| [All agog to teach the higher mathematics] |
| [I am going out, simply in search of adventure] |
| [Oui, Madame; Merci Beaucoup, Madame] |
| [Excuse me, I said, but I think I can see a way out of your difficulty] |
| [A most urbane and obliging Continental gentleman] |
| [Persons of Miladi's temperament are always young] |
| [That succeeds? the shabby-looking man muttered] |
| [I put her hand back firmly] |
| [He cast a hasty glance at us] |
| [Harold, you viper, what do you mean by trying to avoid me?] |
| [Circumstances alter cases, he murmured] |
| [Miss Cayley, he said, you are playing with me] |
| [I rose of a sudden, and ran down the hill] |
| [I was going to oppose you and Harold] |
| [He kept close at my heels] |
| [I was pulled up short by a mounted policeman] |
| [Seems I didn't make much of a job of it] |
| [Don't scorch, miss; don't scorch] |
| [How far ahead the first man?] |
| [I am here behind you, Herr Lieutenant] |
| [Let them boom or bust on it] |
| [His open admiration was getting quite embarrassing] |
| [Minute inspection] |
| [I felt a perfect little hypocrite] |
| [She invited Elsie and myself to stop with her] |
| [The Count] |
| [I thought it kinder to him to remove it altogether] |
| [Inch by inch he retreated] |
| [Never leave a house to the servants, my dear!] |
| [I may stay, mayn't I?] |
| [I advanced on my hands and knees to the edge of the precipice] |
| [I gripped the rope and let myself down] |
| [I rolled and slid down] |
| [There's enterprise for you] |
| [Painting the sign-board] |
| [The urbane old gentleman] |
| [He went on dictating for just an hour] |
| [He bowed to us each separately] |
| [I waited breathless] |
| [What, you here! he cried] |
| [He read them, cruel man, before my very eyes] |
| ['Tis Doctor Macloghlen, he answered] |
| [Too much Nile] |
| [Emphasis] |
| [Riding a camel does not greatly differ from sea-sickness] |
| [Her agitation was evident] |
| [Crouching by the rocks sat our mysterious stranger] |
| [An odd-looking young man] |
| [He turned to me with an inane smile] |
| [Nothing seemed to put the man down] |
| [Yah don't catch me going so fah from Newmarket] |
| [Wasn't Fra Diavolo also a composah?] |
| [Take my word for it, you're staking your money on the wrong fellah] |
| [I am the Maharajah of Moozuffernuggar] |
| [Who's your black friend?] |
| [A tiger-hunt is not a thing to be got up lightly] |
| [It went off unexpectedly] |
| [I saw him now the Oriental despot] |
| [It's I who am the winnah!] |
| [He wrote, I expect you to come back to England and marry me] |
| [It was endlessly wearisome] |
| [The cross-eyed Q.C. begged him to be very careful] |
| [I was a grotesque failure] |
| [The jury smiled] |
| [The question requires no answer, he said] |
| [I reeled where I sat] |
| [The messenger entered] |
| [He took a long, careless stare at me] |
| [I beckoned a porter] |
| [You can't get out here, he said, crustily] |
| [We told our tale] |
| [I have found a clue] |
| [I've held the fort by main force] |
| [Never! he answered. Never!] |
| [We shall have him in our power] |
| [Victory!] |
| [You wished to see me, sir?] |
| [Well, this is a fair knock-out, he ejaculated] |
| [Harold, your wife has bested me] |
I
THE ADVENTURE OF THE CANTANKEROUS OLD LADY
On the day when I found myself with twopence in my pocket, I naturally made up my mind to go round the world.
It was my stepfather's death that drove me to it. I had never seen my stepfather. Indeed, I never even thought of him as anything more than Colonel Watts-Morgan. I owed him nothing, except my poverty. He married my dear mother when I was a girl at school in Switzerland; and he proceeded to spend her little fortune, left at her sole disposal by my father's will, in paying his gambling debts. After that, he carried my dear mother off to Burma; and when he and the climate between them had succeeded in killing her, he made up for his appropriations at the cheapest rate by allowing me just enough to send me to Girton. So, when the Colonel died, in the year I was leaving college, I did not think it necessary to go into mourning for him. Especially as he chose the precise moment when my allowance was due, and bequeathed me nothing but his consolidated liabilities.
'Of course you will teach,' said Elsie Petheridge, when I explained my affairs to her. 'There is a good demand just now for high-school teachers.'
I looked at her, aghast. 'Teach! Elsie,' I cried. (I had come up to town to settle her in at her unfurnished lodgings.) 'Did you say teach? That's just like you dear good schoolmistresses! You go to Cambridge, and get examined till the heart and life have been examined out of you; then you say to yourselves at the end of it all, "Let me see; what am I good for now? I'm just about fit to go away and examine other people!" That's what our Principal would call "a vicious circle"—if one could ever admit there was anything vicious at all about you, dear. No, Elsie, I do not propose to teach. Nature did not cut me out for a high-school teacher. I couldn't swallow a poker if I tried for weeks. Pokers don't agree with me. Between ourselves, I am a bit of a rebel.'
'You are, Brownie,' she answered, pausing in her papering, with her sleeves rolled up—they called me 'Brownie,' partly because of my dark complexion, but partly because they could never understand me. 'We all knew that long ago.'