "and it serves you right, because you've been crying, and mamma doesn't like anyone to cry. Do you, mamma?"

"What have you been crying about?" asked the Duc de Morny. I did not answer, in spite of the friendly nudge Mlle. de Brabender gave me with her sharp elbow. The Duc de Morny always awed me a little. He was gentle and kind, but he was a great quiz. I knew, too, that he occupied a high place at Court, and that my family considered his friendship a great honour.

"Because I told her that after luncheon there was to be a family council about her," said my mother, speaking slowly. "At times it seems to me that she is really idiotic. She quite disheartens me."

"Come, come!" exclaimed my godfather, and Aunt Rosine said something in English to the Duc de Morny which made him smile shrewdly under his fine moustache. Mlle. de Brabender scolded me in a low voice, and her scoldings were like words from Heaven. When at last luncheon was over, mamma told me, as she passed, to pour out the coffee. Marguerite helped me to arrange the cups and I went into the drawing-room.

Maître G——, the notary from Havre, whom I detested, was already there. He represented the family of my father, who had died a few years before at Pisa in a way which had never been explained, but which seemed mysterious. My childish hatred was instinctive, and I learnt later on that this man had been my father's bitter enemy. He was very, very ugly, this notary; his whole face seemed to have moved upwards. It was as though he had been hanging by his hair for a long time, and his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks, and his nose had got into the habit of trying to reach the back of his head. He ought to have had a joyful expression, as so many of his features turned up, but instead of this his face was smooth and sinister. He had red hair, planted in his head like couch grass, and on his nose he wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Oh, the horrible man! What a torturing nightmare the very memory of him is, for he was the evil genius of my father, and his hatred now pursued me!

THE HAVRE NOTARY IN HIS OFFICE. From a Drawing.

My poor grandmother, since the death of my father, never went out, but spent her time mourning the loss of her beloved son, who had died so young. She had absolute faith in this man, who, besides, was the executor of my father's will. He had the control of the money which my dear father had left me. I was not to touch it until the day of my marriage, but my mother was to use the interest for my education.

FÉLIX FAURE. From a Drawing

My uncle, Félix Faure (no relation of the late President), was also there. He was a very delightful man, handsome, too, and he had a deep, sympathetic voice. I loved him dearly, and, indeed, I love him now, although I have not seen him for a long time, as he has buried himself alive at the Grande Chartreuse, to await there, far away from the rest of the world, the time when he will rejoin those whom he loved so dearly.

Seated near the fireplace, buried in an arm-chair, M. Lesprin pulled out his watch in a querulous way. He was an old friend of the family, and he always called me "ma fil," which annoyed me greatly, as did his familiarity. He considered me stupid, and when I handed him his coffee he said, in a jeering tone: "And is it for you, ma fil, that so many honest people have been hindered in their work? We have plenty of other things to attend to, I can assure you, than to discuss the fate of a little brat like you. Ah, if it had been her sister, there would have been no difficulty," and with his benumbed fingers he patted Jeanne's head, as she sat on the floor plaiting the fringe of the sofa upon which he was seated.

When the coffee had been taken, the cups carried away, and my sister also, there was a short silence. The Duc de Morny rose to take his leave, but my mother begged him to stay. "You will be able to advise us," she urged, and the Duke took his seat again near my aunt, with whom, it seemed to me, he was carrying on a slight flirtation. Mamma had moved nearer to the window, her embroidery-frame in front of her, and her beautiful, clear-cut profile showing to advantage against the light. She looked as though she had nothing to do with what was about to be discussed. The hideous notary was standing up by the chimneypiece, and my uncle had drawn me near to him.

My godfather, Régis de L——, seemed to be the exact counterpart of M. Lesprin; they both of them had the same bourgeois mind, and were equally stubborn and obstinate. They were both devoted to whist and good wine, and they both agreed that I was thin enough for a scarecrow. The door opened and a pale, dark-haired woman entered, a most poetical-looking and charming creature. It was Mme. Guérard, "the lady of the upstairs flat," as Marguerite always called her. My mother had made friends with her, in rather a patronizing way certainly, but Mme. Guérard was devoted to me and endured the little slights to which she was treated very patiently for my sake. She was tall and slender as a lath, very compliant and demure. She had no hat on, and was wearing an indoor gown of indienne with a design of little brown leaves.

MME. GUÉRARD, THE GREAT FRIEND OF SARAH BERNHARDT WHEN A CHILD. From a Photo. by Delintraz.

M. Lesprin muttered something, I did not catch what. The abominable man gave a very curt bow, as Mme. Guérard was so simply dressed. The Duc de Morny was very gracious, for the new-comer was so pretty. My godfather merely bent his head, as Mme. Guérard was nothing to him. Aunt Rosine glanced at her from head to foot—Mme. Guérard was by no means rich. Mlle. de Brabender shook hands cordially with her, for Mme. Guérard was fond of me.

My uncle, Félix Faure, gave her a chair and asked her to sit down, and then inquired in a kindly way about her husband, a savant, with whom my uncle collaborated sometimes for his book, "The Life of St. Louis."

Mamma had merely glanced across the room without raising her head, for Mme. Guérard did not prefer my sister to me.

"Well, as we have come here on account of this child," said my godfather, looking at his watch, "we must begin and discuss what is to be done with her."

I began to tremble, and drew closer to "mon petit dame," as I had always called Mme. Guérard from my infancy, and to Mlle. de Brabender. They each took my hand by way of encouraging me.

"Yes," continued M. Lesprin, with a laugh, "it appears you want to be a nun."

"Ah, indeed?" said the Duc de Morny to Aunt Rosine.

"'Sh! Be serious," she remarked. Mamma shrugged her shoulders and held her wools up close to her eyes to match them.

"You have to be rich, though, to enter a convent," grunted the Havre notary, "and you have not a sou." I leaned towards Mlle. de Brabender and whispered, "I have the money that papa left."

The horrid man overheard.

"Your father left some money to get you married," he said.

"Well, then, I'll marry the bon Dieu," I answered, and my voice was quite resolute now. I turned very red, and for the second time in my life I felt a desire and a strong inclination to fight for myself. I had no more fear, as everyone had gone too far and provoked me too much. I slipped away from my two kind friends and advanced towards the other group.

"I will be a nun, I will!" I exclaimed. "I know that papa left me some money so that I should be married, and I know that the nuns marry the Saviour. Mamma says she does not care, it is all the same to her; so that it won't be vexing her at all, and they love me better at the convent than you do here!"

"My dear child," said my uncle, drawing me towards him, "your religious vocation appears to me to be mainly a wish to have someone to care for."

"And to be cared for herself," murmured Mme. Guérard, in a very low voice.

Everyone glanced at mamma, who shrugged her shoulders slightly. It seemed to me as though the glance they all gave her was a reproachful one, and I felt a pang of remorse at once. I went across to her and, throwing my arms round her neck, said:—

"You don't mind my being a nun, do you? It won't make you unhappy, will it?"

Mamma stroked my hair, of which she was very proud.

"Yes, it would make me unhappy. You know very well that, after your sister, I love you better than anyone else in the world."

She said this very slowly in a gentle voice. It was like the sound of a little waterfall as it flows down, babbling and clear, from the mountain, dragging with it the gravel, and gradually increasing in volume, with the thawed snow, until it sweeps away rocks and trees in its course. This was the effect my mother's clear, drawling voice had upon me at that moment. I rushed back impulsively to the others, who were all speechless at this unexpected and spontaneous burst of eloquence. I went from one to the other, explaining my decision, and giving reasons which were certainly no reasons at all. I did my utmost to get someone to support me in the matter. Finally the Duc de Morny was bored, and rose to go.

"Do you know what you ought to do with this child?" he said. "You ought to send her to the Conservatoire." He then patted my cheek, kissed my aunt's hand, and bowed to all the others. As he bent over my mother's hand, I heard him say to her, "You would have made a bad diplomatist, but take my advice and send her to the Conservatoire."

He then took his departure, and I gazed at everyone in perfect anguish.

The Conservatoire! What was it? What did it mean?

I went up to my governess, Mlle. de Brabender. Her lips were firmly pressed together, and she looked shocked, just as she did sometimes when my godfather told, at table, some story of which she did not approve. My uncle, Félix Faure, was looking at the floor in an absent-minded way; the notary had a spiteful look in his eyes; my aunt was holding forth in a very excited manner; and M. Lesprin kept shaking his head and muttering, "Perhaps—yes—who knows? Hum! hum!" Mme. Guérard was very pale and sad, and she looked at me with infinite tenderness.

What could be this Conservatoire? The word uttered so carelessly seemed to have entirely disturbed the equanimity of all these people. Each of them seemed to me to have a different impression about it, but none looked pleased. Suddenly, in the midst of the general embarrassment, my godfather exclaimed, brutally:—

"She is too thin to make an actress."

"I won't be an actress!" I exclaimed.

"You don't know what an actress is," said my aunt.

"Oh, yes, I do. Rachel is an actress!"

"You know Rachel?" asked mamma, getting up.

"Oh, yes; she came to the convent once to see little Adèle Sarony. She went all over the convent and into the garden, and she had to sit down because she could not get her breath. They fetched her something to bring her round, and she was so pale—oh, so pale! I was very sorry for her, and Sister Appoline told me that what she did was killing her, for she was an actress, and so I won't be an actress, I won't!"

I had said all this in a breath, with my cheeks on fire and my voice hard.

I remembered all that Sister Appoline had told me, and Mother Sainte-Sophie, too, the Superior of the convent. I remembered, too, that when Rachel had gone out of the garden, looking very pale and holding a lady's arm for support, a little girl had put her tongue out at her. I did not want people to put out their tongues at me when I was grown up. There were a hundred other things, too, to which I objected, and about which I have only a vague memory now.

My godfather laughed heartily, but my uncle was very grave. The others discussed the matter in a very excited way with my mother, who looked weary and bored. Mlle. de Brabender and Mme. Guérard were arguing in a low voice, and I thought of the aristocratic man who had just left us. I was very angry with him, for this idea of the Conservatoire was his. "Conservatoire!" This word frightened me. It was he who wanted me to be an actress, and now he had disappeared, and I could not talk the matter over with him. He had gone away smiling and tranquil, patting my head in the most ordinary yet friendly way. He had gone off without troubling a straw about the poor little, meagre child whose future was being discussed. "Send her to the Conservatoire," and this phrase, that had come to his lips so easily, was like a veritable bomb hurled into my life. I, the little, dreamy child, who that morning had rejected princes and kings; I, whose trembling fingers had only that morning told over whole rosaries of dreams and fancies; I, who only a few hours before had felt my heart beat wildly with some inexplicable emotion, and who had got up expecting some great event to happen during the day! Everything had given way under that phrase, which seemed as heavy as lead and as murderous as a cannon-ball. Send her to the Conservatoire!

I guessed somehow that that phrase was destined to be the finger-post of my life. All these people had stopped at the bend of the road where there were crossways.

Send her to the Conservatoire! I wanted to be a nun, and they all thought that absurd, idiotic, unreasonable. Those words, "Send her to the Conservatoire," had opened up a new field of discussion, widened the horizon of the future. My uncle, Félix Faure, and Mlle. de Brabender were the only ones who disapproved of this idea, but they were in the minority—a passive minority which felt for me. I got very nervous and excited, and my mother sent me away. Mlle. de Brabender tried to console me. Mme. Guérard said that this career had its advantages. Mlle. de Brabender considered that the convent would have a great fascination for so dreamy a nature as mine. The one was very religious and a great church-goer, and the other was a pagan in the purest acceptation of that word, and yet the two women got on very well together, thanks to their affectionate devotion to me.

Mme. Guérard adored the proud rebelliousness of my nature, my pretty face, and the slenderness of my figure; Mlle. de Brabender was touched by my delicate health. She spent no end of time trying to smooth my refractory hair. She endeavoured to comfort me when I was jealous at not being loved as much as my sister; but what she liked best about me was my voice. She always declared that my voice was modulated for prayers, and my delight in the convent appeared to her quite natural. She loved me with a gentle, pious affection, and Mme. Guérard loved me with bursts of paganism. These two women, whose memory is still dear to me, shared me between them, and made the best of my good qualities and my faults. I certainly owe to both of them this study of myself and the vision I have of myself.

The day was destined to end in the strangest of fashions. Mme. Guérard had gone back to her apartment upstairs, and I was lying back on a little straw arm-chair, which was the most ornamental piece of furniture in my room. I felt very drowsy, and was holding Mlle. de Brabender's hand in mine when the door opened and my aunt entered, followed by my mother. I can see them now—my aunt in her dress of puce silk trimmed with fur, her brown velvet hat tied under her chin with long, wide strings, and mamma, who had taken off her dress and put on a white woollen dressing-gown. She always detested keeping on her dress in the house, and I understood by her change of costume that everyone had gone and that my aunt was ready to leave. I got up from my arm-chair, but mamma made me sit down again.

"Rest yourself thoroughly," she said, "for we are going to take you to the theatre this evening—to the Français."

THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS, TO WHICH SARAH BERNHARDT WAS TAKEN TO SEE HER FIRST PLAY WHEN HER DESTINY FOR THE STAGE HAD BEEN DECIDED. From a Photo.

I felt sure that this was just a bait, and I would not show any sign of pleasure, although in my heart I was delighted at the idea of going to the Français. The only theatre I knew anything of was the Robert Houdin, to which I was taken sometimes with my sister, and I fancy that it was for her benefit we went, as I was really too old to care for that kind of performance.

"Will you come with us?" mamma said, turning to Mlle. de Brabender.

"Willingly, madame," she replied. "I will go home and change my dress."

My aunt laughed at my sullen looks.

"Little fraud," she said, as she went away, "you are hiding your delight. Ah, well, you will see some actresses to-night."

"Is Rachel going to act?" I asked.

"Oh, no; she is ill."

My aunt kissed me and went away, saying she should see me again later on, and my mother followed her out of the room. Mlle. de Brabender then prepared to leave me, as she had to go home to dress, and to say that she would not be in until quite late. She lived at a convent where old maids and widows were taken as boarders, and special permission had to be obtained when one wished to be out later than ten at night. When I was alone I swung myself backwards and forwards in my arm-chair, which, by the way, was anything but a rocking chair. I began to think, and for the first time in my life my critical comprehension came to my aid. And so all these serious people had been inconvenienced, the notary fetched from Havre, my uncle dragged away from working at his book, the old bachelor, M. Lesprin, disturbed in his habits and customs, my godfather kept away from the Stock Exchange, and that aristocratic and sceptical Duc de Morny cramped up for two hours in the midst of our bourgeois surroundings, and all to end in this decision: she shall be taken to the theatre!

I do not know what part my uncle had taken in this burlesque plan, but I doubt whether it was to his taste. All the same, I was glad to go to the theatre; it made me feel more important. That morning on waking up I was quite a child, and now events had taken place which had transformed me into a young woman. I had been discussed by everyone, and I had expressed my wishes—without any result, certainly; but all the same I had expressed them, and now it was deemed necessary to humour and indulge me in order to win me over. They could not force me into agreeing to what they wanted me to do; my consent was necessary; and I felt so joyful and so proud about it that I was quite touched and almost ready to yield. I said to myself that it would be better to hold my own and let them ask me again.

After dinner we all squeezed into a cab—mamma, my godfather, Mlle. de Brabender, and I. My godfather made me a present of some white gloves.

THE HALL AND STAIRCASE OF THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS.

On mounting the steps at the Français I trod on a lady's dress. She turned round and called me a "stupid child." I moved back hastily and came into collision with a very stout old gentleman, who gave me a rough push forward, so that I felt inclined to burst out crying.

THE BOXES OF THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS, FROM ONE OF WHICH SARAH BERNHARDT SAW HER FIRST PLAY.

When once we were all installed in a box facing the stage, mamma and I in the first row, with Mlle. de Brabender behind me, I felt more reassured. I was close against the partition of the box, and I could feel Mlle. de Brabender's sharp knees through the velvet of my chair. This gave me confidence, and I leaned against the back of the chair, purposely to feel the support of those two knees.

When the curtain slowly rose I thought I should have fainted. It was as though the curtain of my future life were being raised. Those columns ("Britannicus" was being played) were to be my palaces, the friezes above were to be my skies, and those boards were to bend under my frail weight. I heard nothing of "Britannicus," for I was far, far away, at Grand Champ, in my dormitory there.

"Well, what do you think of it?" asked my godfather, when the curtain fell. I did not answer, and he laid his hand on my head and turned my face round towards him. I was crying, and big tears were rolling slowly down my cheeks, the kind of tears that come without any sobs and as if there were no hope that they would ever cease.

My godfather shrugged his shoulders and, getting up, left the box, banging the door after him. Mamma, losing all patience with me, proceeded to review the house through her opera-glass. Mlle. de. Brabender passed me her handkerchief, for my own had fallen, and I had not the courage to pick it up.

When the curtain rose on the second piece, "Amphitryon," I made an effort to listen, in order to please my governess, who was so kind and so conciliating. I remember only one thing about it, and that was I was so sorry for Alemène, who seemed to be so unhappy, that I burst into audible sobs, and that everyone, much amused, looked at our box. My mother was most annoyed, and promptly took me out, accompanied by Mlle. de Brabender, leaving my godfather furious. "Bon Dieu de bois!" I heard him mutter, "what an idiot the child is! They'd better put her in the convent and let her stop there."

My teeth were chattering when Mlle. de Brabender, helped by Marguerite, put me to bed. Mme. Guérard was there too; she had been listening for my return, as though foreseeing what would happen.

I did not get up again for six weeks, and only narrowly escaped dying of brain fever.

Such was the début of my artistic career.

(To be continued.)

---

LTHOUGH Watchett of the Battle-Axe and Ryder of the Star of the South were cousins, there was no great love lost between them, and all unprejudiced observers declared that this lack of mutual admiration was in no way due to Captain Ryder. That they remained friends at all was owing largely to his infinite good nature, and to the further fact that Mrs. Ryder pitied Mrs. Watchett.

"I wonder she goes to sea with him at all," she said. "If you were one quarter as horrid as your cousin, Will, I should never go to sea till you came ashore."

But she always went to sea with Will Ryder. It was their great delight to be together, and there were few men, married or single, who did not take a certain pleasure in seeing how fond they were of each other. He was a typical seaman of the best kind; he had a fine voice for singing and for hailing the foretopsail yard; his eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots, and his skin was as clear as the air on the Cordilleras which peeped at them over the tops of the barren hills which surround the Bay of Valparaiso. And Mrs. Ryder was just the kind of wife for a man who was somewhat inclined to take things easily. If she was as pretty as the peach, she had, like the peach, something inside which was not altogether soft. Her brown eyes could turn black—she had resolution and courage.

"You shall not put up with it," was a favourite expression on her tongue. And there were times, to use his own expression, when she made sail when he would have shortened it. In that sense she was certainly capable of "carrying on."

Both vessels were barques of about eleven hundred tons register, and if the Star of the South had about twenty tons to the good in size she was rather harder to work. It is the nature of ships to develop in certain ways, and though both of these barques were sister ships it is always certain that sisters are never quite alike. But as they belonged to the same Port of London, and were owned by two branches of the same family, all of whose money was divided up in sixty-fourths, according to the common rule with ships, they were rivals and rival beauties. But, unlike the more respectable ladies who owned them, both the vessels were fast, and it was a sore point of honour with Ryder and Watchett to prove their own the fastest.

"If she only worked a little easier, I could lick his head off," said Ryder, sadly.

But there was the rub. The Star of the South needed more "beef" on her than the Battle-Axe. She wasn't so quick in stays. By the time Ryder yelled "Let go and haul," the Battle-Axe was gathering headway on a fresh tack.

"And instead of having two more hands than we are allowed, we are two short," said his wife, bitterly. "If I were you, Will, I'd take those Greeks."

"Not by an entire jugful," replied Captain Ryder. "I remember the Lennie and the Caswell, my dear. I never knew Valparaiso so bare of men."

"And we're sailing to-morrow," said Connie Ryder, angrily; "and you've betted him a hundred pounds we shall dock before him. It's too bad. I wonder whether he'd give us another day?"

But Ryder shook his head.

"And you've known him for years! He's spending that money in his mind."

"But not on his wife, Will," said Mrs. Ryder. "If we win, I'm to have it."

"I'd give him twenty to let me off," said Ryder.

But Connie Ryder went on board the Battle-Axe to see if she could induce her husband's cousin to forego the advantage he had already gained before sailing. She found him dark and grim and as hard as adamant.

"A bet's a bet and business is business," said Watchett. "We appointed to-morrow, and, bar lying out a gale from the north, with two anchors down and the cables out to the bitter end, I'll sail."

His wife, who was as meek as milk, suggested humbly that it would be more interesting if he waited.

"I ain't in this for interest; I'm in it for capital," said Watchett, grinning gloomily. "The more like a dead certainty it looks the better I shall be pleased."

Mrs. Ryder darkened.

"I don't think you're a sportsman," she said, rather shortly.

"I ain't," retorted old Watchett; "I'm a seaman, and him that'd go to sea for sport would go to Davy Jones for pastime. You can tell Bill that I'll give him ten per cent. discount for cash now."

As Mrs. Ryder knew that he never called her husband "Bill" unless he desired to be more or less offensive, she showed unmistakable signs of temper.

"If I ever get half a chance to make you sorry, I will," she said.

"Let it go at that," said Watchett, sulkily. "I got on all right with Bill before you took to going to sea with him."

"He was too soft with you," said Bill's wife.

"And a deal softer with you than I'd be," said Watchett.

"Oh, please, please don't," cried Mary Watchett, in great distress.

"I thought you were a gentleman," said Connie Ryder.

"'I THOUGHT YOU WERE A GENTLEMAN,' SAID CONNIE RYDER."

"Not you," replied Watchett; "you never, and you know it. I'm not one and never hankered to be. I'm rough and tough and a seaman of the old school. I'm no sea dandy. I'm Jack Watchett, as plain as you like."

"You're much plainer than I like," retorted his cousin's wife, "very much plainer."

And though she kissed Mary Watchett she wondered greatly how any woman could kiss Mary Watchett's husband.

"If I ever get a chance," she said. "But there, how can I?"

She wept a little out of pure anger as she returned to the Star of the South. When she got on board she found the mate and second mate standing by the gangway.

"Is there no chance of these men, Mr. Semple"?

"No more than if it was the year '49 and this was San Francisco," said the mate, who was a hoary-headed old sea-dog, a great deal more like the old school than "plain Jack Watchett."

"Why doesna the captain take they Greeks, ma'am?" asked McGill, the second mate, who had been almost long enough out of Scotland to forget his own language.

"Because he doesn't like any but Englishmen," said Connie Ryder.

"And Scotch, of course," she added, as she saw McGill's jaw fall a little. "I've been trying to get Captain Watchett to give us another day."

"All our ship and cargo to a paper-bag of beans he didn't, ma'am," said Semple.

"I—I hate him," cried Connie Ryder, as she entered the cabin.

"She's as keen as mustard—as red pepper," said Semple; "if she'd been a man she'd have made a seaman."

"I've never sailed wi' a skeeper's wife before," said McGill, who had shipped in the Star of the South a week earlier, in place of the second mate, who had been given his discharge for drunkenness. "Is she at all interferin', Mr. Semple? "

Old Semple nodded.

"She interferes some, and it would be an obstinate cook that disputed with her. She made a revolution in the galley, my word, when she first came on board. Some would say she cockered the crew over-much, but I was long enough in the fo'c's'le not to forget that even a hog of a man don't do best on hogwash."

Which was a marvellous concession on the part of any of the after-guard of any ship, seeing how the notion persists among owners, and even among officers, that the worse men are treated the better they work.

"She seems a comfortable ship," owned McGill.

And so everyone on board of her allowed.

"Though she is a bit of a heart-breaker to handle," said the men for'ard. "But for that she be a daisy. And to think that the bally Battle-Axe goes about like a racing yacht!"

It made them sore to think of it. But it also made the men on board their rival sore to think how comfortable the Star of the South was in all other respects.

Owing to the fact that the Battle-Axe's crowd was sulky, the Star of the South got her anchor out of the ground and stood to the north-west to round Point Angelos a good ten minutes before Watchett's vessel was under way.

"That's good," said Connie Ryder. "I know they're a sulky lot by now in the Battle-Axe. And our men work like dears."

It was with difficulty she kept from tailing on to the braces as they jammed the Star close up to weather the Point. For the wind was drawing down the coast from the nor'ard, and Valparaiso harbour faces due north. She was glad when they rounded the Point and squared away, for if there was any real difference in the sailing qualities of the rival barques, the Star was best before the wind and the Battle-Axe when she was in a bow-line.

"And with any real luck," said Mrs. Ryder, "we may have a good fair wind all the way till we cross the line."

It was so far ahead to consider the north-east trades, which meant such mighty long stretches in a wind, that she declined to think of them. And she entirely forgot the calms of Capricorn.

"We're doing very well, Will," she said to her husband when the starboard watch went below and the routine of the passage home commenced.

"It's early days," replied Will Ryder. "I fancy the Battle-Axe is in her best trim for a wind astern."

But Mrs. Ryder didn't believe it.

"And if she is, she mayn't be so good when it comes to beating."

She knew what she was talking about and spoke good sense.

"It's going to be luck," said Ryder. "If either of us get a good slant that the other misses, the last will be out of it. But I wish I'd had those other two hands. The Star wants 'beef' on the braces. Mr. Semple, as soon as possible see all the parrals greased and the blocks running as free as you can make 'em."

And Semple did his best, as the crew did. But Mrs. Ryder had her doubts as to whether her husband was doing his. For once he seemed to think failure was a foregone conclusion.

"I think it must be his liver," said Mrs. Ryder. "I'll see to that at once."

But instead of looking up the medicine chest she came across the Pacific Directory.

"I never thought of that," she said. "He's never done it, now he shall."

She took the big book down and read one part of it eagerly.

"I don't see why not," she decided, and she went to her husband with the request that he should run through Magellan's Straits when he came to it.

"Not for dollars," said Will Ryder. "When I'm skipper of a Pacific Navigation boat I'll take you through, but not till then."

"But look at all you cut off," urged his wife, "if you get through."

"And how you are cut off if you don't," retorted Ryder. "When I was an apprentice I went through in fine weather, and I'd rather drive a 'bus down Fleet Street in a fog than try it."

She said he had very little enterprise and pouted.

"Suppose the Battle-Axe does it?"

Ryder declined to suppose it.

"John wouldn't try it if you could guarantee the weather. I know him."

"You never take my advice," said his wife.

"I love you too much," replied Will Ryder. He put his arm about her, but she was cross and pushed him away.

"This is mutiny," said the captain, smiling.

"Well, I feel mutinous," retorted Connie. "I wanted you to steal two of your cousin's men and you wouldn't. I'm sure they would have come, for what the Battle-Axe owed them. And you wouldn't. And now I want to go through the Straits and you won't. The very, very next time that I want to do anything I shall do it without asking you. Why did you bet a hundred pounds if you weren't prepared to try to win it?"

"We'll win yet," said the skipper, cheerfully, "We're only just started."

The two vessels kept company right down to the Horn, and there, between Ildefonso Island and the Diego Ramirez Islands, the Star of the South lost sight of her sister and her rival, in a dark sou'-westerly gale. With the wind astern as it was when they squared away with Cape Horn frowning to the nor'-west the Star was a shooting star, as they said for'ard.

"If we could on'y carry a gale like this right to the line, we'd 'ave a pull over the Battle-Axe, ma'am," said Silas Bagge, an old fo'c's'le man, who was Mrs. Ryder's favourite among all the crew. He was a magnificent old chap with a long white beard, which he wore tucked inside a guernsey, except in fine weather.

"But we can't; there'll be the trades," said the captain's wife, dolorously.

"I've picked up the sou'-east trade blowin' a gale, ma'am, before now," said Bagge; "years ago, in '74 or thereabouts, I was in the Secunderabad, and we crossed the line, bound south, doing eleven close-'auled, and we carried 'em to twenty-seven south latitude. There's times when it's difficult to say where the trades begin south too. Mebbe we'll be chased by such a gale as this nigh up to thirty south."

"It's hoping too much," said Mrs. Ryder.

"Hope till you bust, ma'am," said Silas Bagge. "Nothin's lost till it's won. If we can only get out of the doldrums without breaking our hearts working the ship, there's no knowing what'll 'appen. 'Twas a pity we didn't get them other two 'ands, though."

And there she agreed with him.

"'HOPE TILL YOU BUST, MA'AM,' SAID SILAS BAGGE."

"Me and Bob Condy could 'ave got Gribbs and Tidewell out of the Battle-Axe easy as easy," said Silas, regretfully. "'Twas a lost hopportunity, and there you are."

The honourable conduct of his skipper in vetoing this little game seemed no more than foolishness to Bagge.

"When we comes to the Hequator and it's 'square away' and 'brace up' every five minutes till one's 'ands are raw, 'twill be a grief to every mother's son aboard," said Bagge, as he touched his cap and went for'ard.

But now the Star of the South went booming on the outside of the Falklands with a gale that drew into the sou'-sou'-west and howled after her. She scooped up the seas at times and dipped her nose into them, and threw them apart and wallowed. The men were happy, for the fo'c's'le didn't leak, and the galley-fire was kept going every night to dry their clothes. At midnight every man got a mug of cocoa, and those that rose up called Mrs. Ryder blessed, and those that lay down agreed with them. The Star was a happy ship. There was no rule against playing the concertina on a Sunday in her fo'c's'le, and the men were not reduced to playing "blind swaps" with their oldest rags for amusement, as they were in the Battle-Axe. And yet every man in the Star knew his time for growling was coming on, with every pitch and send of the sea.

They picked up the trades in nearly 30deg. south, with only a few days of a light and variable breeze, and the trades were good.

"But where's the Battle-Axe?" asked Mrs. Ryder.

She kept a bright look-out for her, and deeply regretted that her petticoats prevented her going aloft to search the horizon for John Watchett. She rubbed her hands in hope.

"I do believe, Will, that we must be ahead of him," she declared, after the south-east trade had been steady on the Star's starboard beam for a week.

"Not much ahead," replied Will.

And just then Bob Condy, who was aloft on the foreto'gallant yard cutting off old seizings and putting on new ones, hailed the deck.

"There's a sail on the port beam, sir."

"Take a glass aloft and have a look at her, Mr. McGill," said the skipper. "No, never mind, I'll go myself, as you've never seen the Battle-Axe at sea. I know the cut of her jib, and no mistake."

So Will Ryder went up to the maintop-gallant-yard, and with his leg astride of the yard took a squint to loo'ard. He shut up the glass so quick that his wife knew at once that the distant sail was the Battle-Axe. As he came down slowly he nodded to her.

"It is?"

"Rather," said Ryder. "I'm sorry we've no stun-sails. We're carrying all we've got and all we can."

"And to think he's as good as we were on our own point of sailing!" said his wife, with the most visible vexation. "Can't you do anything to make her go faster, Will?"

"MRS. RYDER SAT ON A HEN-COOP AND NEARLY CRIED."

And when Will said he couldn't unless he got out and pushed, Mrs. Ryder sat on a hen-coop and very nearly cried. For if the Battle-Axe had done so well up to this she would do better in the dead regions of the line, and the Star would do much worse. There the want of a few more hands would tell. The Star was no good at catching cat's-paws, and short-handed she worked like an unoiled gate.

"If I'd only done what Silas Bagge wanted," she said, "we'd have been all right. To think that the want of a couple of hands should make all the difference."

It was cruelly hard, but when vessels are undermanned at any time, less than their complement means "pull devil, pull baker," with the former best at the tug of war.

For days there was nothing to choose between the vessels, save that the unusual strength of the trades gave the Star a trifling advantage. Every night Watchett took in his royals. This Ryder declined to do, though he often expected them to take themselves in.

"What did I say, ma'am?" said old Bagge. "I told you it could blow quite 'eavy in its way in the south-east trades."

And thus it happened that what the Star lost by day she pulled up by night. And presently the Battle-Axe edged up closer and at last was within hailing distance. Watchett stood on his poop with a speaking-trumpet, and roared in sombre triumph:—

"I'm as good as you this trip on your best p'int, Ryder!"

"Tell him to go to—to thunder," said Mrs. Ryder, angrily. Nevertheless, she waved her handkerchief to her enemy's wife, who was standing by "plain Jack Watchett."

"You've done mighty well," said Ryder, in his turn, "but it isn't over yet."

Jack Watchett intimated that he thought it was. He offered to double the bet. He also undertook to sail round the Star of the South in a light wind. He offered to tow her, and made himself so disagreeable that Mrs. Ryder, who knew what became a lady, went below to prevent her snatching the speaking-trumpet from her husband and saying things for which she would be sorry afterwards. But Ryder, though he was by no means a saint, kept his temper and only replied with chaff, which was much more offensive to Watchett than bad language.

"And don't be too sure," he added. "I may do you yet."

"Not you," said Watchett. "I'm cocksure."

They sailed in company for a week, and gradually, as the trade lessened in driving power, the Battle-Axe drew ahead inch by inch. And as she did Mrs. Ryder's appetite failed—she looked thin and ill.

"Don't feel it so much, chickabiddy," said her husband.

"I can't help it," sobbed Connie. "I hate your cousin. Oh, Will, if you'd only let me entice those two men from him. Bagge was sure that Gribbs and Tidewell would have come."

"It wouldn't have been fair," said Ryder.

"I—I—wanted to win," replied Connie; "and it'll be calm directly, and you know what that means."

It was calm directly, and very soon everyone knew what it meant. For it was a real fat streak of a calm that both vessels ran into. And as luck would have it the Battle-Axe, which was by now almost hull down to the nor'ard, got into it first. The Star of the South carried the wind with her till she was within a mile of her rival. For a whole day they pointed their jibbooms alternately at Africa and South America, to the North Pole and the South. What little breeze there was after that day took them farther still into an absolute area of no wind at all.

"This is the flattest calm I ever saw," said Ryder. "In such a calm as this he has no advantage."

They boxed the compass for the best part of a week and lay and cooked in a sun that made the deck-seams bubble. At night the air was as hot as it had been by day. The men lay on deck, on the deck-house, on the fo'c's'le head.

"This is a bally scorcher," said the crews of both ships. "Let's whistle."

They whistled feebly, but the god of the winds had gone a journey, or was as fast asleep as Baal. And day by day the two vessels drifted together. At last they had to lower the boats and tow them apart. Watchett was very sick with the whole meteorology of the universe, and being a whole-souled man, incapable of more than one animosity at a time, he found no leisure to spare from reviling a heaven of brass to taunt Ryder. At the end of the week he even hailed the Star and offered to come on board and bring his wife.

"I don't want him," said Connie Ryder: "I won't have him."

And as she said so she jumped as if a pin had been stuck into her.

"What's the matter?" asked her husband.

"Nothing," said Connie. "But let him come!"

She went for'ard to interview the cook, so she said. But she really went to interview Silas Bagge. When she came back she found Watchett and his wife on board. If she was a little stiff with Watchett he never noticed it. As a matter of fact, the whims and fads and tempers of a woman were of no more account than the growling of the men for'ard. He was too much engaged in cursing the weather to pay her any attention.

"This licks me," he said; "in a week we ain't moved—we're stuck. 'Ow long will it last, Bill?"

"It looks as if it might last for ever," replied Ryder. "We've struck a bad streak."

The women had tea and the men drank whisky and water. Although Watchett didn't know it, two of his hands left the boat and were given something to eat in the galley by Mrs. Ryder's orders. It was Bagge who conveyed the invitation, with the connivance of the mate, for whom the word of the captain's wife was law.

"'Ave some marmalade and butter?" said Bagge. "Does they feed you good in the Battle-Axe, Gribbs?"

"'AVE SOME MARMALADE AND BUTTER?' SAID BAGGE."

"Hogwash," said Gribbs, with his mouth full. "Ain't it, Tidewell?"

Tidewell, who was a youngster of a good middle-class family, who had gone to sea as an apprentice and run from his ship, agreed with many bitter words.

"As I told you, we lives like fightin'-cocks 'ere," said Bagge. "When you're full in the back teeth, we'll 'ave your mates up. We likes to feed the pore and 'ungry, don't we, doctor?"

The cook, to whom Bagge had confided something, said he did his best, his humble best.

"The Star's an 'appy ship," he added. "We know what your ship is."

The other two men came up in their turn and were filled with tea and biscuit and butter and marmalade till they smiled.

"This is like home," said Wat Crampe, who was from Newcastle.

"It wass petter—much petter," said Evan Evans, "and ass for the captain's wife, she iss a lady, whatefer."

That evening Ryder and his wife returned the call and were rowed to the Battle-Axe by Bagge, Bob Condy, and two more of the men. Bagge and Condy went into the fo'c's'le. They lost no time in condemning the Battle-Axe and in lauding their own ship.

"This 'ere's a stinkin' 'ooker, mates," said Silas Bagge; "why, our fo'c's'le is a lady's droring-room compared with it. And as for the grub, ask them as come on board us this afternoon. What d'ye say, Gribbs?"

"Toppin'," said Gribbs. "It's spiled my happetite 'ere."

"It wass good," said the Welshman; "it wass good, whatefer."

Bagge took Billy Gribbs aside on the deck and had a talk with him.

"Oh, Lord!" said Gribbs. "Oh, what?"

"Straight talk," replied Silas; "she said so."

"Do you mean it? "

"Do I mean it?" replied Silas, with unutterable scorn. "In course I mean it. It will sarve them right as it sarves right."

Gribbs held on to the rail and laughed till he ached. "It's the rummiest notion I ever 'eard tell on."

"Not so rummy!"

"Wot!" cried Gribbs, "not so rummy? Well, if it ain't so rummy, I'm jiggered. I'll think of it."

"Do, and tell your mate Tidewell."

"If I tell Ned, 'e'll do it for sure. 'E's the biggest joker 'ere!"

"Then tell him," said Silas.

That evening Ned Tidewell and Billy Gribbs acted in a very strange way on board the Battle-Axe. Without any obvious reason they kept on bursting into violent fits of laughter.

"The pore blokes is gone dotty from the 'eat," said the pitying crowd. "We've 'eard of such before."

"Why shouldn't I laugh?" asked Gribbs. "I'm laughin' because I'm a pore silly sailor-man and my life ain't worth livin'. If I'd died early I'd ha' been saved a pile o' trouble. I was thinkin' of my father's green fields as I looked over the side this afternoon."

"Was you really?" asked the oldest man on board. "Then you take my advice quick and go and ask the skipper for a real good workin' pill of the largest size."

"Wot for?" asked Gribbs.

"Because you've hobvious got a calentoor," said the old fo'c's'le man. "And chaps as gets a calentoor jumps overboard. Oh, but that's well known at sea by those as knows anythin'."

But Gribbs laughed.

"The worst is as it's catchin'," said his adviser, anxiously; "it's fatally catchin'. I've 'eard of crews doin' it one hafter the hother, till there wasn't no one left. In 'eat it was and in calm."

"Gammon," said Gribbs. But he was observed to sigh.

"Are you 'ot in your 'ead?" asked the anxious and ancient one.

"I feels a little 'ot and rummy," said Gribbs; "but what I chiefly feels is a desire to eat grass."

The old man groaned.

"Then it's got you. Mates, we ought to tie Gribbs up, or lock 'im in the sail-locker, or 'is clothes will be auctioned off before long."

But Gribbs kicked at that, and just then eight bells struck.

"I'm turnin' in," said Gribbs, "and I'm all right."

But at six bells in the first watch he was missing, as was discovered by old Brooks, the authority on calentures. He waked up Ned Tidewell, who was extraordinarily fast asleep.

"Where's Gribbs?"

"Not in my bunk," returned Ned, who with Gribbs was one of the few who still dossed in the fo'c's'le.

"Then 'e's gone overboard for sartain," said Brooks, in great alarm; "there was the look of it in his eye, and in yours too, youngster. These long calms is fataller than scurvy. I shall go aft and report it."

He reported it to Mr. Seleucus Thoms, the second mate, who came for'ard, and roused the watch below from the deck-house and t'gallant fo'c's'le. When all hands were mustered it was certain that Gribbs was missing.

"This is a terrible catastrophe," said Seleucus Thoms, who had a weakness for fine language, derived from his rare Christian name, of which he was extremely proud. "My name is not Seleucus Thoms if he hasn't gone overboard."

"'E was rampagious with laughter in the second dog-watch, sir," put in old Brooks. "And 'e talked of green fields, the which I've 'eard is a werry fatal symptom of calentoor."

"Humph!" said Mr. Thoms, "there's something in that."

And when he went for'ard old Brooks was as proud as a dog with two tails! Though he usually spent the second dog-watch daily in proving that Thoms was no sailor, this endorsement of his theory flattered him greatly.

"I've been mistook in the second," he said, as Thoms went aft. "He's got 'orse sense, after all. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd make a sailor some day."

And Thoms reported the catastrophe to Watchett.

"Drowned himself?" roared the captain; "drowned himself? And who's responsible if you ain't?"

He came on deck in a great rage and scanty pyjamas and mustered the crew aft, and roared at them for full ten minutes as if it was their fault. When he had relieved his mind he asked if there was anyone who could throw light on the matter, and old Brooks was shoved to the front. He explained his views on calentures.

"Never 'eard of 'em," said Watchett.

"And I think, sir, as Tidewell 'ere 'as the symptoms."

"I haven't," said Tidewell, indignantly.

"Wild laughin' is a known symptom, sir, and Tidewell was laughin' 'orrid in the second dog-watch," insisted Brooks; "I'd put him in irons, sir."

But Watchett was not prepared to go so far in prophylaxis.

"If any of you 'as any more symptoms I'll flog 'im and take the consequences," he declared. He went below again unhappily, for he wasn't quite a brute after all.

"This is a mighty unpleasant thing," he said to poor Mrs. Watchett, who cried when she heard the news. "It's a mighty unfortunate affair. Gribbs was the smartest man in the whole crowd and worth two of the others."

But still the great and terrible calm lasted, and the morning was as hot as yesterday and the sea shone like polished brass and lapped faintly like heavy oil against the glowing iron of the sister barques. At dawn, which came up like a swiftly opening flower out of the fertile east, the vessels were just too far apart for hailing, and Watchett signalled the news to the Star of the South.

"Lost a man overboard!" said Ryder. "That's strange; I wish to Heaven we'd found him!"

When he told his wife she seemed extraordinarily callous.

"Serves him right," she said.

And it was wonderful how the crew of the Star took the news. They had never seemed so cheerful. They grinned when Watchett came aboard.

"This is an 'orrid circumstance," said Watchett. "I never lost a man before, not even when I was wrecked in the Violet. And this a dead calm!"

"Your men aren't happy," said Mrs. Ryder, "and you don't try to make 'em. If I give you three seven-pound tins of marmalade and some butter, will you serve it out to them?"

"'YOUR MEN AREN'T HAPPY,' SAID MRS. RYDER."

But Watchett shook his head angrily.

"I'll not cocker no men up," he declared; "not if they all goes overboard and leaves me and the missis to take 'er 'ome. And what's marmalade against 'eat like this?"

He mopped a melancholy brow and sighed.

"It will help them to keep from gloomy thoughts," said Mrs. Ryder. "The Star of the South is a home for our men."

"And two run in Valparaiso," retorted Watchett. "And I on'y lost one."

He took a drink with his cousin and went back on board the Battle-Axe, and spent the torrid day in getting a deal of unnecessary work done. And still no flaw of lightest air marred the awful mirror of the quiet seas. Early in the first watch the boats were lowered again to tow the vessels apart. At midnight, when the watch below came aft and answered to their names in the deep shadow of the moonless tropic night, Ned Tidewell did not answer to his name.

"Tidewell!" cried Thoms, angrily and anxiously.

And still there was no answer, but a groan from old Brooks.

"Wot did I tell you?" he demanded. "I seed it in 'is eye."

They searched the Battle-Axe from stem to stern; they overhauled the sails in the sail-lockers; they hunted with a lantern in the forepeak; they even went aloft to the fore and main tops, where once or twice someone who sought for coolness where no coolness could be found went up into what they jocosely called the "attic." But Ned had lost the number of his mess.

"More clothes for sale," said the melancholy crew, as they looked at each other suspiciously. "'Oo'll be the next?"

Brooks declared to the other fo'c's'le men that the next would be Wat Crampe, or Taffy, as they called the Welshman.

"There's an awful 'orrid look o' the deep, dark knowledge of death in their faces," declared old Brooks. "They thinks of the peace of it and the quiet, and smiles secret!"

Next morning Watchett hailed the Star and told the latest dreadful news. And at the end he added, in a truly pathetic roar, "Send me them tins o' marmalade aboard, and the butter."

And when Mrs. Ryder superintended the steward's work getting these stores out of the lazaret, she smiled very strangely. She said to her husband: "If he loses another hand or two the Battle-Axe will be no easy ship to work, Will."

"I wouldn't have believed the matter of a hundred pounds would have made you so hard," said Ryder. And Connie Ryder pouted mutinously, and her pout ran off into a wicked and most charming smile.

"I'm not thinking so much of the money as of our ship being beaten," she said.

And poor Watchett was now beginning to think the same of his ship. Like most vessels, the Battle-Axe required a certain number of men to work her easily, and her luck lay in the number allowed being the number necessary. With two hands gone a-missing she would not be much superior to the Star in easiness of handling, and if more went a week of baffling winds now or later, when the north-east trade died out, might give the Star a pull which nothing but an easterly wind from the chops of the Channel to Dover could hope to make up. He began to dance attendance on his crew as if they were patients and he their doctor. And the curious thing was that they all began to feel ill at once, so ill that they could not work in the sun. A certain uneasy terror got hold of them; they dreaded to look over the side, lest in place of an oily sea they should look down on grass and daisies.

"Daisies draws a man, and buttercups draws a man," said old Brooks.

"Don't," said Crampe, with a snigger. "You make me feel that I must pick buttercups or die."

"Do you now?" asked Brooks. "Do you now?"

And he sneaked aft to the skipper, who was turning all ways, as if wondering where windward was.

"I'm very uneasy about Crampe, sir," he said, with a scrape, as he crawled up the port poop ladder. "'Is mind is set on buttercups."

"The deuce it is!" cried Watchett, and going down to the main deck he called Crampe out.

"What's this I 'ears about your 'ankering after buttercups?" he demanded, very anxiously.

"I did feel as if I'd like to see one, sir," said Crampe.

"Don't let me 'ear of it again," began Watchett, angrily, but he pulled himself up with an ill grace. "But there, go in and lie down, and you needn't come on deck in your watch. I can't afford to lose no more mad fools. And you shall have butter instead of buttercups."

"YOU SHALL HAVE BUTTER INSTEAD OF BUTTERCUPS."

"And marmalade, sir?" suggested Crampe. "Marmalade's yellow too, as yellow as buttercups."

"Say the word agin and I'll knock you flat," said the skipper. But, nevertheless, he sent the whole crowd marmalade and butter at four bells in the first dog-watch.

"Hoo, but it iss fine," said "Efan Efans." "Thiss iss goot grup whatefer and moreover, yess!"

"They scoffs the like in the Star day in and day out," said Crampe; "if I can't roll on grass I'd like to be in her."

And that night both Crampe and Evans disappeared.

"I believe I 'eard a splash soon after six bells," said old Brooks. "Mates, this is most 'orrid. I feels as if I should be drawed overboard by a mermaid in spite of myself."

And Watchett went raving crazy.

Ryder came on board the Battle-Axe as soon as the latest news was signalled to him. Mrs. Ryder declined to go, but she gave him a timely piece of advice.

"Don't let him off the bet, Will, or I'll never forgive you."

"I won't do that," said her husband, hastily, as if he hadn't been thinking of doing it.

"And if he asks for a man or two, you know we're short-handed already."

"Tell me something I don't know," said Ryder, a trifle crossly. Even his sweet temper suffered in 115deg. in the shade.

"I dare say I could," said his wife, when he was in the boat; "I dare say I could."

Watchett received his cousin with an air of gloom that would have struck a damp on anything anywhere but the Equator.

"This is a terrible business," he said. "I never 'eard of anything like it. Every night a man, and last night two!"

Ryder was naturally very much cut up about it, and said so.

"Will you have some more marmalade?" he asked, anxiously.

"Marmalade don't work," said Watchett, sadly; "it don't work worth a cent. Nor does butter. I'd give five pounds for some green cabbage."

A brilliant idea struck Ryder.

"Why don't you paint her green, all the inside of the rail and the boats?"

"She'd be a beauty show, like a blessed timber-droghing Swede," said Watchett, with great distaste. "But d'ye think it'd work?"

"You might try," replied Ryder.

"And now you've got the bulge on me," sighed Watchett; "with two 'ands missing from both watches, she'll be as 'ard in the mouth as your Star. You might let me off that bet, Bill."

"No," said Ryder, "a bet's a bet."

"But fairness is fairness," urged Watchett; "there should be a clause in a bet renderin' it void by the act of God or the Queen's enemies."

"There isn't," said his cousin, "and you forget you wouldn't help me about those two hands I wanted."

"Oh, if you talk like that——"

"That's the way I talk," said Ryder, remembering the wife he had left behind him. "I'm sorry."

"Hang your sorrow," said Watchett. "But I'll lose no more, and 'tain't your money yet."

"Will you and Mary come on board to tea?" asked Ryder.

"I won't tea with no unfair person with no sympathy," returned Watchett, savagely.

And when Ryder had gone he set the crowd painting his beautiful white paint a ripe grass-green.

"Watch if it soothes 'em any," he said to Seleucus Thoms. "If it seems to work I'll paint 'er as green as a child's Noah's Ark."

And that night there was no decrease of the Battle-Axe's sad crowd, in spite of the fact that he did not act on his impulse to lock them up in the stuffy fo'c's'le. For soon after midnight Mr. Double felt one side of his face cooler than the other as he stood staring at the motionless lights of the Star of the South, then lying stern on to the Battle-Axe's starboard beam.

"Eh? What? Jerusalem!" said Double. Then he let a joyous bellow out of him. "Square the yards!"

For there was a breath of wind out of the south. Both vessels were alive in a moment, and while the Battle-Axe was squaring away the Star's foreyard was braced sharp up on the starboard tack till she fell off before the little breeze. Then she squared her yards too, and both vessels moved at least a mile towards home before they began fooling all round the compass again.

"Them hands missin' makes a difference," said Watchett, gloomily. "Less than enough is starvation."

As they fought through the night for the flaws of wind which came out of all quarters, the short watches of the Battle-Axe found that out and grumbled accordingly. But it was a very curious thing that the Star of the South was never so easy to handle.

"That foreyard goes round now," said old Semple, "as if it was hung like a balance. This is very surprisin'. So it is."

He mentioned the remarkable fact to McGill when he came on deck at four in the morning, and so long as it was dark, as it was till nearly six, McGill found it so too. And both watches were in a surprisingly good temper. For nothing tries men so much as "brace up" and "square away" every five minutes as they work their ship through a belt of calm. But as soon as the sun was up the Star worked just as badly as she did before.

"It's maist amazin'," said McGill.

During the day the calm renewed itself and gave everyone a rest. But once more the breeze came at night, and the amazing easiness of the Star showed itself when the darkness fell across the sea. Ryder and Semple and McGill were full of wonder and delight.

"The character of a ship will change sometimes," said Semple. "It's just like a collision that will alter her deviation. This calm has worked a revolution."

Because of this revolution the Star got ahead of the Battle-Axe every change and chance of the wind. She got ahead with such effect that on the third day the Battle-Axe was hull down to the south'ard, and when the fourth dawn broke she was out of sight. This meant much more than may appear, for the Star picked up the north-east trade nearly four days earlier than her rival, and a better trade at that. When the Battle-Axe crawled into its area it was half-sister to a calm, while the Star was doing eight knots an hour. And as there was now no need to touch tack or sheet, there was no solution of the mysterious ease with which she worked in the dark. How long the mystery might have remained such no one can say, but it was owing to Mrs. Ryder's curious behaviour that it came out. She laughed in the strangest manner till Ryder got quite nervous.

"These chaps that jumped over from the Battle-Axe laughed like that," he told her, in great anxiety.

And she giggled more and more.

"Shall I try marmalade?" she asked. Then she sat down by him and went off into something so like hysterics that a mere man might be excused for thinking she was crazy.

"They're not dead!" she cried; "they're not dead!"

"'THEY'RE NOT DEAD!' SHE CRIED; 'THEY'RE NOT DEAD!'"

"Who aren't dead?" asked her husband, desperately.

And, remembering something which had been told him years before, he took her hands and slapped with such severity that she screamed and then cried, and finally put her head upon his shoulder and confessed.

"Was it mutiny of me to do it?" she asked, penitently.

Will Ryder tried to look severe, and then laughed until he cried. "What ever made you think of it?"

"It wasn't a what; it was a who," said his wife; "it was Silas Bagge."

"The dickens it was," said Will, and with that he left her.

"Call all hands and let them muster aft," he said to McGill, who, much wondering, did what he was told. The watch on deck dropped their jobs and the watch below turned out.

"Call the names over," said Ryder, sternly.

"They're all here, sir," said McGill.

The skipper looked down at the upturned faces of the men and singled out Silas Bagge as if he meant to speak to him. But he checked himself, and, going down to the main deck, walked for'ard to the fo'c's'le. The men turned to look after him, and there was a grin on every face which would have been ample for two. Ryder walked quietly, and pushing aside the canvas door he came on a party playing poker. He heard strange voices.

"I go one petter, moreover," said one of them.

"I see you and go two better," said a man with a Newcastle burr in his speech.

Then Ryder took a hand.

"And I see you," he remarked. They dropped their cards and jumped to their feet.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. And there wasn't a word from one of them; they looked as sheepish as four stowaways interviewing the skipper before a crowd of passengers.

"Get on deck," said Ryder. And much to McGill's astonishment the addition to the crew appeared with the captain behind them.

"Divide this lot among the watches," said Ryder.

Leaving McGill to "tumble to the racket," he walked to the mate's berth and explained to him that henceforth the Star of the South would go about as easy by day as by night.

"Then they're not dead!" cried Semple.

"Not by a jugful," said Ryder, nodding.

"This is very lucky, sir," said the mate, smiling.

"It's confoundedly irregular, too," replied the skipper, as he rubbed his chin. "Are you sure you knew nothing of it, Mr. Semple?"

"Me, sir! Why, I'd look on it as mutiny," said Semple; "rank mutiny!"

"It was Mrs. Ryder's notion, Semple."

"You don't say so, sir! She's a woman to be proud of!"

"So she is," replied Ryder. "So she is."

He went back to his wife.

"You'll win the hundred pounds now, Will?"

"I believe I shall," said Ryder.

"And I'll spend it," cried his wife, running to him and kissing him.

"I believe you will," said Ryder.

It was a happy ship.

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The Size of the World's Great Cities.

By Arthur T. Dolling.

HOSE imposing agglomerations of houses and dwellers we call cities (in most cases political or commercial capitals) have shown a notable rate of progress during the last two or three decades. More and more do the centripetal forces at work in almost every nation make for the growth of the capital at the expense of the rural community. A century ago a million human beings dwelling side by side under a single municipal government was almost of itself one of the great wonders of the world. Men spoke of London with bated breath and wondered where it would all end. Reports of monster cities in China with a population double that of London were dismissed as travellers' tales. Travellers' tales, verily, they have proved to be, seeing that Peking even to-day has fewer than a million souls. But what would our forefathers have said of these twentieth-century "wens," these "gloomy or glowing, febrile and throbbing concentrations" of human life, numbering not merely two, but three, four, and even five millions of souls?

LONDON: THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNTY OF LONDON, WITH WHICH THE OTHER CITIES ARE COMPARED, IS SHOWN BY THE SHADED PORTION.

Let us take London as the basis of our diagrams. London is an indeterminate quantity. It may mean the City of London, which comprises only 673 acres, or it may mean the Administrative County of London, which boasts nearly 117 square miles, or 74,839 acres, or Greater London, which embraces the Metropolitan Police district, and has an area of no less than 692 square miles, or 443,420 acres. If we take the second of these Londons we shall find it to consist of twenty-nine large and small cities, ranging in population from 334,991 to 51,247 inhabitants. These are called the Metropolitan boroughs; but as it is rather geographical size than population which here concerns us, we may state that the largest of these boroughs is Wandsworth, with an area of 9,130 acres, and the smallest is Holborn, with 409 acres. The average area of these boroughs, if we exclude the City, is about four square miles. Within these borders of London—which must not be confounded with Greater London—there were in 1901 4,536,541 souls, living in 616,461 houses. Within this area, besides buildings, must be counted 12,054 acres of grass, including the public parks and gardens.

If we take Greater London we embrace a far wider and yet still a homogeneous community, for it cannot be denied that the adjoining boroughs just outside the pale of the administrative county are policed from the same centre, are London to the Post Office, and commonly regard themselves, what they must soon be officially, as an integral part of the Great Wen. Greater London—within the fifteen-mile radius—is far more homogeneous and compact than Greater Chicago, for example, or even than Greater New York or Greater Boston. We have here an aggregation of 6,580,000 inhabitants and, as we have already seen, 443,420 acres. But perhaps the fairest estimate of London is the natural one of a single mass of buildings, without any unoccupied or unimproved areas. This gives us a solid, compact city of 85,000 acres and 6,000,000 inhabitants; extending from Edmonton on the north to Croydon on the south, and east and west from Woolwich to Ealing. Nor can one doubt, at the present rate of expansion, that even more distant areas than Croydon will eventually be included, although the Scotsman may have been a little "previous" who addressed a letter to a friend at "Bournemouth, S.W."

A MAP OF PARIS PRINTED UPON A MAP OF LONDON, SHOWING THE RELATIVE SHAPES AND SIZES.

In the following article we propose to compare with London the sizes of the chief cities of the world and, by printing a black map of each city upon a map of London, to display their relative magnitude at a glance. Let us see, to begin with, how Paris compares with London as represented in the above diagram.

At a coup d'œil we perceive that the French capital is for its population remarkably small in area, a fact clearly owing to its fixed military barriers, which make growth upward rather than outward. Consequently, dwellers in Paris often have six or eight pairs of stairs to climb where the dweller in London has but two. There have been repeated agitations for municipal expansion, but so far nothing has been done to annex the surrounding communes. Paris has a population of 2,700,000, living in 75,000 houses, and an area of over thirty-one square miles. If, however, the agglomeration of houses be taken—including the suburbs—the area is forty-five square miles and the population 3,600,000, although, as yet, this is not actually and geographically Paris.

BERLIN COMPARED WITH LONDON.

Berlin, a mere village a century ago, is the third city of Europe in point of population, and its growth since 1870 has been phenomenal, as we shall see. Yet the technical barriers which enclose the city remain precisely what they were more than forty years ago, and Berlin is still as it was in 1861, compressed within twenty-eight square miles, six miles long and five and a half wide. At the close of the Franco-Prussian War Berlin, now the capital of a new empire, became a paradise for builders. Streets of houses appeared almost as if by magic, and the whole aspect of the city became changed. From being the worst lighted, the worst drained, and ugliest capital in Europe it has become one of the finest, cleanest, and handsomest of cities, and its population has more than doubled. Berlin now boasts within its boundaries 1,857,000 inhabitants. But without there is, in Ibsen's phrase, "the younger generation knocking at the door," and Greater Berlin might have a population of 2,430,000, with an area at least treble, extending, indeed, as far as Potsdam. Berlin's actual increase from 1800 to 1900 was 818 per cent., multiplying its population by nine.

VIENNA COMPARED WITH LONDON.

"The transformation of Vienna" has for nearly half a century been a watchword amongst the progressive party in the Austrian capital. The example of Paris—with which the Viennese love to be compared—has, since 1858, brought to the fore innumerable Haussmannizing projects, all of which have tended to the city's amplifying and beautifying. The second or outer girdle of fortifications has been taken down; the barriers thus removed, fifty suburbs became, in 1891, part and parcel of the capital. Before this time Vienna was twenty-one English square miles, or one-third less than Paris; afterwards it covered sixty-nine square miles, besides having by the process added half a million to its population, which now stands at 1,662,269. But Vienna does not intend to be stationary in the coming decade. The fever of the municipal race for territory is upon her also. She is now reaching out for the adjoining town of Floridsdorf across the Danube, together with four other communes, having a population of 50,000; and this step increases the area of Vienna to about eighty-two square miles, nearly thrice the size of Berlin. Naturally such a large territory for a population smaller than a third that of London would comprise much open ground, especially as there is great overcrowding in the industrial districts. And, as a matter of fact, over five-eighths of Vienna is woods, pastures and vineyards, and arable ground, while above a tenth of the total area is made up of parks, gardens, and squares. The cost of making Vienna so vast has been enormous; but it has not been borne by the ratepayers to any oppressive extent, because the appropriated military ground and sites of fortifications have yielded a handsome profit, and municipal improvements in the annexed districts have, of course, enhanced the value of property. Moreover, the most acute observers are convinced that, if Vienna had not roused herself to material self-improvement, her prestige, which is already threatened by Budapest, would ere this have completely vanished. After the Austro-Prussian struggle and the marvellous rise of Berlin and Budapest, the city on the Danube would have sunk to be the Bruges of the twentieth century.

ST. PETERSBURG COMPARED WITH LONDON.

There is, perhaps, hardly a capital in the world so badly situated as St. Petersburg. To its north and east is a desolate wilderness, and to its south is a mighty stretch of marshland, and it is 400 miles from any important commercial centre. Yet, built at the behest of an Imperial autocrat, it has risen steadily into magnitude and wealth, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives.

St. Petersburg is, as all the world knows, built on a swamp, or low-lying alluvial deposits, at the mouth of the Neva. These cover altogether an area of 21,185 acres, of which 12,820 are part of the delta proper of the river and 1,330 acres are submerged. In consequence of its origin and present condition the city is naturally subject to inundations, but these, owing to the admirable public works and precautions taken, are not of frequent occurrence. Of the area of the city, 798 acres are given up to gardens and parks, while a third of the whole area is densely overcrowded, the average in some districts being one inhabitant for every ninety-three square feet and some dwellings containing from 400 to 2,000 inhabitants each. As for the population, it is now 1,248,739, to which if that of the suburbs be added (190,635), the Russian capital is the fifth city of Europe. Yet in area it is far too small; overcrowding is universal, in spite of the 1,000 dwellings that are erected annually, and the mortality is appalling.

LIVERPOOL COMPARED WITH LONDON.

Liverpool is about six miles long by about three broad, the area being 13,236 acres. It has a population of 686,332 within boundaries less than half the size of Berlin or Paris. But it comprised only 5,210 acres in 1895. In that year, feeling cramped, Liverpool annexed an area of 8,026 acres. Of the total area, there is comprised 772-1/2 acres of parks and gardens.

PEKING COMPARED WITH LONDON.

Peking, as we may see, is a walled city of oblong shape, and contains a total area of about thirty square miles. The two chief divisions are known as the Tartar city and the outer or Chinese city. The population is now about 1,000,000. Writing twenty years ago Sir Robert Douglas thought that a population of a mere million was "out of all proportion to the immense area enclosed within its walls. This disparity," he continued, "is partly accounted for by the fact that large spaces, notably in the Chinese city, are not built over, and that the grounds surrounding the Imperial Palace private residences are very extensive."

What would he have said of Chicago, New York, Budapest, or, indeed, of any modern capital "expanded"? To us, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a million inhabitants seems a very respectable population indeed for a city of only thirty square miles, and in this respect we can no longer sneer or be astonished at the "peculiarities" of Oriental cities.

BOSTON COMPARED WITH LONDON.

Boston is one of the older and more conservative American cities which have lately been seized by the expansion fever, and now proudly refers to its "Greater Boston." But this is as yet only a term, and the new Boston metropolitan district, embracing all the area within a circle of ten miles from the State House, is hardly yet a distinct municipality. It will doubtless soon come about, and in that case twenty-two towns and cities will be taken to the bosom of "the Hub," and the total population will be close upon a million and a quarter. At present the area of the city is over thirty-seven square miles (24,000 acres), or just the size of Chicago a decade ago, of which 2,308 acres are common open spaces and 126 acres ponds and rivers, in addition to numerous squares, gardens, and playgrounds. The length of the city is eight miles and its greatest breadth about seven miles.

CHICAGO COMPARED WITH LONDON.—THE SOLID BLACK AREA REPRESENTS THE ACTUAL BUILDINGS OF CHICAGO; THE GREY AREA COMPLETING THE ADMINISTERED CITY.

Exactly one hundred years ago the American Government built Fort Dearborn, on Lake Michigan. In 1831 there was a village of one hundred people on the site; to-day the city of Chicago has spread out (rather too generously, its rival municipalities think) until it comprises 190-1/2 square miles and a population of 1,698,575. But only some seventy square miles of this area is improved, and less than fifty miles built upon. As there are also 2,232 acres of parks and open spaces, Chicago cannot be said to be overcrowded; especially when one remembers the great height of most of the buildings in the business quarter. Chicago's expansion, in truth, follows the lines laid down by the early Western boom "cities," which were prairie wilderness one week, were surveyed the next, had a population of twelve, one man to the square mile, and applied for a charter the week following, and elected a Mayor and Corporation. The next week the boom was over and a mere shanty remained to mark the site of Boomopolis.

NEW YORK COMPARED WITH LONDON, THE SOLID BLACK AREA REPRESENTING THE ACTUAL BUILDINGS, THE GREY AREA COMPLETING THE ADMINISTERED CITY.

Before 1898 the city of New York lay partly on Manhattan Island, a long and narrow strip of land at the head of New York Bay, thirteen miles long and twenty-two square miles in area, and partly, although to a very trifling extent so far as population was concerned, north of the Harlem River, and on several small islands in the bay and East River. The total area was forty-two square miles, within which was a population of 1,515,301 souls. But in the aforementioned year the great arms of the city flung themselves out and gathered to its bosom so many of the outlying parts and people as to bring the total area of Greater New York up to 307 square miles, and the population to 3,437,202. It must be confessed that much of this huge municipal territory has been rather irrelevantly brought in—especially Staten Island (area 57·19 square miles), which is separated from New York proper by the width of the bay. But, on the other hand, other and nearer towns, such as Jersey City and Hoboken, were excluded, for the reason that they were in another State. Within Greater New York are included 6,766 acres of parks and open spaces, which is but little more than half that of London; yet the proportion of unoccupied land not under the control of the city is, of course, many times as great. The actual agglomeration of buildings in Greater New York—excluding Staten Island—covers barely 51,000 acres, or eighty square miles, as is shown in the diagram. Less than 5,000 acres is built upon in Staten Island.

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Some Novel Banquets.

By Theodore Adams.

HE art of him who prepares the banquet has reached, in these latter days, a distinction of novelty which might reasonably make the gastronomer of fifty years ago hold up his knife and fork in wonder. It is a novelty born of the desire for change. No longer does the dinner-giver merely prepare, with the aid of his costly chef, the menu for his guests and the viands on it. He—or, more properly, she, because of the present prominence of the fair hostess—tries not only to set a pretty table with flowers and cutlery of gold. The giver of dinners is ever thinking of that which will make the banquet memorable to the guest, and, in some cases, even wonders what the Press will say about it. This means to lie awake at night, and in such nightly vigils many wondrous things have been evolved.

Thus we have come to hear of banquets under conditions that make the imagination reel, and arouse speculation as to what the dinner of the twenty-first century will be like. When thirty-two people sat about on horseback a year ago, in a temporary stable, eating from dishes handed to them by waiters dressed as grooms, it seemed as if the top notch of bizarrerie had been reached. But, as the German says, noch nicht.

A HORSEBACK DINNER IN A HOTEL BALLROOM, THE TABLES BEING CARRIED IN FRONT OF THE SADDLES.

From a Photo. by Byron.

This remarkable horseback dinner was given in the great ballroom at Sherry's by Mr. C. K. G. Billings, of New York, and, as it was intended to celebrate the construction of a new stable, the rumour went round that the banquet would be held in the structure itself. The guests, however, met at Sherry's, and were escorted to a small banquet room, where a long table, in the form of an ellipse, was lavishly banked with flowers. The centre space was occupied by a stuffed horse, which cast his glass eyes curiously upon the assembly as the oysters and caviare were served. So convinced were the guests that this was the real and much-talked-about equestrian dinner that their surprise was great when they were asked to follow their host into an adjoining room.

"Here," according to the report of one who was at this famous banquet, "there had taken place an amazing transformation, for the decoration, the waxed floors, and everything of the world of indoors had been obliterated. A space sixty-five by eighty-five feet in the centre of the room had been enclosed by scenery. The guests were in a land of winding roadways, of brooks which coursed through green meadows, and of giant elms. There were cottages, vine-covered, and at the edge of a country estate was a porter's lodge. Far away stretched fields of grain. Over all was the blaze of a summer sun, for above in a vault of blue were strung electric lights. On all sides was the country, and in the middle of the room, rising in a pyramid, were geraniums, daisies, and roses, all blooming as if in the air of June. Above them a palm formed the apex of a pyramid thirty feet at the base. The floor was covered with long, velvety grass. Around the centrepiece were arranged thirty-one horses waiting for their riders. Mr. Billings's mount stood near the door, gazing into the geranium bed. How the steeds got up to the ballroom is no mystery in these days of large lifts, and they were well-trained horses, who cared not for lights and unusual conditions. Each guest found his mount by means of a horseshoe-shaped card attached to the saddle of the horse, just as he had been guided to his seat at the preliminary banquet by means of the bits of Bristol-board at each cover."

Between every two horses there was placed a carpet-covered block, from which the diners swung into their saddles, where, from little tables placed upon the pommels, they ate their splendid dinner. The horses showed little nervousness. Their trappings were yellow and gold, making pretty contrast with the costumes of the servants, who wore trousers of white buckskin, scarlet coats, and boots with yellow tops. Towards the end of the feast the horses were treated with a consideration due to their efforts, for a turkey-red fence surrounding the floral pyramid was discovered by the guests to contain feeding-troughs in which had been placed a plentiful quantity of superior oats. After dinner the horses were taken from the room by the grooms, small tables and chairs were brought in, and the guests sat down to an after-dinner chat as if in a beautiful garden.

A DINNER OF THE NEW YORK EQUESTRIAN CLUB, THE TABLE REPRESENTING A HORSE'S HEAD.

From a Photo. by Byron.

The horse has figured in a less ambitious, though perhaps quite as attractive, manner at the dinners of the Equestrian Club, which meets in New York during the winter once a month. For one of these banquets was arranged a rural scene with trees, shrubs, and beautiful beds of tulips and hyacinths, the whole floor being covered with stage grass. The table represented a horse's head, chairs being placed around the neck, while the head proper of the horse was a mass of flowers, with eyes, nose, and mouth displayed by means of ornamental and many-coloured flowers. The bridle, particularly, stood out strongly in brilliant red. The menu was formed in the shape of a horse's head, with a small bit and bridle made of leather and steel attached to it.

A DINNER INSIDE AN EASTER EGG.

From a Photo. by Byron.

The use of effective scenery at such functions is growing more common. Perhaps the most effective use to which it was ever put was at the Proal banquet of April, 1903, when thirty-five ladies dined within a monster Easter egg. The egg itself towered to the top of Sherry's ballroom and extended almost to the outer walls. Outside the egg was represented a farm on which chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, lambs, and guinea-pigs disported to the life—for they were really live. The ballroom had been turned into a fine landscape, with scenes representing fields and pastures, with flowing brooks near by, and farmhouses, windmills, and hayricks in the distance. One or two mirrors reflected parts of this landscape, which had been arranged to express that longing for "green fields and pastures new" which comes to all who live a city life when spring appears.

In every respect the farm was true to life. A farmer with blue overalls and smock passed in front of the guests, followed by a flock of geese. Pigs ran between his legs, and the spring lamb frisked upon the green. Rabbits munched their carrots until, timid at the sight of strange people, they hid themselves in the straw which lay about. Around were scattered the implements of labour, as if the farmers had just left their work. There were scythes, mowing-machines, milk-pails, and milking-stools to be seen. Every detail, in fact, had been thought of necessary to make the illusion complete, and the guests—all of whom had been kept in ignorance until they came into the room—were justly astonished at the sight.

The egg itself, with its shell of white, was geometrically perfect, and brought to mind the famous tale of Sindbad and the gigantic roc. The shell was fashioned with light timber bands bent to the required shape, and the supports were covered with green, all making a delightful arbour-like effect. The table was oval in form, hollowed in the centre, within which were floral decorations representing the white and yellow of an egg. Daffodils and jonquils were used for the yolk, while lilies, candytuft, and other white flowers were freely used. The air was filled with fragrance from these blooms. Mrs. Proal sat at the head of the ornamental table, with her guests around the oval. Music was provided by a band of negro musicians, who, seating themselves on wooden benches outside the dining-room, sang plantation melodies. The waiters were dressed as farm-labourers in gaily coloured shirts and smocks, with wisps of straw upon their heads. Fortunate, indeed, were the thirty-five women who took part at this unique banquet, for the farm and its giant egg had come into existence only for a single day, to be destroyed when luncheon was ended and its use was over.

THE GUESTS OF THE KETTLE CLUB DINNER WITH THE KETTLE IN WHICH THEY DINED.

From a Photo. by Byron.

We already begin to see in these dinners the existence of a new form of humour. This is shown even better in the so-called "babies' dinner" given at Sherry's by a Philadelphia organization called the Kettle Club. This club, composed of gentlemen who summer in the Adirondack Mountains, and who eat their forest meals round a vast and fragrant kettle, recently decided to admit five new members, or "babies." The only condition of candidacy was that the "babies" should show due appreciation of the honour conferred upon them. The result was a banquet such as had never been held before. To it were invited the older members of the club. The ballroom resembled a forest glade. Round the walls were painted forests with real trees in the foreground, to one of which was hitched a hunting-horse. The scenic effects included a dark blue cloth which represented a sky, with a moon in the distance and twinkling stars. In the centre of the room rested on a tall mound a huge kettle, twenty-five feet high and twenty-eight feet in diameter, with a door at one side reached by a rustic stairway. There was a circular table within the kettle, around which sat the guests, each with a wine "cooler" at his side.

In the centre of the table, perfectly dark when dinner began, was a bed of tall flowers on the floor, nine feet below. Suddenly, when this hole was lighted, was revealed a magnificent display of orchids, with a vine of pale purple flowers. Below sat a negro with a banjo, who sang and played throughout the evening for the pleasure of the guests. The menu card showed a picture of the kettle, into which five babies were climbing, the faces of these being those of the five new members, each with a teething ring, a nursing bottle, and a rattle. Souvenirs of the occasion were given to the guests in the form of small kettles, each with the name of the guest and the club motto, "Take the Kettle," painted on the side. This same inscription appeared on the structure in which the banquet took place, as shown in our illustration. Here we may note the part which the backcloth played at this noteworthy function.

THE OLD GUARDS' "MOCK-MENU" DINNER.

From a Photo. by Byron.

Another novel dinner was that given by a well-known New Yorker, Colonel O'Brien, to the Old Guard of Delmonico's, known to fame as the guard that "dines but never surrenders." For this affair two menus had been provided, one as a joke, the other for consumption. The mock bill of fare contained a list of dishes which might have been provided. For example, under the heading of oysters were the words "half shell," which the waiters solemnly set before the assembled gentlemen, minus the bivalves. These being removed made way for the next item, which, being "cream of celery" and presumably a soup, was found to be small tubes of celery with cold cream inside. Through all the regular courses the joke was carried, with amusing success, the joint being spring lamb with "string," or French, beans. What was the astonishment of the guests to find served for this course a woolly toy lamb on a spring, which squeaked when pressed, and wore dried beans on a string around its neck! The humour of the dinner came with the continued surprise at the ingenuity shown by the preparer of the feast, and it can be truly said that each item tickled the guests immensely. With the woolly lambs this band of gastronomers were especially pleased, and it was at the moment when these ridiculous toys were handed round to the well-proportioned diners that our photograph was secured.

THE "LYRE DINNER," THE TABLE BEING IN THE FORM OF A LYRE.

From a Photo. by Byron.

A few years ago Mr. Sherry himself was returning with the impresario, Maurice Grau, from Europe, and as the result of a wager upon the ship's "run" Mr. Grau was given a splendid dinner. It is now known in gastronomic history as the "lyre dinner," for the table was arranged in the form of an enormous lyre. Long gilded ropes covered with pretty vines represented the strings, while, to carry out the idea of the instrument, there was a golden cloth on the inner side of the table. Into this were woven mauve orchids, with electric lights sparkling under the green leaves, thus bringing out sufficient brilliancy to please the guests and not to affect their eyesight. Between each two seats of the table was a wine "cooler," sunk into the wood in such a way that the neck only of each champagne bottle showed above the edge. The banquet was attended by those best known to music in New York, and its brilliancy has probably never been surpassed.

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A Doubtful Case.

By Mrs. Egerton Eastwick (Pleydell North).

HEN, in the year 189-, a weakness of the throat prevented me from preaching for a time, I had considerable difficulty in persuading Allan Fortescue to take my place in the pulpit.

He had been amongst us rather more than two years; and although an ordained priest in the Church of England, and a man of considerable ability, was without preferment, and, apparently, content to remain so.

How came it, I often wondered, that he stayed on in our quiet village, with no apparent interest or occupation in life beyond his garden and his books?

Nor, when he at length consented to my proposal and preached his first sermon in Stony Lea, was my perplexity lessened. His diction was that of a classical scholar, but his words were also the outpouring of a sensitive, warm-hearted man; I could have fancied that in these impersonal utterances he sought compensation for years of enforced silence and isolation.

He had attracted me from the first. Manly, genial, but strangely reserved, Sir Lewin Maxwell and myself were, I believe, the only visitors who had gained admittance to his cottage.

When I so far induced him to change his habits as to help me with my weekly sermons Sir Lewin Maxwell was abroad. He had left Stony Lea for the Riviera in November, and now, early in May, the fact of his marriage had just been announced. No particulars, however, concerning the bride had reached us, and the appearance of the newly-married couple at the Hall was looked for with much interest and curiosity. They did not come until June, and then, by the express desire of Sir Lewin, were met by no demonstration of any kind; indeed, no one, I believe, except the steward and myself knew the exact date or hour at which they were to be expected.

On the Sunday following their arrival, therefore, glances were turned with some eagerness towards the Hall pew, but it was occupied only by a stout, elderly lady, who could not assuredly be Sir Lewin's newly-married wife.

No sooner, on that day, had Allan Fortescue in due course mounted the pulpit than I became aware of something amiss. From my position in the chancel I could not see his face, but the pause which preceded his announcement of a text was just long enough to cause uneasiness, and his voice, when at length he broke the silence, was harsh and unnatural, although, when once fairly started, he spoke with even more than his usual fervour.

When I reached the sacristy after the service Fortescue had already left, and as I was preparing to follow him I was accosted by the lady whom I had seen in the squire's pew.

"SHE TURNED TO ME AND INQUIRED WHETHER I WAS AWARE OF THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE MAN."

My visitor's comely, good-tempered face was flushed with heat and nervous indignation. After abruptly closing the sacristy door upon the two of us she turned to me and inquired whether I was aware of the true character of the man I had admitted to my pulpit, adding that it was with the greatest difficulty she had refrained from walking out of the church.

Somewhat startled, I asked for further explanation, whereupon she gave me, at considerable length, the particulars I will here try to relate as concisely as possible.

It seemed that about five years previously Allan Fortescue had been engaged as resident tutor to Mrs. Llewellyn's only son, and in that capacity had accompanied the family to Llidisfarn, a solitary, old-fashioned place in Wales. The house was occupied for the greater part of the year by a gardener and his wife as caretakers; but during the residence of their mistress these people retired to their own cottage. Mrs. Llewellyn brought with her two old and faithful servants—both women. Her party further included her niece and ward, Edith Graham, now Sir Lewin Maxwell's wife. The evening of her arrival Mrs. Llewellyn retired early to her room and to bed. The latter was an antiquated four-poster; the canopy had been removed for the sake of air, but the curtains remained, and on the night in question, the weather being boisterous and the room draughty, had been drawn so as to have only a small opening at the foot. Before retiring Mrs. Llewellyn had taken from her travelling-bag an ebony and silver casket which contained some valuable diamonds. She had intended placing the casket in an iron safe near the head of the bed, but had found the lock rusty from disuse; consequently, being exceedingly tired, and believing there could be no fear of burglars in this quiet and remote place, she left the casket on the dressing-table.

The dressing-table faced the door of the room, and to cross from one to the other it was necessary to pass the foot of the bed.

"A FIGURE CARRYING A SMALL READING-LAMP PASSED THE APERTURE."

In the dead of the night Mrs. Llewellyn awoke, feeling sure that someone was stirring in the room, and, as she became more fully conscious, saw on the ceiling above her a dim reflection of light. Almost at the same moment a figure carrying a small reading-lamp passed the aperture between the curtains at the foot of the bed, going towards the door, and she recognised, to her amazement, the tutor, Allan Fortescue. She described herself as being too surprised and terrified to call out; it seemed but a moment before the door was closed and she was in darkness and alone. Then she struck a light, sprang from the bed, and went to the dressing-table. The ebony casket was gone. Even then she gave no alarm. Except her son and Allan Fortescue, only women were in the house; and she reflected that it would be safer and wiser to wait until the morning. That the thief should dispose of the diamonds during the night was virtually impossible. Also the circumstances were otherwise peculiar. Allan Fortescue was at that time the avowed admirer of Miss Graham, and for her sake an open scandal was, if possible, to be avoided.

The following morning, however, after hours of sleepless anxiety, Mrs. Llewellyn summoned the tutor to the study, made her accusation, and demanded the return of her property.

He did not attempt either to explain or deny his presence in her room during the night, but appeared to treat the idea of theft as a ludicrous jest, and stoutly maintained that the jewels were not in his possession. During the altercation which followed Miss Graham entered, and Fortescue at once explained the situation.

Apparently to his surprise, Miss Graham took the affair very seriously, and seemed to feel that the evidence against him was overwhelming. She pleaded, however, so piteously that for her sake he might be spared from public disgrace that Mrs. Llewellyn finally consented to allow him to leave the house, upon the understanding that he should seek no further intercourse with any member of the family, and that he should never again undertake the duties either of a clergyman or a tutor. Under these circumstances he at last seemed to realize the seriousness of his position; he went away that morning, maintaining towards the end an obstinate silence. The most rigorous search, made at his own request, among his possessions failed to reveal the diamonds, which, indeed, had never since been heard of.

I also gathered that, although made fully aware of the penalty to be incurred by any breach of the conditions named, he had steadily refused to bind himself as to his future.

That afternoon, as soon as I was at leisure, I walked down to Allan Fortescue's cottage.

Shocked and distressed as I was at the story, I felt many points in it needed clearing up, and was inwardly assured that, if he would, he had the power to explain the whole matter satisfactorily.

He opened the door himself.

"I know," he said, abruptly, before I could speak, "why you have come. Mrs. Llewellyn was with you this morning; I saw her rustling up towards the sacristy. Don't let charity bring you any farther."

I signed to him to let me come in.

"We can't talk on the doorstep," I said. "Of course, it is all a mistake."

He let me come to the study; then, as he closed the door behind me, he said:—

"There is no mistake. I was there—in her room that night. She saw me."

"You were not there to take the diamonds," I persisted.

"I was not there to steal the diamonds; I will own so much."

"In that case, who did steal them, if stolen they were? No pains should have been spared at the time to discover the actual thief. Even now it might not be too late, if you would only account for your presence in the room."

"The actual thief——" He began restlessly to pace the floor. "What if I were to say that I took the diamonds—with my own hands?"

"I should answer that you must have been in some way unconscious of your actions."

My confidence seemed to touch him; he looked at me, and for a moment I hoped I was to gain some enlightenment; then he said, slowly:—

"I was never in my life more completely master of myself. And now there must be an end of my confessions."

I saw that to question him further would be useless, and shortly afterwards took my leave. As we parted he grasped my extended hand.

"I owe you an apology," he said, "for having brought this annoyance upon you, and I don't know how to thank you for your patience with me."

A few days later an invitation reached me to dine at the Hall. Any intercourse between Allan Fortescue and Sir Lewin Maxwell had inevitably ceased. Sir Lewin, not unnaturally, accepted Mrs. Llewellyn's view of the case, but he did not quarrel with me for taking my own line, and young Lady Maxwell seemed almost grateful for my belief in the possible innocence of her old lover. She was a most charming woman, with an habitually sweet and gracious manner, rendered only more attractive, I at first thought, by a variableness of mood which brought suggestion of possible storms.

An accomplished musician, her talent made a link between us. Often, indeed, during the earlier part of our intercourse she became associated in my mind with the harmonies of Beethoven, whose creations she rendered with remarkable skill and feeling. Later, however, I noticed an increase of nervous restlessness, an expression in her eyes as of some haunting, eager desire, little in keeping with the works of the master, which, however full of variety, are to my mind always instinct with a great satisfaction and repose.

For some time I was inclined to attribute these signs of disturbance to the neighbourhood of Allan Fortescue, and to think that he would have done well to leave the village. But, so far as I could see, he studiously avoided all chance of encounter with any of the Hall party; and, without definite reason, I had not the heart to suggest that he should become once more a wanderer.

In this way some few months passed without noticeable event. Sir Lewin, I thought, at times looked careworn and more aged than the passage of months would justify, but he seemed, if possible, more entirely devoted to his wife than in the earlier days of their marriage. Then, one Monday afternoon early in April, as I was riding homewards from visiting an outlying district, a curious thing happened.

My way led me through Oxley Dell, a piece of road bordered on each side by Sir Lewin's woods, through which to the right a bridle-path leads by a short cut to Stony Lea. The path and immediate neighbourhood are but little frequented, owing to an old story of a murder and a subsequent ghost.

"A WOMAN SUDDENLY APPEARED FROM AMONG THE TREES."

As I neared the Dell I saw Allan Fortescue tramping along the road in front of me, but before I could overtake him he turned aside into the bridle-path. There I presently followed, and had him once more in view, when a woman suddenly appeared from among the trees and accosted him. Allan raised his hat, and the two walked on together; the meeting had the air of an appointment.

Having no wish to play the spy I turned my pony's head, but I was ill at ease. The tall, graceful figure of the woman, enveloped though it was in a long rain-coat, had been ominously familiar, and as I jogged slowly homewards I resolved that I would call that evening on Allan and have the matter out with him.

I found him in better spirits than usual, but when I explained my errand he seemed somewhat disconcerted.

"Ah! you saw us," he said, and bent to knock the ashes from his pipe; then added, "You are sure, I suppose, of the identity of the lady? "

"As sure as it is possible to be without having seen her face to face."

"Still, you might be utterly mistaken. Would it not be better, for the sake of—the lady chiefly concerned in your mind—to give her the benefit of the doubt?"

His eyes met mine fully, I answered question with question.

"Do you think you are dealing fairly with me? Strictly speaking, perhaps this is no affair of mine, and yet——"

"And yet you have been extraordinarily good to me, and deserve that I should be open with you. I can only ask you to trust me a little farther; to believe that the meeting you witnessed to-day cannot possibly injure the lady you are thinking of except through your interference, and that it was as far removed from being of a sentimental nature as though I had met my grandmother."

The Friday following this interview I received a visit from the squire; he looked ill and harassed.

"I am vexed," he said, "about Edith. She went to town for a day's shopping on Wednesday and has not returned. She was to lunch with Mrs. Llewellyn and come back for dinner. She has frequently made these little excursions of late. In the evening, however, I got a telegram to say she was detained by the dressmaker, and yesterday morning a letter to the same effect. This morning I had no letter, but half an hour ago I met General Anson—he had just arrived by the three o'clock train. He told me that he had seen Edith having lunch at Franconi's with Fortescue. They did not see him—his table was behind theirs—but as he left the room he passed close to them and heard Fortescue say, 'To-night, then, without fail, by the seven-thirty.' 'So,' the old man went on, 'I suppose Lady Maxwell comes down to-night, and Mr. Fortescue is to escort her. I thought there was a coolness—that he was under a cloud.' I laughed, and told him it was a case of mistaken identity."

"And Fortescue?"

"He went to London yesterday; I happen to know that."

I must here mention that Stony Lea, although but a small village in Kent, has a good train service, and is but an hour's run from town. I looked at my watch. It was barely four o'clock. "Why not," I said, "go up to town by the four-forty-five, and travel down yourself with Lady Maxwell when she is prepared to come? You could be in Belgrave Road before six o'clock."

"Will you come with me?" he asked.

I consented; and by 6.30 we were in Belgrave Road.

Mrs. Llewellyn's house had an empty, uninhabited air, and the servant who came to the door said his mistress had been out of town for a few days. Lady Maxwell had been staying there during the week. She had driven out in the morning and not returned until four o'clock; then, after a cup of tea, she had gone out again, walking; she had said she was leaving town that evening, and would return about half-past six in a cab for various parcels that were awaiting her.

"Quite so," Sir Lewin said; "she is travelling down with me. I will wait for her here," and he walked straight into the drawing-room, whither I followed him. The room opened into the hall. Presently a hansom drove up; Lady Maxwell got out and entered the house with a latch-key. Sir Lewin moved towards the door of the room as though intending to meet her, when the arrival of another cab made him pause and look round. Lady Maxwell ran lightly upstairs; the door was ajar and I heard the swish-swish of her skirts. The second cab was a four-wheeler; Fortescue descended from it, and the electric bell of the front door tingled persistently in the silence of the house. Then we heard him asking for Lady Maxwell, and almost before the servant could reply Sir Lewin was on the doorstep. Fearful of what might ensue I followed him from the room; I saw him touch Fortescue on the shoulder, and Allan's start of surprise and, apparently, dismay; then the two men entered the hall together.

"Now," said Sir Lewin, "kindly explain your presence here and your business with my wife."

Allan's answer was unexpected.

"I think," he said, quietly, "I will leave that to Lady Maxwell herself."

They had spoken so far in low tones and with outward calm; now Sir Lewin muttered angrily some words which I could not hear, and raised his arm.

"SIR LEWIN MUTTERED ANGRILY SOME WORDS WHICH I COULD NOT HEAR, AND RAISED HIS ARM."

I stepped forward.

"Come into the drawing-room," I said hurriedly in his ear. "Don't make a public scene."

He shook me off, but at that moment another and more importunate voice intervened.

"My dear Lewin, you here? How exceedingly fortunate! Now we need not rush for that seven-thirty train; you and dear Edith can stay to dinner."

There was a darkening of the doorway, a rustle of garments, and Mrs. Llewellyn advanced with outstretched hands.

Sir Lewin stared in blank amazement. Allan smiled.

"I was in the cab," went on the lady, "waiting for Edith. Mr. Fortescue kindly drove with me from the station, and I had intended to travel down with her, trusting, my dear Lewin, to your hospitality to put me up for the night. I am so sorry I have been unable to return before, to be with the dear child all the time."

She had talked us all to the drawing-room door.

"I still quite fail to see," began Sir Lewin, stiffly, "how Mr. Fortescue——"

"I will explain," said Lady Maxwell. She had come down the stairs unheard, and now advanced towards us. Her face was as white as the gown she wore, her eyes looked wild and startled. "Come with me," she added to Sir Lewin, and led the way to a small back room. He followed her without a word.

"Pay the cab," said Mrs. Llewellyn, cheerfully, to the servant, "and bring all those packages in. Sir Lewin and Lady Maxwell will remain to dinner. Mr. Greyling and Mr. Fortescue, please come in, and let me offer you some refreshment."

She moved towards the dining-room and, the door being safely closed, fell gasping into a chair. There was wine upon the side-board; Allan poured some into a glass and brought it to her. She sighed heavily as she took it. "How all this is to end, Heaven only knows!"

"I think," said Allan, "there is nothing further for me to do. If you will allow me I will bid you good-night."

She looked at him curiously, the wineglass half-way to her lips.

"Can you," she said, "trust your vindication to us?"

"Entirely. It has come to be the last thing I think about," he answered, sadly; "and, if she may in any degree be spared, I beg that it may be the very last thing in your mind also."

A few minutes later Allan and I left the house. We dined in town and travelled back to Stony Lea together; but he offered me no explanation of the events of the afternoon, and I respected his silence.

Nearly a week passed before I heard anything further about the matter.

Then, one morning, Sir Lewin called upon me; he and Lady Maxwell had returned only the previous night from town. He made no reference to the circumstances of our last meeting, but asked me to come to the Hall that afternoon, as his wife was far from well, and anxious to see me.

I went accordingly and found her alone, lying upon a couch in her morning-room and looking sadly, terribly changed.

"I have asked you to come," she said, when I had taken a seat beside her, "because I want to tell you the truth about Allan Fortescue; he has suffered all these years through my fault, and I must make what reparation I can before—— It was I who really had the diamonds; I wanted them, and I employed him to bring me the casket; he did this quite innocently, as you will hear, not knowing what it contained. I had seen it on the dressing-table when I went to say good-night to my aunt just after she had gone to bed—about nine o'clock; but I was equally afraid either to take it then or to return to the room in the dark later on. Yet the chance seemed too good to be lost; I had never seen the casket left exposed before; it was always kept under lock and key. On my way downstairs I met Allan Fortescue, and we went together to the drawing-room. As we sat chatting by the fire, the plan I afterwards carried out occurred to me. The talk turned upon ghosts, and he said he should much like to meet one. Then I told him, truly, that one room in the house was said to be haunted by the spirit of a lady who had died there mysteriously on her return from a ball at which she had promised her lover to elope with him. I explained that nothing had been disturbed since the morning she was found there, dead in her chair before the mirror; but instead of the room to which the story really attached I described the one I had just left, and dared him to visit it after midnight. He said he had no fear, but I added that I should not believe in his courage unless he brought me as a proof a small ebony casket which had always stood upon the dressing-table. He laughed and said he would do even that, and I promised to meet him in the conservatory the following morning before breakfast to receive it and hear his experiences. He was quite strange to the house and did not know how any of the bedrooms were occupied except his own and his pupil's, which were in another wing. In the morning he handed me the casket as arranged. You know the rest; you see he was helpless in my hands."

"Do you mean to tell me," I asked, "that you wrecked a man's life for a few jewels?"

"'DON'T JUDGE ME TOO HARDLY,' SHE SAID, PITEOUSLY."

"Don't judge me too hardly," she said, piteously. "I was in terrible straits. I had been staying with some of my father's relations in town, and had learned much of a side of life concerning which Aunt Mary knew practically nothing. I owed a great deal of money, and was afraid to tell her about it. When I had the diamonds I was able to put off the most threatening of my creditors with promises of payment, and, later, one of my cousins helped me to dispose of the stones. I told him they were some jewels of my mother's which had just been made over to me. Aunt Mary would hold no intercourse with my father's family, so I had no fear of awkward explanations. When I was twenty-one I came in for a little money, all that was left of my mother's fortune, and I gave Aunt Mary some fresh jewels. You see, I had inherited certain tendencies from my father—perhaps in the beginning there was some excuse for me; you will understand when I say that he died from a hurt received in a gambling quarrel when I was about twelve years old. The house and all he possessed were sold to pay his debts, and Aunt Mary took charge of me. It was a great change. To me at all events my father had been good always, and I loved him dearly.

"As to Allan Fortescue, when he found how I had tricked him he was furious, but I managed to see him alone and persuaded him to accept the situation. You see, I had contrived things so that his speaking would have been of very little use unless I had chosen to confess—only his word against mine. Of course, I was dreadfully upset when I found that Aunt Mary had seen him. That was just what I had not counted upon; but I couldn't go back then and give up the jewels—I couldn't. I promised him that, if he would keep silence, I would never be reckless and extravagant or wicked again; and for a long time I kept my word. But life was dreadfully dull, and the thought of what I had done made me wretched; if Allan had been prosecuted I don't think I could have borne it—I must have spoken out. As it was, I became subject to dreadful fits of depression, and I think Aunt Mary was very glad to get me safely married, as she called it. For a time, then, I was very happy; for I loved Lewin dearly, and I tried to forget. Then, finding Allan here, seeing the wreck I had made of his life, brought back to me all my trouble. I began to crave again for excitement of any sort. Lewin thought I was ill, and at first used to give me champagne as a tonic.

"When we were in town last year I got back into the old set, from a different standpoint, and with more money at command——"

Once more she stopped, but I would not again interrupt her; I felt that the whole sad story must be finished now.

"I don't know," she continued, presently, "how Allan Fortescue discovered what was going on, but he did. One day I received a communication from him—I can't call it a letter—telling me that he knew the sort of life I was leading, and that unless I kept my promise to him he would speak and tell Lewin the truth even now. He knew and could prove where I had sold the diamonds. In reply to that I induced him to meet me in the Oxley Woods, and persuaded him to give me a little more time. I promised to tell Lewin that very night about my debts. Instead, I went to London. I really meant to start afresh; but I thought I could raise some money and get fairly straight without saying anything to my husband. I—I stayed longer than I meant. Allan came to look for me. He followed me to the places where he thought I was likely to be—he must have kept a watch upon me for some time past—but our meeting at last was accidental. I was really at my wits' end, and I went into Franconi's with Allan to talk things over. We saw General Anson leave the place, and I think that made Allan decide there must be no more concealment; also, I suppose he felt it was useless to trust me any longer. He went straight from me to Aunt Mary and fetched her. She knew that he must be speaking the truth. I had promised to go home that night anyhow; but I don't know what I might have done if I had been left to myself. Then you and Lewin appeared—— It is better as it is—I should never have had the strength, the courage—I am so sorry—so sorry—for Lewin—for myself—for Allan—for my little child that is coming——"

She turned her face to the wall, and I saw her slight frame shiver with voiceless, choking tears.

There is little more to tell. Lady Maxwell lived only a few months after she had made this confession. Her child survived—a son—and there are three men who watch over that boy with perhaps exaggerated solicitude and love—his father, Allan Fortescue, and myself.

Will he reward our care? I think so. He has his mother's face and charm, but in character he takes after Sir Lewin. Allan Fortescue has remained in the village as my curate. I trust he may never leave me, and that the bishop may see fit hereafter to appoint him vicar in my stead; I am growing old.

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Illustrated Interviews.

No. LXXXI.—DR. EDWARD ELGAR.

By Rudolph de Cordova.

From a Photo. by] DR. EDWARD ELGAR. [George Newnes, Ltd.

F ever this votary of the muse of song looked from the hills of his present home at Malvern, from the cradle of English poetry, the scene of the vision of Piers Plowman, and from the British camp, with its legendary memories of his own 'Caractacus,' and in the light of the rising sun sees the towers of Tewkesbury and Gloucester and Worcester, he might recall in that view the earlier stages of his career, and confess with modest pride, like the bard in the 'Odyssey':—

Self-taught I sing; 'tis Heaven, and Heaven alone,
Inspires my song with music all its own."

From a Photo. by] DR. ELGAR'S HOUSE AT MALVERN. [George Newnes, Ltd.

It was in November, 1900, that these words were spoken by the Orator when the University of Cambridge honoured itself by conferring the honorary degree of Doctor of Music on Dr. Elgar, whom one of the most distinguished German writers on music declared to be "the most brilliant champion of the National School of Composition which is beginning to bloom in England."

The encomiums which Germany—the acknowledged leader of the world in music—has showered on Dr. Elgar have at length been reflected in England, which has awakened to the fact that to him at least that much misapplied word "genius" belongs by right divine. That awakening was marked by the three days' festival in the middle of March, when Covent Garden Opera House reverted to an old custom and for two glorious nights became the home of oratorio, with a concert on the third night. That festival is unique in the history of music, for it is the first time an English composer has been so honoured.

However gratifying the applause of the public may be to the worker in any art, his greatest pleasure must properly come from his fellow-workers, who know the difficulties which have to be surmounted before the desired effect can be produced.

"Was not Herr Steinbach, the conductor of the Meiningen Orchestra, among the others who said that you have something different from anybody else in the tone of your orchestra?" I asked Dr. Elgar, as we sat in his study at Malvern, with a great expanse of country visible through the wide windows.

From a Photo. by] DR. ELGAR'S STUDY. [George Newnes, Ltd.

"I believe so," he replied; "and that remark has been one from which I have naturally derived great pleasure.

"You know," said Dr. Elgar, as he settled down to talk for the purpose of this interview, in accordance with a long-standing promise made in what he came to regard as an unguarded moment—"you know, since you compel me to begin at the beginning, that I 'began' in Broadheath, a little village three miles from Worcester, in which city my father was organist of St. George's Catholic Church, a post he held for thirty-seven years. I was a very little boy indeed when I began to show some aptitude for music and used to extemporize on the piano. When I was quite small I received a few lessons on the piano. The organ-loft then attracted me, and from the time I was about seven or eight I used to go and sit by my father and watch him play. After a time I began to try to play myself. At first the only thing I succeeded in producing was noise, but gradually, out of the chaos, harmony began to evolve itself. In those days, too, an English opera company used to visit the old Worcester Theatre, and I was taken into the orchestra, which consisted of only eight or ten performers, and so heard old operas like 'Norma,' 'Traviata,' 'Trovatore,' and, above all, 'Don Giovanni.'

DR. EDWARD ELGAR.

From a Photo. by E. T. Holding.

"My general education was not neglected. I went to Littleton House School until I was about fifteen. At the same time I saw and learnt a great deal about music from the stream of music that passed through my father's establishment.

"My hope was that I should be able to get a musical education, and I worked hard at German on the chance that I should go to Leipsic, but my father discovered that he could not afford to send me away, and anything in that direction seemed to be at an end. Then a friend, a solicitor, suggested that I should go to him for a year and see how I liked the law. I went for a year, but came to the conclusion that the law was not for me, and I determined to return to music. There appeared to be an opening for a violinist in Worcester, and as it occurred to me that it would be a good thing to try to take advantage of the opening, I had been teaching myself to play the violin. Then I began to teach on my own account, and spent such leisure as I had in writing music. It was music of a sort—bad, very bad—but my juvenile efforts are, I hope, destroyed.

"Although I was teaching the violin I wanted to improve my playing, so I began to save up in order to go to London to get some lessons from Herr Pollitzer. On one occasion I was working the first violin part of the Haydn quartet. There was a rest, and I suddenly began to play the 'cello part. Pollitzer looked up. 'You know the whole thing?' he said.

"'Of course,' I replied.

"He looked up, curiously. 'Do you compose, yourself?' he asked.

"'I try,' I replied again.

"'Show me something of yours,' he said.

"I did so, with the result that he gave me an introduction to Mr., now Sir, August Manns, who, later on, played many of my things at the daily concerts at the Crystal Palace.

"When I resolved to become a musician and found that the exigencies of life would prevent me from getting any tuition, the only thing to do was to teach myself. I read everything, played everything, and heard everything I possibly could. As I have told you, I used to play the organ and the violin. I attended as many of the cathedral services as I could to hear the anthems, and to get to know what they were, so as to become thoroughly acquainted with the English Church style. The putting of the fine new organ into the cathedral at Worcester was a great event, and brought many organists to play there at various times. I went to hear them all. The services at the cathedral were over later on Sunday than those at the Catholic church, and as soon as the voluntary was finished at the church I used to rush over to the cathedral to hear the concluding voluntary. Eventually I succeeded my father as organist at St. George's. We lived at that time in the parish of St. Helen's, in which is the mother church of Worcester, which had a peal of eight bells. The Curfew used always to be rung in those days at eight o'clock in the evening, and I believe it is still rung. I made friends with the sexton and used to ring the Curfew, and afterwards strike the day of the month. My enthusiasm was so great that I used to prolong the ringing from three minutes to ten minutes, until the people in the neighbourhood complained, when I had to reduce the time. On Sunday the bells were supposed to go for half an hour before service, from half-past ten to eleven. The performance was divided into certain parts. With a friend, I used to 'raise' and 'fall' the bell for ten minutes, chime a smaller bell for ten minutes or so, and at five minutes to eleven I would fly off to play the organ at the Catholic church.

AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF DR. ELGAR.

From a Photograph.

"You ask me to go into greater details about my musical education. I am constantly receiving letters on this point from all over the world, for it is well known that I am self-taught in the matter of harmony, counterpoint, form, and, in short, the whole of the 'mystery' of music, and people want to know what books I used. To-day there are all sorts of books to make the study of harmony and orchestration pleasant. In my young days they were repellent. But I read them and I still exist."

If only cold type could suggest the humour with which those words were spoken!

"The first was Catel, and that was followed by Cherubini. The first real sort of friendly leading I had, however, was from 'Mozart's Thorough-bass School.' There was something in that to go upon—something human. It is a small book—a collection of papers beautifully and clearly expressed—which he wrote on harmony for the niece of a friend of his. I still treasure the old volume. Ouseley and Macfarren followed, but the articles which have since helped me the most are those of Sir Hubert Parry in 'Grove's Dictionary.'"

"How did these various authorities mix?" I interrupted.

"They didn't mix," was Dr. Elgar's reply, "and it appears it is necessary for anyone who has to be self-taught to read everything and—pick out the best. That, I suppose, is the difficulty—to pick out the best. How to forget the rubbish and remember the good I can't tell you, but perhaps that is where his brains must come in.

"It would be affectation were I to pretend that my work is not recognised as modern, and I hate affectation, yet it would probably surprise you to know the amount of work I did in studying musical form. Only those can safely disregard form who ignore it with a full knowledge and do not evade it through ignorance.

"Mozart is the musician from whom everyone should learn form. I once ruled a score for the same instruments and with the same number of bars as Mozart's G Minor Symphony, and in that framework I wrote a symphony, following as far as possible the same outline in the themes and the same modulation. I did this on my own initiative, as I was groping in the dark after light, but looking back after thirty years I don't know any discipline from which I learned so much.

"So you insist on my telling you some more of my early struggles and my early work? I was interested in many other things besides music, and I had the good fortune to be thrown among an unsorted collection of old books. There were books of all kinds, and all distinguished by the characteristic that they were for the most part incomplete. I busied myself for days and weeks arranging them. I picked out the theological books, of which there were a good many, and put them on one side. Then I made a place for the Elizabethan dramatists, the chronicles including Baker's and Hollinshed's, besides a tolerable collection of old poets and translations of Voltaire, and all sorts of things up to the eighteenth century. Then I began to read. I used to get up at four or five o'clock in the summer and read—every available opportunity found me reading. I read till dark. I finished by reading every one of these books—including the theology. The result of that reading has been that people tell me I know more of life up to the eighteenth century than I do of my own time, and it is probably true.

"In studying scores the first which came into my hands were the Beethoven symphonies. Anyone can have them now, but they were difficult for a boy to get in Worcester thirty years ago. I, however, managed to get two or three, and I remember distinctly the day I was able to buy the Pastoral Symphony. I stuffed my pockets with bread and cheese and went out into the fields to study it. That was what I always did. Even when I began to teach, when a new score came into my hands I went off for a long day with it out of doors, and when my unfortunate—or fortunate?—pupils went for their lessons I was not at home to give them.

"By the way, talking about scores, it will probably surprise you to know that I never possessed a score of Wagner until one was given to me in 1900.

DR. ELGAR AS A MEMBER OF HIS QUINTET, FOR WHICH HE WROTE THE MUSIC.

From a Photo. by Bennett.

"In the early days of which I have been speaking five of us established a wind quintet. We had two flutes, an oboe, a clarionet, and a bassoon, which last I played for some time, and afterwards relinquished it for the 'cello. There was no music at all to suit our peculiar requirements, as in the ideal wind quintet a horn should find a place and not a second flute, so I used to write the music. We met on Sunday afternoons, and it was an understood thing that we should have a new piece every week. The sermons in our church used to take at least half an hour, and I spent the time composing the thing for the afternoon. It was great experience for me, as you may imagine, and the books are all extant, so some of that music still exists. We played occasionally for friends, and I remember one moonlight night stopping in front of a house to put the bassoon together. I held it up to see if it was straight before tightening it. As I did so, someone rushed out of the house, grabbed me by the arms, and shouted, 'It will be five shillings if you do.' He thought I had a gun in my hand.

"The old Worcester Glee Club had been established as long ago as 1809 for the performance of old glees, with an occasional instrumental night. At these last I first played second fiddle and afterwards became leader, as, after a time, I used to do the accompanying. It was an enjoyable and artistic gathering, and the programmes were principally drawn from the splendid English compositions for men's voices. The younger generation seemed to prefer ordinary part-songs, and ballads also were introduced, and the tone of the thing changed. I am not sure if the club is still in existence.

"It was in 1877 that I first went to take lessons of Pollitzer. He suggested that I should stay in London and devote myself to violin playing, but I had become enamoured of a country life, and would not give up the prospect of a certain living by playing and teaching in Worcester on the chance of only a possible success which I might make as a soloist in London.

"The thing which brought me before a larger public as a composer was the production of several things of mine at Birmingham by Mr. W. C. Stockley, to whom my music was introduced by Dr. Wareing, himself a composer, and still resident in Birmingham. At that time I was a member of Mr. Stockley's orchestra—first violin."

In this connection it is interesting to break Dr. Elgar's narrative to tell an anecdote which Mr. Stockley relates. When he decided to do something of Dr. Elgar's, he asked him if he would like to conduct it. "Certainly not," Dr. Elgar replied; "I am a member of the orchestra and I am going to stick in the orchestra. I am not recognised as a composer, and the fact that you are going to do something of mine gives me no title to a place anywhere else." The piece was a success and the audience called for Dr. Elgar, who came down from among the fiddles, made his bow, and then went back to his place.

REDUCED FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE FULL SCORE OF "THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS."

To resume. "Don't suppose, however," Dr. Elgar said, "that after that recognition as a composer things were easy for me. The directors of the old Promenade Concerts at Covent Garden Theatre were good enough to write that they thought sufficiently of my things to devote a morning to rehearsing them. I went on the appointed day to London to conduct the rehearsal. When I arrived it was explained to me that a few songs had to be taken before I could begin. Before the songs were finished Sir Arthur Sullivan unexpectedly arrived, bringing with him a selection from one of his operas. It was the only chance he had of going through it with the orchestra, so they determined to take advantage of the opportunity. He consumed all my time in rehearsing this, and when he had finished the director came out and said to me, 'There will be no chance of your going through your music to-day.' I went back to Worcester to my teaching, and that was the last of my chance of an appearance at the Promenade Concerts.

"Years after I met Sullivan, one of the most amiable and genial souls that ever lived. When we were introduced he said, 'I don't think we have met before.' 'Not exactly,' I replied, 'but very near it,' and I told him the circumstance. 'But, my dear boy, I hadn't the slightest idea of it,' he exclaimed, in his enthusiastic manner. 'Why on earth didn't you come and tell me? I'd have rehearsed it myself for you.' They were not idle words. He would have done it, just as he said. He never forgot the episode till the end of his life.

"Two similar occurrences took place at the Crystal Palace: rehearsals were planned which never came off, so I was no nearer to getting a hearing for big orchestral works.

"Mr. Hugh Blair, then the organist of Worcester Cathedral, saw some of the cantata, 'The Black Knight,' and said: 'If you will finish it I will produce it at Worcester.' I finished it, and it was produced by the Worcester Festival Choir. This cantata then came under the notice of Dr. Swinnerton Heap, to whom I owe my introduction to the musical festivals as a writer of choral works. He had known me for a good many years as a violinist, but it had never occurred to him to talk to me about my composing, and he knew nothing of it.

"It was through Dr. Heap that I was asked to write a cantata for the Staffordshire Musical Festival, and, shortly after, the committee asked me to provide an oratorio for the Worcester Festival. They were 'The Light of Life,' performed in Worcester Cathedral, and 'King Olaf,' at Hanley.

"Since then it has been a record of the production of one composition after another until we come to 'The Apostles,' and my new overture 'In the South,' produced at Covent Garden; the one great event that particularly stands out is the production of the 'Variations' by Dr. Richter, to whom I was then a complete stranger.

"For a long time I had had the idea of writing 'The Apostles' in pretty much the form in which I hope it will eventually appear. As you know, there have been oratorios on many points of Jewish and Christian history, but none had shown how Christianity has risen. I take the men who were in touch with Christ, the Apostles in fact, and show them to be ordinary mortals rather than superhuman men, as they are generally represented in art. I was always particularly impressed with Archbishop Whately's conception of Judas, who, as he wrote, 'had no design to betray his Master to death, but to have been as confident of the will of Jesus to deliver Himself from His enemies by a miracle as He must have been certain of His power to do so, and accordingly to have designed to force Him to make such a display of His superhuman powers as would have induced all the Jews—and, indeed, the Romans too—to acknowledge Him King.'

"In carrying out this plan I made the book myself, taking out lines from different parts of the Bible which exactly express my conception. How it was done the following chorus will show you, for you will notice that the references to the text are printed in the margin:—

The Lord hath chosen them to stand before Him, to serve Him.—II. Chron. 29, 11.

He hath chosen the weak to confound the mighty.—I. Cor. 1, 27.

He will direct their work in truth.—Isa. 61, 8.

Behold, God exalteth by His power: who teacheth like Him?—Job 36, 22.

The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way.—Ps. 25, 9.

He will direct their work in truth.—Isa. 61, 8.

For out of Zion shall go forth the law.—Isa. 2, 3.

"You will notice that occasionally, as in the third extract, I have used the words in their meaning that appears on the surface, and not in the real meaning of the sentence which may be found in any commentary. To keep the diction exactly the same I have not gone outside the Scripture except in one sentence from the Talmud in the case of the watchers on the Temple roof.

"It was part of my original scheme to continue 'The Apostles' by a second work carrying on the establishment of the Church among the Gentiles. This, too, is to be followed by a third oratorio, in which the fruit of the whole—that is to say, the end of the world and the Judgment—is to be exemplified. I, however, faltered at that idea, and I suggested to the directors of the Birmingham Festival to add merely a short third part to the two into which the already published work, 'The Apostles,' is divided. But I found that to be unsatisfactory, and I have decided to revert to my original lines. There will, therefore, be two other oratorios."

This definite pronouncement of Dr. Elgar's cannot fail to evoke the warmest anticipations on the part of the music loving world.

It is worth noting here that shortly after "The Dream of Gerontius" was produced at the Birmingham Festival, in 1900, Herr Julius Buths, the famous conductor of Düsseldorf, was so struck with it that he determined to produce it in Germany and himself translated the libretto. So great a success was this performance that "The Dream," which one of the most celebrated German musical critics has declared to be "the greatest composition of the last hundred years, with the exception of the 'Requiem' of Brahms," was repeated at the Lower Rhine Festival, a thing hitherto unheard of in the annals of English music, and at the Lower Rhine Festival on Whit-Sunday "The Apostles" is to be given.

Dr. Elgar has a delightful and most acute sense of humour, so that I was sure I should not be misunderstood if I ventured to ask a question about his "musical crimes."

He smiled. "But which of my musical crimes do you mean? From the point of view of one person or another I understand all my music has been a crime," he replied, lightly. Then he added, "Oh, you mean 'The Cockaigne,' 'The Coronation Ode,' and 'The Imperial March' especially. Yes, I believe there are a good many people who have objected to them. But I like to look on the composer's vocation as the old troubadours or bards did. In those days it was no disgrace to a man to be turned on to step in front of an army and inspire the people with a song. For my own part, I know that there are a lot of people who like to celebrate events with music. To these people I have given tunes. Is that wrong? Why should I write a fugue or something which won't appeal to anyone, when the people yearn for things which can stir them—"

"Such as 'Pomp and Circumstance,'" I interpolated.

"Ah, I don't know anything about that," replied Dr. Elgar, "but I do know we are a nation with great military proclivities, and I did not see why the ordinary quick march should not be treated on a large scale in the way that the waltz, the old-fashioned slow march, and even the polka have been treated by the great composers; yet all marches on the symphonic scale are so slow that people can't march to them. I have some of the soldier instinct in me, and so I have written two marches of which, so far from being ashamed, I am proud. 'Pomp and Circumstance,' by the way, is merely the generic name for what is a set of six marches. Two, as you know, have already appeared, and the others will come later. One of them is to be a Soldier's Funeral March.

REDUCED FACSIMILE OF MS. OF "POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE."

"As for 'The Imperial March,' which was written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897, it would, perhaps, interest you to know that only on January 22nd last it was given in St. George's Chapel, Berlin, at the unveiling of the memorials of Queen Victoria and the Empress Frederick, and Dr. G. R. Sinclair, of Hereford Cathedral, played it on the organ.

From a Photo. by] GOLF ON MALVERN COMMON. Foulsham & Banfield.

"How and when do I do my music? I can tell you very easily. I come into my study at nine o'clock in the morning and I work till a quarter to one. I don't do any inventing then, for that comes anywhere and everywhere. It may be when I am walking, golfing, or cycling, or the ideas may come in the evening, and then I sit up until any hour in order to get them down. The morning is devoted to revising and orchestration, of which I have as much to do as I can manage. As soon as lunch is over I go out for exercise and return about four or later, after which I sometimes do two hours' work before dinner. A country life I find absolutely essential to me, and here the conditions are exactly what I require. As you see," and Dr. Elgar moved over to the large window which takes up the whole of one side of his study, "I get a wonderful view of the surrounding country. I can see across Worcestershire, to Edgehill, the Cathedral of Worcester, the Abbeys of Pershore and Tewkesbury, and even the smoke from round Birmingham. It is delightfully quiet, and yet in contrast with it there is a constant stream of communication with the outside world in the shape of cables from America and Australia, and letters innumerable from all over the world."

In the house itself there are not many evidences of Dr. Elgar's productions, but prominent in a corner of the drawing-room is the laurel wreath presented to him at Düsseldorf when "The Dream" was first produced. The leaves are brown to-day, but the scarlet ribbon is as bright as the memory of the music in the enraptured ears of those who have heard it. In his study are two prized possessions, the one a tankard made by some members of the Festival Choir at Hanley at the time of the production of "King Olaf." The inscription, taken from one of the choruses, is, appropriately, a Bacchanalian one:—

The ale was strong;
King Olaf feasted late and long.
—Longfellow.

Next to this is a cup, also specially designed by Mr. Noke, of Hanley, to commemorate the performance of "The Dream." On one side is a portrait of Cardinal Newman and on the other a portrait of Dr. Elgar, with the following inscription from the work itself:—

Learn that the flame of the everlasting love
Doth burn ere it transform.

---

Off the Track in London.

BY George R. Sims.

II.—IN THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON.

HE sun shines brightly on the gay Kensington thoroughfare in which I meet my artist confrère and prepare to wander off the track in a district which is held to be the wealthiest in the Empire.

It is a winter morning, but the sky is blue, the air is balmy, and the flood of sunlight gives a Rivieran aspect to the stately mansions and pleasant villas that we pass on our way to the point at which we are to turn off and make our plunge into one of the strangest districts of London, a district of which its rich neighbours have no knowledge, although it lies at their doors.

A walk of a few minutes and we have left wealth and fashion behind us; the gay shops have vanished, the well-dressed people have disappeared as if by magic. The mansions and the villas have given place to the long streets of grey, weather-beaten, two and three story houses, in which the local industry writes itself large in white letters.

Here we are in Notting Dale and in the heart of Laundry-Land. In every house in street after street the blinds of the ground floor are down as though someone lay dead within. But if you look from the opposite side of the street you will see that in every room above the blinds lines are stretched from wall to wall, and from these lines wrung out details of the washing-tub are hanging. If you cross to the dilapidated railings of the sorry little patch that was once a front garden and peer into the basement you will see that laundry work is in full swing. The blinds of the ground-floor rooms are probably drawn because the hand laundresses do not like to be criticised too closely by the neighbours, who are also their business rivals.

The street is typical of a dozen others. You may see again and again that broken-down little front garden, with its stunted trees, strewn rubbish, and the little wooden, lop-sided railing that looks as though it no longer thought the patch it once guarded worth standing up for. On the window-sill of the top floor of a score of houses you may see a lonely, empty flower-pot that looks more like a handy missile in an emergency than an adjunct of window gardening. The rain-sodden, blackened stucco meets you at every turn, and when you have counted the twentieth cat sitting on a sill or a doorstep washing its shirt to snowy whiteness you begin to wonder why the local influence has not made itself more widely felt. Everybody inside the houses is washing for other people, everything is conducted with scrupulous cleanliness and under official inspection, but there are plenty of streets adjacent to Laundry-Land in which only the cats make themselves conspicuously clean.

A little farther away towards Latimer Road are the great steam laundries employing a small army of young women, who at the dinner hour will turn out and make every street in the Dale a forest of white aprons.

But all the streets of Laundry-Land are not given up to useful industry. A portion of the district is so notorious as a guilt garden that it has been called the London Avernus. It is packed with common lodging-houses, a large number of them for women, and it has streets of evil reputation in which almost every window is broken and stuffed with rags. The Borough Council has now in hand a splendid rehousing scheme which will vastly improve the district, but we must take it as we find it to-day.

We turn out of the sunlight, and entering a narrow doorway descend into the basement of a typical lodging-house. The house is known locally as the "Golden Gates," a name bestowed upon it in a spirit of badinage by a client with a sense of humour.

The kitchen is crowded with women, young and old. Some are sitting on the benches around the wall, one or two are making a late breakfast; an old woman is cooking something at the red coke fire.

As a rule there is little conversation in a lodging-house in the morning hours. I have been constantly struck by the note of moodiness, not to say sullenness, which hangs over the company during the hours of daylight. The men are, as a rule, more communicative than the women. Women of the class that drift to the doss-house are not inclined to exchange confidences with their neighbours.

But the kitchen of the Golden Gates as we enter it has one talkative occupant. As soon as our eyes get accustomed to the gloom, which is only relieved by a ray of light filtering through a small, dust-covered window, we notice that a tall woman in faded finery and an astrachan hat, and with some traces of refinement in features and bearing, is standing in the centre and chaffing the others. One or two smile at her jokes, but the majority are wholly indifferent, wearing that air of sullen aloofness which is peculiarly characteristic of a woman's lodging-house.

I have not intruded on the privacy of the ladies of the Golden Gates without a show of justification. To enable my companion to make a sketch of the scene, I have resorted to an expedient which permits me to make certain inquiries of a semi-official nature, and to attract the attention of the guests while my confrère is at work. If they were aware that they were being sketched it is quite likely that there would be trouble, and my comrade might find himself in as unpleasant a fix as did a photographer who once went with me to the Chinese quarter in Limehouse, for "Living London," and attempted to take the proprietor of an opium den and some of his clients. The photographer emerged unscathed, but the camera required a considerable amount of repair.

Fortunately I have an inquiry to make which puts my audience in sympathy with me, and my confrère is supposed to be making notes of the information supplied as to the last movements of a woman who had used the house for some time and had mysteriously disappeared.

During the whole time the lady in the dingy astrachan keeps up a running fire of chaff, which materially assists us.

"THE LADY IN THE DINGY ASTRACHAN KEEPS UP A RUNNING FIRE OF CHAFF."

She welcomes us to the "Hotel de Fourpence," and says, though it isn't exactly the Carlton, it is quite comfortable when you get used to it. She interlards her bantering remarks with French words, and we come to the conclusion that she is a governess who has drifted down.

It is no uncommon thing to find men and women of education in the lowest lodging-houses of London. I have found a clergyman in one of the worst dens of Flower and Dean Street. In one of the Dale lodging-houses there is a woman whose father had his town house and his country house and his villa in the South of France.

This woman in the astrachan hat is a striking contrast to her surroundings. Most of the other inmates are of the usual type—women who have drifted down from honest industry to vagabondage, or have been born to it.

Returning through the Golden Gates into the sunshine, we make our way to Jetsam Street. That is not its real name, but the one I have given it. This is a street of black and battered doors, of damaged railings, and of broken windows. On the doorsteps here and there stand groups of slatternly, unkempt women. From the windows above a tousled head occasionally appears. Many of the houses here are common lodging-houses; but some of them are in the hands of the house-farmers, who let them out in furnished rooms at a shilling a day. We enter a room which is unoccupied and take stock of the furniture. It consists of a bed, two chairs, and the wreckage of a dirty deal table.

In this room a man and his wife and children are accommodated at night, but the shilling paid only entitles the family to remain there until ten in the morning.

At that hour they are turned out and their tenancy ceases. If they wish to renew it they can do so in the evening, but not before.

These people, who are paying six shillings a week, or seven shillings where Sunday is not a free day, for a single room, have to spend the day in the streets. Many of them make their way to the public parks and sleep on the seats or on the grass. Some of them beg, some of them hawk trumpery articles. They are probably paying eighteen pounds a year for a wretched room, and yet in the house-farmer's hands they are homeless every day in the week.

Jetsam Street is flooded with golden sunshine as we pass through it, but the sunshine has not made the inhabitants light-hearted. Half-way down the street a man and a woman are fighting. The man is delivering a series of kicks in the style of La Savate at the woman, who is defiant and nimble and defends herself with her jacket, which she has taken off and uses both as a guard and as a weapon.

"ONE OR TWO WOMEN STANDING ON THE DOORSTEPS WATCH THE PROCEEDINGS."

One or two women standing on the doorsteps watch the proceedings, but apparently without interest. An old woman proceeding to the public-house for beer turns her head for a moment and then passes on her way. A little boy in rags passes the fighting couple and takes no notice whatever. It is an ordinary incident, and has no special attraction for the neighbours.

Presently the man succeeds in planting a blow that sends the woman down. She is up again in a moment and faces him, prepared to continue the contest. But he thinks he has scored a point and is satisfied.

"Now I'll go to the workhouse," he says.

"And the best place for you," answers the woman.

The man thrusts his hands in his pockets and slouches off. The woman puts on her jacket and strolls away. If we were to investigate the circumstances that have led up to the fight, we should find that we had been assisting at a Notting Dale version of the story of Carmen, Don José, and Escamillo, only Carmen in this case is a laundry girl, Don José is an idle ruffian, and Escamillo is another, only of a bolder type.

In Notting Dale the women are the principal wage-earners, and the district is infested with a contemptible set of men, who are loafers or worse. It is a common thing in the Dale for a man to boast that he is going to marry a laundry girl and do nothing for the rest of his life.

It seems difficult to realize that such a scene and such a street can exist within a stone's throw of a quarter crowded with the wealth and fashion of the capital. But wherever you step off the beaten track in London a hundred surprises await you.

I do not wonder at the fight in Jetsam Street which fails to rouse the lookers-on from their midday lethargy, for I am an old traveller in this strange land. But I must confess that it gives me a little shock when at the end of the street I come upon a man in the last stage of consumption sitting propped up with pillows in an arm-chair on the doorstep.

"BROUGHT OUT TO SIT A LITTLE WHILE IN THE SUNSHINE."

He has been brought out to sit a little while in the sunshine. The poor fellow has, I ascertain, taken his discharge from the infirmary a few days previously. He wants to die at home—at home in Jetsam Street!

The picture I have had so far to draw is a painful one and a squalid one. But it is typical of the neighbourhood, and could not be omitted if in these travels off the track I am to give a faithful account of the London that is so little known even to Londoners.

Let us hasten through the sordid streets, looking up at the blue skies and ignoring the squalid houses, and make our way to a more romantic spot.

"The Potteries!" How odd this description of a portion of Kensington sounds, yet the district we are now in is known by this name, and yonder is what remains of the kiln.

Here in the Potteries the spell of the old romance still lingers, for this is the district of the gipsies. In front of it is the pleasant recreation-ground, Avondale Park, which the County Council has made beautiful for the children of the Dale, and just round the corner is hidden a space where, year after year, the gipsies came with their vans and encamped for the winter. And close at hand are cottages and gardens, to which ducks and geese give quite a rural appearance.

"THERE ARE ONE OR TWO VANS LEFT TO MARK THE SPOT."

The gipsies are not here this winter, but there are one or two vans left to mark the spot where, until quite recently, the sons and daughters of Egypt pitched their "tans" in the heart of fashionable Kensington. Some of them, yielding to the force of such modern ideas as the sanitary inspector and the School Board officer, have given up the fight for existence in a dwelling-van and have gone to live under a roof like the gorgios, though a gipsy of the true Romany blood believes that nothing but ill-luck will attend the Romany chal or the Romany chi who lives in a house.

To-day the children of the gipsies are, many of them, in the Notting Dale Board School and the fathers and mothers are in the lodging-houses. One of the wanderers, who in the old times used to pitch on the vacant ground of the Potteries, so far fell into Gentile ways as to take a lodging-house and run it himself. He and his wife became noted characters in the Dale, and when he died a little time ago the gipsies came from far and near and gave him a genuine Romany funeral, with all the ancient rites and ceremonies of the great Pali tribe who wandered out of India long centuries ago and gave the word "pal" to our language to signify brother.

Though the gipsy camp has departed and the ground will know it no more, the surroundings are still suggestive of the old days. Hard by a dwelling-van left, like the rose of the poet, blooming alone is the shed of a chair-caner, a handsome, prosperous-looking man, who is working in the open and singing at his congenial task. The battered carts, the old chains, the broken wheels, the pigeon lofts, and the wooden sheds standing on a patch of waste ground remind you of the pictures you were given to copy at school when you were in the drawing-class. If there had only been a mill handy the resemblance would have been complete, but the chimney of the old kiln dominates the scene and takes the mill's place.

Here the note of Jetsam Street has disappeared. All around are respectable working-class dwellings and stableyards. A little farther up is a double row of cottages with a paved way between them that seem to have been lifted bodily out of a Yorkshire mill town and dropped with their quaint out-houses on to the confines of Kensington. When you come upon Thresher's Place you rub your eyes and wonder if it is possible that five minutes' walk will bring you out on Campden Hill.

In the mews round about the Potteries are the remnants of the Italian colony that drifted here some years ago, when Little Italy in Clerkenwell began to be encroached upon by the modern builder. The majority have now drifted farther afield, to Fulham and Hammersmith.

But there are still a fair number of the children of the Sunny South in the Dale. You may see the organs in the early morning being polished up outside the houses, and if you go into the yards you may discover the ice-barrows packed away in the coach-houses, waiting for the disappearance of the baked-chestnut season and the coming of summer.

Here, in a large coach-house in a mews, is a proprietor of ice-cream barrows hard at work repainting his stock in gorgeous colours. Brilliant streaks of red and green light up the dreary place where the signor is working. When we look in upon his artistic proceedings he is filling his studio with melody. He is singing an air from "Il Trovatore" in his native Italian, and at the same time painting an Italian girl in her national costume on the panel of an ice-barrow.

A little farther down the mews we climb the crazy staircase that leads to the loft, and find a middle-aged widow occupying it with five children.

We have arrived at an awkward moment, for the widow is in tearful converse with the Industrial Schools officer.

One of the children has been caught the previous night begging. Children are not allowed to beg in the streets to-day, and if it is found that the parents send them out or have not sufficient control over them to keep them in the little offenders can be taken before a magistrate and sent to an industrial school, to be trained for more reputable occupations in life.

The widow declares that the boy was not sent out by her, and weeps copiously while she relates her story. She has five children and no money. I don't think the officer is very much impressed. I am afraid he knows more about the widow and the begging boy than he cares to reveal in the presence of strangers. He gives the woman a kindly warning, and leaves her with the intimation that if any more of her children are caught begging she will be invited to pay a visit to the magistrate.

The Industrial Schools officer has a busy time in the Dale, for there are many young children living in vicious and criminal surroundings, and it is his task to remove them at the first opportunity, in order that they may have a chance in life. The work the industrial schools are accomplishing is invaluable. Under the Act a careful guardianship can be exercised by the State until the rescued boy or girl has reached the age of eighteen. There is no coming out of the industrial schools and returning to the evil surroundings now. But the task of the officer who has to see that the lads and lasses do not, after their school days are up, return to their evil associates is not a light one. He has occasionally to exercise the ingenuity of a Sherlock Holmes in order to get on the track of "one of his young people" who has mysteriously disappeared from the place that has been found for him or her.

Not long ago a young girl who had been sent to Canada, and was supposed to be doing well there, was discovered dressed in boy's clothes back again in the Dale with her uncle and aunt, who were undesirable companions for her. The girl had in some way managed to get her passage-money and come home, and had hoped, disguised as a young man, to escape the vigilance of the Industrial Schools officer.

Through a couple of streets and we are back in common lodging-house land. There is one long street in which the houses are registered from end to end. Some of them look like shops with the shutters up, others like private houses that have come down in the world. But every room is packed with as many beds as the law permits, and the common kitchen is reached by the area steps.

At one of the houses along this street a man and a woman are standing at the door. The woman has only one arm and one eye, the man has no arms. But they are a highly popular couple, and a good many of the lodging-houses in the street belong to them. The lady is said to be quite equal to quieting any disturbance among the lodgers with her one hand, and the man displays the most remarkable skill, suffering apparently little inconvenience from his loss. When you have seen him take his pipe out of his mouth with the empty sleeve of his jacket you will understand how he is able, with his wife's assistance, to keep his rough clientèle well in hand, and to compel their respect.

There is one feature of Notting Dale which strikes you forcibly if you go into a local crowd engaged in a heated argument, and that is the preponderance of the rural accent; for this is a district in which the evil of rural immigration has written itself large. Thousands of honest country folks crowd up year after year to the great city that they believe to be paved with gold. Of those who come in by the Great Western a large percentage drift to the Dale, failing to find room in the districts around the terminus; and in the Dale a process of moral deterioration goes on which is a tragedy.

The husband fails to find the work he expected would be ready to his hand in busy London. The little savings are soon gone; the man and his wife are driven to the common lodging-house, or, if there are children with them, to the furnished room. The wife perhaps goes to the laundry work. The husband's enforced idleness often ends in his becoming a confirmed loafer, contented to live on what his wife can earn. There is in Notting Dale a large working population living cleanly by honest industry, but the country folk who have been unfortunate at the commencement of the struggle for life in London cannot avail themselves of the cleaner accommodation and the better environment. They are forced into the area which is given over to the vicious and the criminal, and they gradually sink to the level of their neighbours.

Many a tale of heroic struggle against evil surroundings do the women tell who come before the School Board officials to explain the non-attendance of their children. Sometimes it is the man who has had the moral strength to resist, and with tears in his eyes will tell of the healthy, country-bred wife who came with him one day from the far-away village full of hope, but who has yielded to the awful environment, deserted his home, and left his children to fall into evil companionship.

There is no sadder chapter in the story of London than that of the light-hearted country folk who come to it full of courage and hope, and gradually sink down under the evil influence of a slum to which their poverty has driven them, until they themselves are as criminal and as vicious as their neighbours.

For them little can be done, though now and again the brave men and women who are working in the good cause succeed in rescuing them, even though they have fallen to the lowest depths of the abyss.

But for the next generation the hope is greater. High above one of the most notorious streets in the Dale tower the great buildings in which the children are gathered together and educated and taught the principles of right doing.

This is the thought that comes to me as, fresh from our pilgrimage of pain, we stand in the big playground and watch the little ones filing out in the sunshine to go to their homes. Some of them are well clad, the children of honest, hard-working folk who love them and care for them. But many are going back to miserable dens where there is neither love nor care, where there is no respect for the laws of God or man.

"MANY ARE GOING BACK TO MISERABLE DENS."

They cannot all be saved from the evil environment that awaits them, but they come day after day to the schools, and there they fall under an influence which, if they are not inherently bad, will stand them in good stead through all their lives.

We watch the little ones as with the light-heartedness of childhood they trip away, some to the meal which loving hands have prepared for them, others to crowd and clamour at the doors of the mission-house, where the free meal stands between them and the hunger pain, and then we turn into a street that bore formerly so ill a name that the authorities changed it, to remove the stigma of the address from the few decent people in it.

In five minutes we are once more on the beaten track and in the heart of Royal and aristocratic Kensington.

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Copyright, 1904, by W. W. Jacobs, in the United States of America.