The Strand 1912-8 Vol-XLIV № 260 August mich

TWELVE-OBJECT PICTURES. a complete solution—per- haps the most plausible of the whole ingenious series. Mr. Rene Bull, with an Egyptian background, has pictured the swell and the pretty girl in the act of stealing the mummy from its native land. Operating from the aeroplane, they have successfully hooked it by means of an anchor at the end of a rope, dropping a copy of THE STRAND MAGAZINE in their haste. The swinging mummy has knocked over the one-legged beggar, an Egyptian one this time, with his organ, and the daring thieves would, appa- rently, have got clean away but for the prompt action of Sherlock Holmes, who has dashed up and opened fire with a revolver. Holmes, we are glad to see, has, with his keen eye for detail, taken the precaution to bring the hospital nurse, in case he wings his man. The cow and the dog are obviously seriously disturbed at what is taking place, as is also the shadow, which represents a native holding up his hands in pious horror at the desecration of the land of his forefather^. This composition is extremely clever and amusing. Its defect lies in the fact that the cow and the dog are not essential to \"SHERLOCK HOLUES TRACKING A THIBF TO HAMPSTKAU HEATH,\" I.Y MR. FRKI) BENNETT. MR. RENfe BULL'S SOLUTION. it. and seem to be there by accident. The following is Mr. Fred Ben- nett's explanation of his picture. The mummy has been stolen by the swell, who has used the cow as a means of carrying off his ill- gotten gains. Sherlock Holmes sets out to dis- cover the thief, and has tracked him to Hampstead Heath on the aero- plane and there denounced him. This has caused the pretty girl, who is betrothed to the swell, to

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. faint, thus requir- ing the services of the hospital nurse. The dog is also upset by what is going on, and barks furiously, while the beggar again plays the organ.The shadow is that of an in- terestedspectator, who comes on the scene with THE STRAND MAGA- ZINE in his hand. Mr. George Morrow, in ex- planation of his rendering of the subject, has sup- plied the follow- \"AN EXCITING OCCURRENCE AT UULLCASTER,\" BY MR. GEORGE MORROW. ing alleged newspaper paragraph : \" A few days ago a cow, frightened by an aeroplane, ran amok in the principal street of Dullcaster; several persons were slightly injured. Mr. Sherlock Holmes witnessed the occurrence from a shop where he was making some investigations.\" This, of course, makes everything perfectly clear—the cow in its wild career has tossed the wooden-legged beggar, who has been playing the organ, and has knocked down the mummy, exposed for sale in the doorway of an old curiosity shop, at the clearance-sale price of I2S. n£d. The swell, the girl, the dog, and the hos- pital nurse form the panic- stricken crowd, one of whom has dropped the copy of THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Sherlock Holmes comes to the door of the shop to see what the row is about, and the shadow is that of a policeman intent on the arrest of the cow. This is a complete solution, as all the objects come naturally into the picture. Mr. H. M. Bateman has 'T1IK PLOT IN THE MUSEUM,\" BY MR. H. M. BATliMAN.

TWELVE-OBJECT PICTURES. '75 given us a characteristically ingenious solution. His theme is \" The Plot in the Museum.\" The swell and the hospital nurse are the \" villains of the piece,\" and they are met in the museum to mature their nefarious plans. The nurse hands her accomplice a bottle of poison, but there is danger in the air—the pretty girl is sitting close by, with the copy of THE STRAND MAGAZINE in her hands, and may detect their dark deed. Fortunately, at the critical moment, the aeroplane appears at the window and dis- tracts her gaze, while at the same time the beg- gar, playing the organ (these two items appear to be almost insepar- able), also helps to at- tract her attention. Everything appears to favour the conspirators, but they have reckoned without Sherlock Holmes, who is round the corner and has over- heard everything. The cow and the mummy figure as museum ex- hibits, and the dog stands tearfully at the door of the building gazing woefully at a placard that forbids his entrance, while a men- acing shadow descends on him in the shape of a vigilant attendant. This is in every point a complete solution. Mr. W. Heath Robin- son, past master in the realms of humorous art, has evolved a delight- fully fantastic blending of the various items. He has given us an Egyptian setting where- in Sherlock Holmes has carried off the pretty girl under, or rather above, the eyes of her fiamt, the swell. Holmes has abducted the lady by means of the aeroplane, and flourishes the copy of THE STRAND MAGAZINE in his disengaged hand. The distracted lover has given chase, and for want of a swifter steed has enlisted the services of the cow. In his mad career he has frightened the dog out of its wits and knocked over the wooden- legged beggar who was playing the organ, whereat the hospital nurse arrives hurriedly to render first aid. The shadow is that of a policeman hot-foot on the scene, while the UNUSUAL BEHAVIOUR OK SHERLOCK HOLMES, BY MR. W. HEATH ROBINSON. mummy, disturbed from his rest by the advent of the aeroplane, bursts excitedly through the apex of a convenient pyramid, thus com-

JUDITH LEE. The Experiences or a Lip-Reader. By RICHARD MARSH. Illustrated ty J. R. Skelton. XII.—Mandragora. HAD returned from week- ending with a friend, and was having lunch at the railway- station dining-room before returning to my work. The place was crowded with that miscellaneous assemblage which is the peculiarity of such places. Just as the waiter had brought me what I ordered two men, coming hurriedly in, took the only vacant seats in sight—at a little table next to mine. Something in their appearance attracted my attention. They were of different ages. One was about thirty, tall, dark, square-faced ; the other was possibly nearly twice that age, a little, white-haired man, who looked as if his health was failing. What caught my attention chiefly was that he seemed to be in such a curious state of ner- vousness ; watching him gave one the jumps. At last his companion commented on it— they were sitting sideways to me, so that I could see both their faces. \" If I were you, Hutton, I should take something for it.\" It was the first time either had spoken ; perhaps it was the unexpectedness of the remark which caused the elder man to give a sort of lurch in his chair. He looked as if, for a moment, he did not grasp the other's meaning ; then he sighed. \" Ah, Walker, I wish I could take something for it; but—who can minister to a mind diseased ? Mandragora would have no effect on me.\" An unpleasant look came upon the other's face as he said :— \" I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense. What do you suppose is the good of it ? \" \" There is no good in it—that's the worst of it; there'll never be any good in anything any more—we've murdered goodness. You're a different type of man from me.\" \" Thank Heaven ! \" The speaker took a long drink from his glass. \" For one thing, I am nearer the grave than you are ; perhaps that's why I'm so much more disposed than you to think of what's beyond it. I never thought that I should go to the Judgment Seat with such a crime to answer for. I don't know what I shall say when I get there.\" \" If you don't stop talking like that, taking up that pose, you and I will quarrel.\" \" I'm not afraid of that, Walker : I'm inclined to wish that you and I had quarrelled before. Rather Dartmoor with Young than torment with you.\" \" Hutton, I can't think what's come to you ; you used not to be this kind of man. You'll worry yourself into actual illness if you don't look out.\" \" I'm a sick man already—sick unto death.\" Although they were unaware of the fact, I had become more absorbed in their conversa-

MANORAGORA. 177 \" I wish you would kill me, Tom ; if it weren't that you'd have to pay the penalty, I'd say do it at once. I dare not determine my own life, but—God forgive me for saying so— if someone would do it for me I'd be grateful.\" His sincerity seemed to impress his younger companion, who looked at him as if seeking words with which to answer; then, as if rinding none, he summoned the waiter, paid their joint bill, and rose from his chair. They went out. They had got through their lunch in a very few minutes. Since their entry I had barely touched mine. I eieher for love or money. It seemed that every house in the place was crammed to the roof. When I had received the same answer for about the twentieth time, I asked the fly-man, who was taking me from one likely house to another, if there was still another he could think of. \" I can't say, miss, that there is—at least, there is a cottage in the fields about half a mile along the shore in which you might find accommodation ; but I can't say that I know much in its favour.\" There was something in his tone which, ordinarily, might have prompted me to ask him what he meant ; but there was my box, and there was I, and neither of us wanted to go back to town. I told him to drive me to 'IF YOU DON'T STOP TALKING LIKE THAT YOU AND I WILL QUARRBL.\" had, before I knew it, become a confidante in a tragedy in circumstances which had deprived me of the little appetite I had had. I sat with that old man's face in front of me long after they had gone. For days afterwards I kept asking myself what was the nature of the tragedy which made that old gentleman so willing that his companion should kill him. In the late summer of that year I went to a seaside town, which I will call East- hampton. I believed it to be an obscure hamlet, until on getting there I found it impossible to rent a bed and sitting-room, that cottage. It turned out to have just the accommodation I was looking for, and to be quite a charming cottage in itself. It was not overburdened with furniture, but there was all I needed, and the rooms were spotlessly clean. Then I liked the landlady ; she was quite a pretty woman, possibly not more than twenty-six years old. She told me she had one child, a girl of six, and kept no servant, but did all the work herself. I was never in more comfortable quarters. I had been threatened by one of those nervous collapses which do come to me when I have been overworked, and rest, comfort, and fresh

178 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. air were the three things of which I had need. T found them all three at Laurel Cottage. And my landlady was a most charming person ; no make-believe lady, but a very real one. She was very reticent. She told me that her name was Mrs. Vinton, and that she was a widow; her husband had been dead three years. Since she was practically my sole companion, I saw a good deal of her. Mine being the only sitting-room the house contained, I asked her to share it with me— she and her little girl. I never met a woman who had a finer gift of silence. She would sit for hours and say nothing. Not because she had nothing to talk about; she was not only a highly- educatcd woman, but she had seen a great deal of the world. What cause she had for silence I could not tell. One evening, as I was going to my room to change my blouse for dinner, the door of the bedroom which she shared with her small child was wide open. She was putting the maid to bed. The child, kneeling at her mother's knee, was about to say her prayers, and the mother, bending over, said to her:— \" I want you, Nellie, to pray for papa to-night very specially indeed; it's his birthday.\" Tears fell from her eyes on to the child's fair hair. I had left my walking shoes downstairs and was moving very quietly; I suppose that was why she had not heard me come. The very next day something else occurred. I made another intrusion on her confidence— I protest, quite unwillingly. It was when I was passing the kitchen-window, which, like the bedroom-door on the previous evening, was wide open. I could not help seeing that Mrs. Vinton was on her knees beside the kitchen-table, that she had a photograph in her hands, that tears were streaming down her cheeks, and that her lips were forming words. \" My dear, my dear ! May the Lord God bless and keep you, and send you back to me before my heart is quite broken.\" Plainly there was a skeleton in this lady's cupboard. Why did she say her husband was dead, if she prayed the Lord God to send him back to her ? It struck me that if he were to come back to her before her heart was broken he would have to be pretty quick. That some secret grief was eating into her soul was pretty clear. It was the following evening, after dinner. We were at my sitting-room window, looking out across the wheat-field which divided us from the sea. Although she had done her best to hide it. I felt pretty certain that she had been crying nearly all day long. \" If you are not careful, Mrs. Vinton, you will make yourself ill.\" With this remark I broke a silence which was becoming almost painful. She started, and her cheeks were flushed.

M AX UR AGORA. help to you. That gift of mine has been of help to people now and then.\" \" I don't see how you can be of help to me. It's quite true, as you say, that my husband is alive; but he might as well be dead, because he's in prison.\" She said it with what I dare say she meant to be an air of defiance ; but even as she spoke she shuddered, and she put her hands up to her face. \" I beg your pardon, Mrs. Vinton ; I did not guess it was that way. Please forgive me. Still, perhaps I can be of help to you.\" \" My husband was sentenced to fourteen years' penal servi- tude ; he has served three. \" Do you think people will come and lodge with me when they know who I am ? They whisper all sorts of things about me in Easthampton, I know. I don't suppose anyone knows the whole truth about me. I have done my best to hide it, but even as it is they shun me as if I were the plague.\" I was at a loss for things to say, the situation \"SHE PILLOWED HKR HEAD ON THE CHAIR AND BURST INTO TEARS.\" In those circumstances I don't see what help you, a perfect stranger, can be to me. I had a little money when—when it hap- pened, but it is nearly all gone. I thought to make a little by letting lodgings, but 1 have not made enough to pay the rent even of this cottage.\" \" I might at least be able to send you some lodgers.\" being one for which I was so utterly unprepared. Presently she gave me unlooked - for help, while inflicting on me what was very like a snub. \" This is a subject. Miss Lee, on which you have forced my confidence —I am not sure quite fairly. Whether you go or stay, on one point there must be no misunderstanding: it is a subject on which you must never speak to me again. But before quitting it for ever, I should like to make myself clear to you on one matter : the jury found him guilty, the judge sent him to prison for fourteen years, the world thinks that punishment well merited—but I know that my husband is innocent.\"

i8o THE STRAND MAGAZINE. She turned to leave the room, but something made it impossible for me to let her go. \" Mrs. Vinton ! One moment, please ! Don't you see that if your husband is innocent that is just the point on which I might be able to help you ? \" Again her manner was not encouraging. \" Help me ? You ? How can you help me ? You will have to work a miracle to restore my husband to his former place among his fellow-men. Yet I tell you he is innocent.\" \" Even miracles may be worked. You say that he is innocent. I have sufficient con- fidence in your judgment, Mrs. Vinton \" \" My name is not Vinton; nor is my husband's—his name is George Young.\" I suppose it was because I started that she added : \" Now you will probably adopt a different tone ; in common with all the world, you held my husband to be guilty.\" \" I know nothing either of your husband's innocence or guilt. Nearly four years ago I left England for a long tour round the world. Your husband's trial must have taken place while I was away. If there was an account of it in any of the few English papers I saw during my absence I never read it.\" \" I saw you start when I said my husband's name was George Young. If you did not know it, why start as if you did ? \" Her tone was suspicious, even resentful. \" You have heard how the mouse helped the lion,\" I said. \" I honestly think it is within the range of possibility that I may be able to help you. You saj; your husband's name is George Young. Tell me about him. With what was he charged ? \" Abandoning her intention of quitting the room, she had sunk upon a chair. Her words limped a little. \" My husband was managing clerk to a firm of solicitors. He was about to be made a partner when it was discovered that, among other things, a large number of securities which had been entrusted to his principals for safe keeping were missing. They were very fond of George, and for his sake as well as their own they did their best to try to conceal the facts in hope of restitution. There was a trust fund of rather more than twenty thousand pounds, of which they were custodians ; when the trustees wanted the money it was gone. They charged George with taking it. Other charges were made against him in the course of the trial, but it was on that charge that he was found guilty and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude.\" The story, told thus baldly, did not sound very lucid, but my thoughts were travelling in a direction of their own ; they were in that railway refreshment-room in which two men \"were lunching at a little table next .to mine. \" What was the name of the firm by which your husband was employed ? \" \" Hutton, Hutton, and Walker. Young

MANDRAGORA. 'I WATCHED, SO SAID FAR AS I COULI1, WHAT WAS BKING BETWEEN THE TWO.\" After I had had enough of reading I began to walk about. There were not many people in the gardens. There was an elderly woman alone on one seat, who was cer- tainly an old maid, and a very old lady alone on the next, who looked as if she never could have been young, and on the third there was an old gentle- man I stopped as I was ap- proaching that old gentle- man, suddenly conscious of a little catching of the breath. I had seen that old gentleman before—once ; it was to see him a second time that I was there. He sat back in his seat, with his eyes closed ; but not even the most unobservant could have supposed that he slept -—there was a look upon his face which no sleeper ever has. He looked to me like a very sick man indeed— smaller than when I had seen him first, as if he had lost both flesh and vitality. I was wondering whether or not to address him, and what method of address to employ, when I had another little shock of surprise. Some- one else had entered the gardens— a tall, upstanding, quite young man. It was the square-faced man who had sat with the other at the adjoining table. He struck me as being the kind of man who does observe. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he had noticed me on what was likely to prove that momentous occasion. He eyed me as we passed each other, as if my face was not entirely unfamiliar, as if he were asking himself where he had seen it before. He went one way, I the other. I had no doubt that he was making for the old man on the seat. Turning into a side-path upon the left, I turned again into another narrower path which ran parallel with the broad one I had left. I retraced my steps along it.

182 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Between the intervening shrubs and trees I could see the seats on the broader walk. When I came abreast of the one on which the old man had been sitting he was talking to the new-comer. A clump of rhododendrons was between us, high enough, unless particular search was made for a suspected presence, to serve as a screen. Standing as far back as I could without losing sight of the two men's faces, I made it serve as a screen for me, and I watched, so far as I could, what was being said between the two. The younger man came up while the elder still had his eyes closed. He stood for a moment observing him, then he greeted him. \" Good morning.\" The old man opened his eyes, looking up at him as if he were not quite sure who he was ; then he said :— \" It will never be a good morning to me again—never—never ! \" The other smiled ironically. \" Isn't that rather a strong thing to say on a morning like this, when the sun's in a cloudless sky ? \" \" Nor will there be any sun again for me— ever ; for me there is only outer darkness.\" I could see from the look on the younger man's face that he sneered. \" Aren't you slightly melodramatic ? Didn't you sleep well ? \" \" I have not slept well since the day on which George Young went to jail ; his going murdered sleep. All night I lie in agony.\" \" You were saying the other day how you longed for something to give you sleep ; here is something.\" The speaker took out of a waistcoat-pocket a small blue phial, offering it to the old man on his open palm. The old man looked at the phial, and then up at the face of the person who offered it. \" What is it ? \" '' Mandragora.\" \" Will it give me sleep ? \" \" If you choose, sleep which will know no waking.\" The two men exchanged looks—such strange ones ; then the elder took with tremulous fingers the phial off the other's palm. Then, when he had got it, he shut his eyes again. The younger, without another word, left the gardens. I waited. If I could help it I was not going to lose sight of the phial which was in the old man's hand. Presently an empty bath-chair came down the walk. The chair- man, assisting the old man to enter, began to draw him away. I followed. They stopped at what I recognized to be the house in Belgrave Road which Mrs. Young had given me as Mr. Button's address. The old man entered the house leaning on the chair- man's arm. I walked up the road, then back again. Twenty minutes had elapsed since the old man entered. It was one of those lodging- houses in which the hall-door proper is never

MANDRAGORA. He gasped ; I thought every moment he would collapse. \" If I only thought it ! If I only could believe it ! \" \" Surely your own common sense must tell you that there is at least more chance that way than this ? \" I held out the phial. \" I do not know who you are, where you come from, what you want with me ; but—if I only could believe that by doing what you say—I could be at peace again with God and man !\" He did believe before I had done with him, or, if his faith was not so perfect as it might have been, he did as I wished. He made a complete confession of the whole painful business. I wrote down every word he said. Then I read over to him what I had written ; the landlady was called in, and in her presence and mine he signed it. When I was alone again with Mr. Hutton I was struck by what I have noticed on other occasions—that there is some truth in the saying that \" open confession is good for the soul.\" Confession had done him good— visible and obvious good ; he owned as much. His tongue once unloosed, he became positively loquacious. He told me many things about himself which enabled me to understand the situation better than the bare outlines of the formal confession he had just now made. His son had been the thief, his only child. When detection threatened, to escape punish- ment he had poisoned himself. How he had obtained the poison remained a mystery. And not only so, the tragedy had been handled in such a fashion as to make it appear that George Young had been to blame for it. At the trial certain evidence was produced that made it seem that he had been Young's victim ; that he was of such a sensitive nature that, rather than face what must be the result of George Young's villainy, he preferred to die. As I heard this part of the tale I thought of the phial which had been given to the old man, and I drew my own conclusion. When I left Mr. Hutton I returned to my hotel, to find a telegram awaiting me. It was in answer to one I had sent while I had been following that bath-chair. I smiled as I read it; I glanced at the clock—and I thought I saw my campaign finished. I had learnt from Mr. Hutton where Mr. Thomas Walker was staying ; he was in a house in the higher part of the town, which belonged to a relative of his, and of which, in his relative's absence, he'was, with the exception of some sort of servant, the only occupant. About a quarter to four, at which time the London express reaches Torquay, I went to call at Mr. Thomas Walker's, leaving at my hotel a note for a person whom I told them I presently expected. The address the old man had given me was Tormohan, Ilsham Road. Any idea I might have had of introducing myself to Mr. Walker as I had done to Mr. Hutton vanished directly I saw what kind of place Tormohan was. It

i84 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. gratified for the beloved husband of whom she had been so foully and cruelly bereft— these rose before me, moving me to sudden rage, so that I broke into language which amazed Mr. Thomas Walker. \" The business which has brought me here is to tell you that you are a contemptible, cowardly, murderous scoundrel, and that the hour is struck in which your sins are going to find you out. That, in the first place.\" He stared as if he wondered if I were mad ; then he smiled oddly. \" That, in the first place. And in the second ? \" \" In the second, I am going to enter into details, by way of recalling certain facts to your recollection.\" Then I jumped at my fences without stopping to consider what was on the other side. \" How many years ago is it since -you began to incite young Frank Hutton to rob his father ? \" At that he did change countenance ; I had found a safe landing on the other side of the fence. \" What on earth are you talking about ? Who are you, and what do you want with me ? \" \" You taught Frank Hutton to be a thief; in a small way at the beginning, on a large scale later on. You shared his ill-gotten spoils ; yet, when detection threatened, you so played upon his fears that you induced him to commit suicide, in order to escape the consequences of what were more your misdeeds than his. Did you, a lawyer, forget that when A assists B in committing suicide A is guilty of murder ? When you put the poison within Frank Hutton's reach, knowing perfectly well the use he was about to make of it, you committed murder ; for that murder the law is presently going to call you to account,.\" The way in which he looked at me ! I already began to suspect that his fingers were itching to take me by the throat. He rnerely said :— \" Is that so ? May I ask from what quarter you have acquired the facts on which you base your rather surprising observations ? \" The feeling was growing momentarily stronger in me that this man was one of those unspeakable creatures who are dangers to whoever they are brought in contact with. \" Not content with destroying young Frank Hutton, soul and body, to cover your own offences, you proceeded to wreck his father's happiness and to lead him into crime. You lied to him about his son ; you were so skilful as to be able to make him believe that his boy was the sole offender, and then, pretending that it was your desire to spare him shame, you put it into his head to lay the burden upon an innocent man. You were so skilful as to make it seem that the suggestion came from himself and not from you. You unutterable thing ! \" This time when I paused he said nothing. I was aware that he was all the more dangerous

MAXDRAGCRA. I believe he meant to say more, but could not. He shrank back from me as if in physical terror. I gave him no quarter. I held out my right hand, palm uppermost. On it was the small blue phial. \" Do you recognize that ? \" He looked at it as if it were some dreadful thing; again he stammered his question :— \" What—what do you mean ? \" \"This morn- ing I saw you give that phial to your part- ner, Michael Hutton. He has long had it in his mind to escape from the weight of remorse which has made life intolerable to him, as you are well aware. I saw you give him this phial a few hours ago in the public-gardens. He said to you, \"HE HAD ME BY TUB THROAT BEFORE I HAD EVEN REALIZED THAT DANGER THREATKNPD.\" Vol. »liv.-t3.

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. ' What is it ? ' You replied, ' Mandragora.' He asked,' Will it give me sleep ? ' You said, ' If you choose, sleep which will know no waking.' You let him take the phial between his shaking fingers, and you walked off, knowing that you had left death behind you.\" There was a momentary silence ; he cast shifty glances round him, as if he sought on every side some way of escape, finding none. Presently he asked, moistening his parched lips with the tip of his tongue before he was able to pronounce his words :— \" Is—is old Hutton dead ? \" \" Do not imagine that that will profit you. He made complete confession. The whole story is set down in black and white, signed by his own hand. This phial will avail you nothing.\" Suddenly I realized that he was eyeing the tiny glass bottle with a new expression in his glance. \" I don't believe it's empty.\" He said it almost as if he were speaking to himself. He drew closer. \" I don't believe the contents have been touched.\" He made a sudden grab at the phial; I withdrew it just in the nick of time. There was the sound of an unmusical bell. \" Who is that ? \" he asked. I said: \" Had you not better go to the door and see ? \" He looked at me. I suppose he saw some- thing on my face which set his own thoughts travelling. \" Is it someone for you ? \" \" It is someone for you—at last! \" \" Is that so ? Someone for me—at last.\" He stopped ; there was silence. The bell rang again. I was just about to suggest again that he should go and see who was at the outer door when—he leaped at me. And I was unprepared. He had me by the throat before I had even realized that danger threatened. I was to blame; I ought to have been on my guard. As it was, so swift were his movements, so strong his grip, that I was already finding it hard to breathe before 1 had a chance to pull myself together. I am a woman, but no weakling. I have always felt it my duty to keep my body in proper condition, trying to learn all that physical culture can teach me. I only recently had been having lessons in jiu-jitsu-—the Japanese art of self-defence. I had been diligently practising a trick which was intended to be used when a frontal attack was made upon the throat. His preoccupation, his insensate rage, his unpreparedness, which \\vns even greater than mine had been—these things were on my side. Even as, I dare say, he was thinking that I was already as good as done for, I tried that trick. His fingers released my throat, and he was on the floor without, I fancy, understanding how he got there. I doubt if there ever was a more amazed man. When he began to realize what had happened he gasped up at me—he was still on the floor : \" You—you \" While he was still endeavouring to find

Artists' Opinions on Ladies' Dress, The photographs in this article, numbered 1 to 6, were submitted to certain well-known portrait painters, whose opinion was asked as to how these dresses appeal to the artistic eye, and which of them they would prefer to paint. They were also asked to state whether, in their opinion, the artist of the present day has the same opportunities with regard to the costumes of his sitters as the great portrait painters of the past, some of whose works are given for purposes of comparison. Our lady readers will be pleased to find that, on the whole, the dresses of to-day compare favourably with those of any former period. KLKONORA L>E TOLKDO—BY BRONZING. >yom a fkotoprnj* '» Alinari. Mr. H. DE T. GLAZE- BROOK. USKIN held the opinion that no por- trait was reallyworth painting unless the sitter was beauti- fully dressed. And with this dictum I am rather inclined to agree, for, although the styles generally worn to- day may not be quite so gorgeous as those of mediae- val times, it is my per- sonal opinion that artists of to-day have equal oppor- tunities of making beauti- ful pictures in modern \"LA BKLLA\"— BY TITIAN. MARIANA OK AUbTRIA—BY VELAZQUKZ. >Vv»i a dress with painters of days gone by. Past a doubt some of the old Court painters pro- duced wonderfully effective dresses in their portraits, but as the very nature of their \" positions \" practi- cally compelled them to natter their Royal sitters — and to flatter them more than a little — it occurs to me that they probably felt that they must allow their artistic talent a particu- larly free hand when deal- ing with the sitter's dress as well as her face. As far as I am personally concerned, I have no par- ticular choice of period,

188 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. and I would as lief paint modern costume portraits as those of any other time, for I believe in painting what one seos around one every day. Of the many pretty dresses here shown, I should prefer to paint Nos. i, 2, and 3, in the order named. In dealing with No. i, I may, perhaps, be allowed to state that I should also like the model to have red hair and a complexion suggesting paleness, for the simple reason that too dark a type of sitter would, I think, probably clash somewhat with the style of the dress and coat shown in that illustration. Photograph No. 2 sug- gests a charming gown for a young girl, and this picture and photo- graph No. 3 are obvi- ously designed for two opposite types of wearer. In conclusion, I should like to say that the illus- trations as a whole all appeal to me as being in excellent taste and, from an artist point of view, extremely picturesque. PRINCESS MARIA I.UISE DE TASSIS— BY VAN DYCK. From a Photograph btt Hanfittaengl. Mr. J. LAVERY, A.R.A. As an expression of personal opinion, I feel quite convinced that old-time artists would undoubtedly have produced pictures of equal merit to those which helped to gain them their reputation had they been set to paint subjects dressed in fashions that are the vogue to-day, for modern dress most certainly possesses many attractive \" fea- tures \" from an artist's point of view, and, in addition, presents oppor- tunities for artistic treat- ment that have been equalled by few periods of fashion. Were I to dress a model in modern fashion I should ask for nothing better than some of the styles depicted in the attractive photographs shown in this article, of which Nos. i, 2, 3, and 4 strike me as being par- ticularly pleasing. No. 3 is certainly a most \" pain table \" dress, as I know by experience,'for quite recently I received sittings in Paris from a lady who wore a gown TUB HON. MRS. GRAHAM—BY OAINSBOROUGH.

ARTISTS' OPINIONS ON LADIES' DRESS. •189 similar in almost every detail to that shown there, and, curiously enough, I selected that costume as being most likely to make an effective dress for me to deal with on canvas. Apart from what I might almost call personal associa- tions with the costume shown in photograph No. 3, I really think that Nos. 2 and i should have preference over this style. Of the two I am inclined to think that I should prefer to paint the latter, for the cloak produces some graceful lines that frame the gorgeous mate- rial of the dress in a most appealing manner. As a final expression of opinion, may I add that I con- sider that the lot of a portrait painter would be a more en- viable one than it is were all his sitters to select costumes as artistic and pleasing as those shown in this article, which cannot fail, I think, to prove of very great interest to women who study the dress question, and what woman does not ? Mr. WILLIAM ORPEN, A.R.A. I am inclined to think that present-day fashions offer op- portunities at least equal for artistic treatment to those of any time, and I have no manner of doubt that the genius of the old masters would have shown itself as thoroughly capable of dealing with modern styles as it dealt with the par- ticular fashions in vogue when they painted their masterpieces. As a matter of personal in- clination, I should ask for no- thing better than to be called upon to paint some such sub- jects as are shown in the illus- trations put before me. Were I to have to dress a model in modern costume I might say, too, that I should certainly go to the heads of

190 THE STRAND MAGAZ2.\\K. some well - known fashionable firms to select a suitable design, for the originators of such designs are in every respect really clever \" artists \" in their own particular walk of life, and thus I should feel quite prepared to \" stand on \" the judgment of such specialists. Which costume appeals to me most ? On the whole, I feel dis- posed to select photograph No. i, for the graceful line of the cloak adds greatly to the effect of the picture as a whole, while its soft folds offer still further scope for artistic treatment. I feel bound to say, however, that, on the whole, all the other styles shown in the photographs also strike me as being in excellent taste, though in dealing with such styles as those shown in photo- graphs Nos. 4, 6, f a sh i o r.-piate. Photographs Nos. 3 and 2 bo Ji lend themselves to the painter's art, and really I have seldom seen a collection of dresses more suited to help a portrait painter to give of his best work. Mr. G. SPENCER WATSON. The nuery as to whether artists of the present day have opportunities equal to those of the past, I am in- clined to answer in the affirmative. The dresses shown in photographs Nos. i, 2, and 3 strike me as being particularly well suited to the wear- ers, though, speak-

ARTISTS' OPINIONS ON LADIES' DRESS. 191 each picture would then have been rendered \" softer.\" It seems to me that the chief trouble in dealing with fashions in dress of long years ago largely lies in the fact that we present-day mortals only know them through the eyes of artists who depicted them on canvas in their own day. And so, actually, how can one form any definite opinion that the general mass of the people in their time were in any way more pictur- esquely dressed than are we to-day ? To form any really sound opinion on such a sub- ject, I am sure \"it is necessary to see the depicted dresses worn by living flesh and blood. However, as we are used to modern costume, and as women to-day seem to possess the knowledge of how to wear their clothes to the best advantage, and would prob- ably fail utterly if called upon to exhibit the styles of the past to equal advantage, I cannot help thinking that a present-day artist has at least equal chances with the masters of old. Mr. RICHARD JACK. I scarcely think that pre- sent-day fashions are as pic- turesque as those of most other periods, although I feel bound to state that the photo- graphs here shown are in every respect quite charming. The old fashions, which in- cluded frills and ruffles, were, perhaps, more pronounced in character than are the various fashions of to- day, but they could, I think, bemore readily adapted to the individual wearer. To- day, unfortu- nately, there would seem to be a too-faith- ful and slavish following by the majority of wearers of some particu- lar phase of dress which is, as a matter of actual fact,

lt)2 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. the fair sex as a whole, I think, might certainly always bear in mind— with advantage to themselves. For example, take photo- graph No. 2 and imagine for an instant the costume there shown being worn by a big and generously- developed woman! The result would most cer- tainly be far from pleas- ing, and yet it is an undoubted fact that many such women would not hesi- tate for a single instant to dress themselves in such a style after seeing this pic- ture, in which obviously the dress suits a slightly - built wearer to per- fection. Of the styles here shown I should personally prefer to paint No. i, which strikes me as being particu- larly attractive, in that the whole effect does not appear too obvi- ously to belong to any particular period. I must also have a good word to sayabout photographs Nos. 3 and 2, for both strike me as being likely to make attractive features, al- fnm a Photograph by Schneider. though, by the same token, I should like both photographs more were the models seated. If only women of to- day would think intelli-

ARTISTS' OPINIONS ON LADIES' DRESS. 193 years to trace any s:heme of costume which could justly be said to have had any really sound foundation of idea in its conception. In the ^Middle Ages the materials used in dress fabrication were far fewer—and probably consider- ably finei — than is now the case, and dresses, too, were built up by the blending of merely one or two mate- rials into a har- monious whole, the main motive1 of which was worked out to result in grace- ful, flowing lines. To-day, however, the general run of dress makers seem prepared to crowd silk • upon srilk and larc upon serge w i t h o u t — 0 s t e n s i bly— having any par- ticular reason for so doing. Still. I feel that modern dress could probably be made quite artistic, though this result could perhaps only bs attained by follow- 1 ig a fixed idea which is certainly not usually a common policy these days, for when a dress has a frill here, a bow there, and some extra trimming somewhere else, without there being any apparent reason for these additions to appear in the scheme at all, the result seems to me to be doomed to failure from an artistic point of view. It will be seen, therefore, that, in my humble opinion, artists of the past held better opportunities for dealing with contemporary women's dress than do those of to-day, though I still fe«l con- siderable doubt as to which period in his- tory presented the best opportunity for immortalizing dress on canvas.

194 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. a PJwtvgratth In Sclineidsr, some years ago I should most certainly have considered that the dresses worn about the year 1840 were certainly not \" too attrac- tive,\" and yet, when it so hap- pened that I came to dress a pretty model in this style, I remember the thought cross- ing my mind, \" Well, now, I do not wonder for an instant that men ran off with girls in those days when their par- ents failed to regard them in thejightof eli- gible suitors,\" for the effect • struck me as being particu- larly alluring. As far as old- time masters are concerned, I can only say that it seems to me that if an artist has the necessary \" touch \" to produce a great picture, he could do so in almost any period, though I must add that I have a personal feeling that certain types of mod- ern fashion lend themselves as readily to artistic repro- duction on can- vas as those of any other kind.

ARTISTS' OPINIONS ON LADIES' DRESS. To give my opinion on the various illustra- tions I find myself confronted with, I may say that photographs Xos. i, 2, and 3 strike me as beingvery,very charming—I select them in the order named—and I may add that I feel that it would be hard indeed to find a more \" pain table \" effect than that suggested by the style shown in the first of these illustrations. For a young girl, \" a woman in chrysalis form,\" photograph No. 2 is charmingly simple. I feel bound to add, however, that the fashion there shown could only possibly be worn to the best advantage by a girl with a figure as willowy and graceful as that of the wearer of the dress shown in the photograph. \" So many women, so many fashions in dress,\" is a trite saying which many members of the fair sex all too frequently overlook. Mr. BY AM SHAW. Speaking strictly from an artistic point of view, I do not think that any one particular period of dress can be said to claim any real advantage over any other period. Thus, artists of the past were probably of the opinion that the fashions of the particular period in which they happened to live were perfectly hideous—I am thinking at the moment mainly of the mid-Victorian period —and yet, all the same, even in these so-called advanced days a large section of the public have, seemingly, a decided weakness for crinolines ; indeed, recent precedent would suggest that a crinoline play has only to be produced to prove an instantaneous success. As I view the matter, it occurs to me that it is quite probable that the dresses of to-day- possess the advantage of giving a better idea of the figure of the wearer than those of most other times, and, this being so, it is obviously merely a question of the artist possessing the requisite art to enable him to produce a really artistic picture of a wearer garbed in any style of fashion. Confining my attention to the dresses shown here, I may say that I prefer photograph No. 5 to any of the others, although most of them possess distinct merit. In my opinion the- actual type of dress worn does not make a great deal of difference to a picture, always providing that the artist takes an artistic view of things. Mr. ELLIS ROBERTS. It is my decided opinion that the leading artists of any period would be successful with modern dress, for surely it would be bordering on treason to suggest that men possessed of the genius of Van Dyck, Romney, or Reynolds, to cite a few well-known name-,, could fail to produce beautiful effects on canvas, no matter how greatly their artistic inclinations might be hampered by the particular style of costume selected by their sitters. Personally, I prefer to paint modern dress in preference to any other period, although I must confess to sometimes experiencing no small amount of difficulty in dealing to the best advantage with tight and straight- hanging skirts, which I frequently find can only be made \" paintable \" by the addition

The Marriage Plate By \"OUIDA.\" Illustrated by ^iVarwiCK Reynolds. The following story possesses an interest apart from its own. It was written by \"Ouida\" many years ago, but for some reason or other was never published. The manuscript remained in the hands of a friend, who has now placed it at our disposal. It is a most characteristic story, which exhibits all \"Ouida's\" well-known powers of'description, and also the passionate love of animals which is so often conspicuous in her writings. This little story might be called a companion to \" A Dog of Flanders.\" T was a very old plate, old as the hills, or so the people thought; one of those round plates with a circular well in the centre to hold sweetmeats, which were called marriage plales in the old time, and were painted for brave bridal festivities by Maestri Giorgio and Orazio Fcntana and all their lesser brother artists. It was curiously painted in polychrome, like most of these plates, with a scriptural theme, the nuptials of Rebecca and of Isaac; all the personages were in sixteenth-century garb, and the whole was brilliant with those iridescent hues, those rejections as of mother-of-pearl and of gold, of which these early artists had the mastery, and a motto ran round its outer rim in black letters, and the bridegroom offered to his bride a shield emblazoned with many gorgeous quarterings and the coronet of a duke. It hung framed in a round, worm-eaten bit of wood on a rusty nail amongst the dried herbs and the kitchen ware in the house of Giudetta Bernaceo, and it was an article of faith with Giudetta and all her kith and kin that it must never be touched or woe would come ; dust all round they might, but touch it never. That it brought good luck hanging there, and would bring evil if removed, they believed as devoutly as they did in their priest and their saint. Giudetta would cross herself sometimes when she looked at the plate as if it were a -pitta. It brings good fortune, she would always say. She was over eighty years of age. \" I have lived to bring up 'Faello,\" she would say, and think all mercies of Heaven com- prised in that phrase. 'Faello (Raffaelle) was her great-grandson, the only male left of her stock, though a tribe of his little sisters had clustered round the soup-pot and grown up with him—rosy, vigorous little maidens, strong as donkeys, and useful indoors and out, as Tuscan country girls always are from their infancy. 'Faello was now a youth of eighteen, hand- some and robust, honest and brave, and the obedient right hand of his great-grandmother. Their cottage stood on a wind-swept, hill just underneath Impruneta; their sole wealth was two mules and a cart, and their means of liveli- hood came from carrying to and from the city the earthen vases and pots for which Impruneta is famous. 'Fadlo was a, proud, silent boy. serious and steady, and loved his grandmother, his young sisters, and his dog Pastore. Perhaps in his heart he put Pastore first. Pastore was one of the beautiful, tractile

THE MARRIAGE PLATE. 197 thought snatched at the bread of the poorest poor. But the wolf never came quite in. \" It is the blessed marriage plate,\" said Giudetta. \" It is the mules and me,\" thought 'Faello, and then was afraid the thought was wicked, for he was a rever- efttial and dutiful lad. A handsome lad, too, as Giudetta proudly, when she looked at him in his clean saint's - day shirt with a flower behind his ear and the sun in his large brown eyes and on his gleaming auburn locks. Then, one day, old Giu- detta died almost sud- denly, as the very old do. like the low flame of a lamp that is spent. She was sitting on her settle by the fire at Cippo (Christmastide).and fell back never to rise again. As 'Faello caught her and the terrified chil- dren clustered round she lifted her trembling ringer to the wall where the marriageplatehuns. \" Never move it,\" she muttered; \" never move it. Promise.\" \" I promise,\" mur- mured 'Faello, para- lyzed with the awe of that strange look which he saw on her fare, and which yet he did not know was death. Giudetta nodded her head, and her 'NEVER MOVE IT,' SHB MUTTBRED; 'NEVER MOVE IT. PROMISE.'

i98 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. hands clasped and moved feebly about her rosary of wooden beads. Then she opened her eyes with effort and struggled to speak. \" Unless the dear God were to wish it,\" she said. She was afraid to seem to wish what God did not. And that moment, as 'Facllo kissed her, she died: one of the innumerable, simple, cleanly, honest, toil- some lives of pain and love that are swept away like the dead leaves by the winds in autumn. 'Faello was eighteen on the morrow. He had been born on Christ's day. All night long he sobbed in his rough bed. The next night the body was borne up the hill to its grave, the children bearing the torches that blew about in the chill, windy air and shed their red gleam on the snow. On the morrow he rose and harnessed the mute. The poor have no time for the luxury of grief. Without the brave old lady's spirit in his home, 'Faello felt lost. The little there was he and his sisters inherited. The cottage they rented, but the things in it, the cart and the mules, were their own. Candida and Venia, the two elder girls, were old enough to keep things as they had been. Pastorc loved them all with that infinite forgiving tenderness of which dogs and a few women are capable. They were good to him. He very often, indeed, had not enough to eat, but then they themselves had not either. They were very gentle with him, and he lived in the house as one of them, seeing his brethren beaten, kicked, starved, chained, and left out in the bitter snowstorms of the winter nights. Pastore thought his home was heaven. And 'Faello loved him with a great love. Whenever he had had a holiday in any of the nine years since Pastore first had come to him, a round ball of white wool three months old, Pastore had been his playmate and com- rade in preference to any other. And there was a maiden—just the last month or two—who had looked at him as he passed her, not furtively, as did the others, but openly, yet sweetly, with clear blue eyes that made him think of the Madonnas in the King's galleries down in the city. He had never spoken to her, or would have thought of speaking to her. She was the daughter of one of the master potters whose huge red amphorae he bore down into Florence, and she had but lately come from a convent, where she had been reared and taught delicate handiworks. She was as far removed from him as if she had been a noble's daughter; still he loved to think of her—as he thought of the saints. That was all. Once she had patted Pastore. 'Faello had kissed Pastore where her hand had rested, and then had coloured—foolishly. Now, in this sweet spring weather, when these sweet blue eyes glanced at him one day and ever afterwards he saw them in the blue of the sky above and the blue of the gentians

THE MARRIAGE PL-1TE. 199 \"PASTORE JUMPED ON HIM AS THEY WENT FORTH TO THEIR LABOUR.\" he could not afford, for the autumn's vintage had been a bad one. One day in hot August he rose as usual and went and got out his cart as the first tinge of rose blushed in the east above the opposite mountains. Pastore jumped on him as they went forth to their labour ; hungry, both of them, for they never ate till midday, and then not one-half that either needed. .'Faello went to the potter's yard and found an unusually large load awaiting him there. There had come a great order for flower-pots, large and small, from a nursery garden down in .the city. There was also another errand. The foreman gave him a little packet, sealed. \" It is all notes,\" he said ; \" you are to pay them into the bank. The master knows you are honest, so he is not afraid to trust you. Pay them in as soon as you get to the town and have delivered the pots.\"

200 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 'Faello coloured with pleasure. It was the first kindly word or recognition of his honesty that Ser Baldassare had ever given him—and the potter was Dea's father. With a lighter heart than he had known for days and months, 'Faello cracked his whip in the air and started off beside his mule, Pastore running forward as his habit was, a big, snowy, curly form bounding about in the soft light of the daybreak. 'Faello felt happy. It seemed almost like being nearer Dea to think that her father would trust him with the money that all Impruneta was aware that the potter loved better, as some said, than his very soul itself. The sun rose in all its glory, and the golden light of it spread itself over all the vastness of Valdemo ; the chimes of the Certosa rang for the fiist mass ; 'Faello fell on his knees in the dust by a wayside cross, said a prayer, and rose almost happy. Pastore. pausing as he prayed, leaped on him when he rose. 'Faello kissed him. \" It is nothing to be honest,\" said 'Faello to his dog ; \" but, oh, dear ! Pastore, it seems such a great thing when people trust you because you are.\" Pastore trotted onward, waving the white plume of his tail, perhaps thinking that dogs are always honest, but do not get very much credit or comfort for it from those they serve. As the day was fully up they reached the town, empty, silent, Jfull of long shadows, with the fragrance as of a garden in it every- where, from the bunches of carnations and roses and wallflowers piled at all the street corners, waiting for the buyers that would come out a little later. 'Faello and Pastore stopped a moment to drink a draught of water at the big bronze trough at the end of the street, and then took their cartload across the city to the place of its destination. By the time the vases were all unloaded it was eleven o'clock ; both dog and youth felt sore pangs of hunger. \" We will pay the money in and then eat, Pastore,\" said 'Faello, and went leisurely with his emptied cart back again through the town to the bank he had been bidden to seek. He left Pastore on guard as usual at the head of the mule and entered the glass doors of the bank. They made him wait some time up on a second floor, shut up in a dose little room; they were busy, for it was a market day, and they kept him nigh three-quarters of an hour while they wrote out the receipt for the notes he had brought. 'Faello felt the time very long ; it was suffocatingly hot in this shut-up room, hotter than in the streets, and he was very hungry, and felt sorry for poor Pastore sitting down on the scorching stones with an empty stomach in the blazing sun. Still he was not uneasy ; the cart and mule were safe, for no one would touch either with Pastore there on guard. When at last they told him he might go, and gave him the receipt for Ser Baldassare, it was full noon ; and an August noon in the

THE MARRIAGE PLATE. 201 drives all creatures within doors, and the whole town was as quiet as a graveyard, and all the shutters were closed as for a death. The scorching rays beat on his bare neck and the sweltering pavement blistered his bare feet, but he took no heed. He only thought of his lost friend. When at length he came to the place which the shoeblack had bidden him seek he looked like a mad dog himself; his eyes were blood- shot, his tongue parched, his lips covered with thin white foam. He beat on the doors with both hands. \" My dog ! my dog ! I am come for my dog!\" The doors opened slowly ; an official, angry and stern, looked out, and asked how he dared invade their rest like that. A barefooted boy, dusty and ragged, is never a creature that commends itself to the law. \" You stole my dog—you strangled him ! \" cried 'Faello, beside himself. \" They say he is here. I will see him, or I will kill you— everyone ! Let me in ! let me in ! I am come for my dog ! \" \" Get out, fool, or I will give you to the guards/' said the Jack-in-office, and kicked his foot off the sill and shut the doors again. 'Fuello beat on them with all his might. \" Thieves L assassins ! stranglers ! Let me in—let me in ! What right have you to touch my dog ? He was doing his duty ; he was guarding my cart. You murder him, and the cart is stolen. Listen ! listen ! listen ! I love him better than myself. He hungers with me and plays with me, and we are brothers. How dare you touch him ? You lassoed him ! Oh, dear God ! to think of it! Oh, my dog ! my dog ! Listen ! I will do any work you like for you if you will just let me see my dog ! You shall put me in prison if you will only let me take his place and will send him home to the children. Will you ? Will you ? Do you hear ? \" But his cries were only echoed dully back by the closed door and the dead wall— emblems of the human cowardice and the human injustice that make a hell of earth for earth's dumb creatures. He beat at the wood and the stone, and wept to it and prayed to it and cursed it, and then stood dumb and stupid, the sun beating down on his head. \" What shall I do ? \" he muttered. \" Oh, dear St. Rocco, you love dogs—help Pastore ! Help him ! help him ! \" Then all grew dark and he fell down, and the vertical rays beating on him seemed to dart like fire through his brain. When he woke again to the light of day he had been drawn into the shade of an archway and the shoeblack was bending over him. \" I thought I would follow you. I am glad I did.\" said the shoeblack. \" Are you better ? It was the sun. Cover your throat from the rays. You look stupid \" \" The dog ! \" muttered 'Faello, between his dry lips, and staggered up on to his feet.

202 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. A surgeon has had his eye on him some time ; the surgeon means to get him, to cut him up alive, or burn him to death after gouging out his eyes. They think to find God in that way—these gentlemen.\" 'Faello gave one shrill, weak cry, like a wounded hare's ; then, fleet as the hare, he wrenched himself out of the man's grasp and tore once more across the wide, white waste of the sun-parched streets and squares. The strength of lions seemed to have flowed back into his veins. \" The devils ! oh, the devils ! \" he moaned as he flew. He had no clear-shaped thought of what to do, but he said to himself that he would have the fifty francs that day if he seized the silver off a church altar or dashed his hand through a goldsmith's window. He would try all honest ways-first, but if they failed— he would go to the galleys himself sooner than let Pastore go to the torture. Suddenly a hope flashed across him. Would Ser Baldassare lend it ? He had not touched bit or drop since the previous night, his clothes were wet with sweat as with water, he saw the blinding dust of the road through dizzy eye~, the nerves of his temples were beating like sledge-hammers, but he held on straight along the way he knew so well that he could have traversed it blindfold, with that strength of desperation which sustains the panting Stan; and the jaded fox as they race before the hunters. How he returned he never could tell; he ran and walked, ran and walked alternately, as a sleep-walker might in a droam ; but, go as fast as he would, it was four by the clock when he reached Impruneta and staggered into the yard of the master potter. Could he see Ser Baldassare ? He had never in all his life asked such a thing before. \" He has lost the money,\" thought the foreman, and ran and called Ser Baldassare as he never would have done for any other woe. \" You scoundrel ! you have lost the money ! To the Pretura you shall go ! \" cried the potter, rushing out with a face of purple. 'Faello put his hand in his belt and pulled out the banker's receipt. The potter snatched at it suspiciously, read, and, satisfied, grumbled angrily: \" Why had he been frightened all for nothing ? \" 'Faello, with a few gasped words, told his tale, the great tears rolling down his cheeks and stifling his voice, and ended with a piteous prayer to be lent the fifty francs. \" Oh, dear master,\" he moaned, as he sank en his knees in the dust, \" if it were anything for myself I would not dare to pray for it. But it is for Pastore—the innocent soul, the dear, tender, honest, loyal thing that loves me as my sisters never can. Oh. dear master, Pastore is nine years old. All these years he has guarded your vases in the town, summer and winter, waiting for me, and will you let him be tortured to death when you can save

THE MARRIAGE PLATE. 203 could produce no animation in him. He was in the absolute abstraction of an overwhelm- ing grief. \" The marriage plate ! \" he echoed. \" But I promised—I promised.\" \" But she said ' unless God were to wish it.' Your sisters told me so. God would wish it. now,\" murmured the girl; then, aright. He dropped down a moment on a wayside stone and covered his face and tried to think. Yes—surely God would wish it ! Surely God would desire him to save the life of an honest, innocent, loving creature from the most fiendish torments of man rather than desire him to keep the mere empty form of a. 'IN ANOTHER MOMENT, WEEPING AND LAUGHING, HE HELD 1'ASTOKK AGAINST HIS BREAST. hearing a step, fled away back to her father's house. 'Faello stood alone, her little five-franc note curled in the palm of his hand. \" God would wish it now ! \" He muttered the words to himself again and again. Oh, if he could but be sure ! He tried to think and see whether this were but a temptation assailing him, or whether the voice of Dea had been as the voice of Heaven. He prayed in dumb, inarticulate fashion, as Pastore himself might have prayed, to have light shed on him to see his path soulless promise! Surely the dead A-ould wish it, too ! She saw him now—that 'Faello believed as he believed that the sun shone upon him. She would not be angered ; she would not think it disobedience ; she had said \" unless God were to wish it.\" And God must wish it now ; God, who had made Pastore, and must have some little love for him. some little heed. 'Faello rose to his feet. His face was white as the dust beneath him, but his resolve was taken. \" I shall do right; God must wish it,\" he

204 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. said in his heart, and f;lt in a dull, vague way that if God did not, His service had little worth in it and little truth. Then he went straight to his home, seized the marriage plate from the place where it had hung for a century, and carried it with him into the open air. At any other time a terrible fear would have haunted him touch- ing that sacred thing, but now all his mind and heart and soul were with the doomed dog ; he had room for no other remembrance. Yet, as he passed the threshold, he uncovered his head and crossed himself. \" Nonna mia—you are not angry, nor God either ? The saints send me that I be in time ! \" How he reached Florence he never knew. Showing the plate to a man who had a fleet horse, he was taken in as fast as the wind would have blown, but he had no conscious- ness of what he did or how he went. He made his way straight to the dealer and laid the marriage plate down before him. \" Here it is,\" he muttered ; \" give me your hundred francs.\" \" Is the boy honest ? \" murmured the person who all the while held the plate. \" Quite. The plate is his own.\" The other drew out a hundred francs in gold and looked curiously at 'Faello. 'Faello snatched them and flew as a swallow flies, straight through the town to the dog prison. Again he beat on the doors and shouted aloud, but this time the door unclosed and let him enter, for this time he cried, \" Let me in ! I bring the money ! \" It is the \" Open Sesame \" of the world. In another moment, weeping and laughing, he held Pastore against his breast and bathed with his happy tears the dog's wounds. 'Faello was carried home by the shoeblack. He lay insensible, and Pastore lay on the straw of the cart at his feet, and on the pallet of his bed at night. It was many weeks before he was well again. The sun had stricken him. When he could rise at last the great heat had passed ; the earth was moist and green, the \\voods rejoiced, and the vines were heavy with purpling grapes. He stood at his door \"TWO YKAKS LATER HB MARKlliU DKA— A person standing near stretched out his hand and took the plate before the dealer could. \" I will have it; but it is worth much more, surely. Wait awhile \" \" Not a moment! The hundred francs ! \" and held the dog's head against him and thought how lovely life was. \" We shall have to work very hard, Pastore,\" he murmured. \" The cart is stolen ; there's the stolen mule, too, to pay for ; the medicine will have cost a great deal, and the children

THE MARRIAGE PLATE. 405 must owe to the baker. Never mind. We are together. I am young, and it will soon be all right again. Oh, my dog—my dear dog ! \" And then, with a sudden blush, he thought of Dea—Dea, whose little five-franc note he had unconsciously kept clasped in his hand all the while, so that it had come home with him and throughout his illness could not any way be loosened out of his grasp. At that moment there approached him the stranger who had bought his marriage plate. The stranger greeted him with courtesy and gentleness, and had brought the plate back with him. \" You sold this for a necessity ? \" \" Yes.\" \" Have you any idea of its value ? \" \" I thought it of none.\" The stranger smiled, and, turning the back of the plate, showed him four letters, placed thus :— V 0F F and a date : 1538. \" It is the work of Orazio Fontana, of Castel Durante,\" he said. \" The name tells you nothing ? Well, he was a great man, the greatest of all the pottery painters of Urbino in a long-past time. The plate is worth fifteen hundred francs. I am not a dealer. I bring you the sum that is just. For the rest, I have heard your story. I am a foreigner, but I am very attached to your country, and I have estates close by here. I will find you a good post ; you will live on them, and Pastore shall have no need to risk his life in the city.\" 'Faello listened, stupefied. Misfortunes he could understand, but this When the truth in all its ecstasy broke in at last on him his face shone like the light of the morning. \" God did wish it ! \" he cried aloud. Two years later he married Dea, and Pastore headed the wedding procession. AND PASTORE HEADED THE WEDDING PROCESSION

TkeH ero By EDWARD PRICE BELL. Illustrated by Steven Spurrier. UNCH hour in the roundhouse. Hammers and files and lathes were still. All over the vast building, with its tenanted locomotive stalls radiating from a turn- table like gigantic spokes, the workers were munching their thick ham- sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs. Seated singly or in groups—in smudgy overalls, bare- headed, elbows on their knees, mostly silent— they ate reflectively. Under their feet were black, oily floors; above their heads an unbroken gloom of settled locomotive smoke. So begrimed were the windows that only a subdued light entered from the sunlit world without. Here and there stood copper oil-cans, tins of axle-grease, greasy benches. On the surface of the water in the pits under the engines appeared filmy, greenish layers of diffused oil. The floor was littered with greasy waste. From afar sounded the puff and bump and screech of switching operations in the yards. In that segment of the circle devoted to passenger engines there was a window of a different sort—wide, lofty, spotless. Through it broke a flood of light, vividly relieving a huge passenger locomotive with \" No. 6 \" on its brass number-plates. Long, lean, and towering was this monster, stripped to split and cheat the wind. Pilot, head-lamp, smoke-stack, steam-dome, safety-valves, cab, the great double driving-wheels, every bar and rod, every bit of brass, was polished until it shone—such grooming as skilled valets might give to a fastidious monarch. At a little distance from this locomotive there was a solitary man—silent, busy, with fine fair hair, blue eyes, a fresh complexion, and the face and manner of a bov. It was a raw-boned figure, the body long, the chest deep, the hands big—a lumbering conforma- tion, with the atmosphere of the country heavy about it. Before the man, stretched on rude frames, were two canvases, each sup- ported on a step-ladder. One, apparently quite finished, was a picture in oils of\" No. 6.\" The other, just growing into form and expres- sion under the brush of the artist, was like- wise a painting of the great locomotive : but, whereas the former represented the engine as it stood motionless in the roundhouse, the latter showed it speeding through a grey night, with a hill-and-valley landscape, trees, and—round a gentle curve ahead—an old- fashioned covered wooden bridge spanning a river. Suddenly, at the sound of a deep breath, the flaxen-haired artist, who had been sunk in his mysteries of light and shade, of tone and colour, turned abruptly. Near at hand, gazing at the twin canvases, stood a bulky man, with a heavy, bearded face and broad, furrowed brow. His hat was in his hand, and he had been mopping his massive counte-

THE HERO OF BALL'S BRIDGE. 207 wont to call him — when he was not in evidence. \" Old Curly \" was no less a person than the president, of the road. He had risen from the duties of an engine-wiper. A homespun genius who never had lost his primitive quality, of all the officials of the company he was the most masterly, the most tireless, and the most ubiquitous. From end to end of the system there was scarcely a man who did not know him by sight, and thousands of them had felt the pressure of his capacious hand. \" How do you happen to be here ? \" asked \" Old Curly.\" \" I'm here every day that my engine's in the roundhouse,\" replied the blond painter. \" Your engine ? You're an employe of the company ? \" \" Yes, sir; I'm the fireman on No. 6.\" \" Old Curly's \" wrinkles and brows con- tracted until his eyes were barely visible. \" Then you're only an amateur painter ? \" \" BEFORE THE MAN, STRETCHED ON RUDE FRAMES, WERE TWO CANVASES.

208 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" That's all, sir.\" \" What's your name ? \" \" Byers—button Byers.\" \" Byers ? I knew a man named Byers. He died under his engine at the collision of Cedar Curve.\" \" He was my father, sir.\" \" No ! \" cried \" Old Curly,\" gutturally, staring at the young man, his face grave and retrospective. \" Yes,\" assented he, finally, \" you look like Byers—the best engine-man we ever had in the service. If I had studied your face a little I should have known you. I shall never forget your father's strong, humorous mouth. Poor fellow ! He could have jumped if he had chosen to—like the fireman.\" \" Old Curly's\" eyes went back to the unfinished likeness of the loco- motive. \" Not lines/' commented he, \" but life. Observe that smoke breaking back hori- zontally from her truncated stack. Note those flying wheels and that angry furnace- flare streaming into the dark. One can feel her breathe, see her oscillate, hear her drivers thundering on the road ! Do you know, boy \"—turning to the painter—\" / had a son, and he was an artist, too. He died last year of pneumonia, going so quickly that, though I came by non-stop special from the other end of the line, he was dead when I got home. My boy could draw wonderfully; but I do not think he ever would have been able to paint as you paint. Where do you come from ? \" \" I was born in the hills behind Ball's Bridge.\" \" Indeed ! Is your mother living ? \" \" Yes, sir.\" . \" Do you live with her ? \" \" Oh, yes—when at home.\" \" Where ? \" \" Of course you know the big grey flour- mill at Ball's Bridge ? \" \" Certainly.\" \" Perhaps you recall a small green frame- house on the rise across the river from the bridge ? \" \" I do—distinctly.\" \" Mother and I live there.\" \" Dear me ! \" muttered \" Old Curly,\" reflectively. \" Over and over again I've hunted in those woods, and fished and boated and swum in those waters. Scores of times I've passed within a stone's-throw of your door. One night, on a fishing jaunt, I slept in the grey mill. I doubt if there's a lovelier spot on earth than that at Ball's Bridge. Tell me, boy ; have you ever attended a school of art ? \" \" No, sir.\" \" Have you ever thought of doing so ? \" \" Oh, yes—many times—but \" The whistle blew, the clatter of the round- house was resumed, and Button Byers started rapidly to put away his brushes and paints. Someone appeared with an urgent call for

THE HERO OF BALL'S BRIDGE. 209 will sell. Then I'll come back and spend the happy years with you—you to whom I owe everything, you who always seem more to me than my very soul. Mark you, mother ! My mind's made up that you and I, while life lasts, shall keep intact the golden link of our comradeship at Ball's Bridge.\" Now her boy should quit the road ! Now, meagre though the total of her savings, her boy should have his chance ! Peering up through the dim light towards the mantelpiece, Mrs. Byers noted that the hour-hand of her little rosewood clock was nearing ten. Ten o'clock, or just about ten, was when Button's train, night after night, shot like a meteor through Ball's Bridge. Button always greeted his mother as he passed, inheriting the custom from his father. In bygone days, not only a slender, anxious woman, but a wonder-thrilled little boy, watched for the passing of the train. As the locomotive neared Ball's Bridge the furnace door would be flung wide, the red glare would beat for a moment in a grizzled, smiling face, and a brawny hand would signal across the dark. The grizzled face had disappeared from the red glare now, making way for a ruddy young visage under a crown of flaxen hair. But Mrs. Byers did not see the young face only ; behind it—more vividly, she often thought, than of yore—she nightly saw the grizzled face, too. Turning down the lamp, Mrs. Byers crossed the room to the open door, stepped out, and stood bare-headed and without a wrap in the soft breath of the summer night. At the top of the knoll, close by, stood a thick-trunkcd beech. The lonely woman took her stand beside it. The grass beneath her feet was dry and crisp. The leaves of the big beech, and of all the trees about, had been curled and browned by the sun. Below lay the river, widened and deepened into a great mill-pond, its bottom a majestic concavity of stars. Spanning the light and shadow-glorified water, sombre and romantic, stretched Ball's Bridge, a sturdy and picturesque survival of the ante-steel age. On the other side of it, vague and tall, loomed the grey mill, its giant water-wheel idle, its falls making sonorous music in the stillness of the night. Ineffably sweet was it all to Jennie Byers. The grass, the leaves, the ripples and star- glints in the river, the melodious tumult of the falls, brought the happiest years of her life rushing back on her. Here she had loved a stout-hearted man. Here she had found the artist in her boy. Again the lusty lad was sitting by her side, pondering the sky and the water, following the flight of birds, repeatedly catching for her.aspects of beauty she had not discerned. What a strange, wild boy altogether ! Tiring of watching and talking, he would spring into the woods, bound about like a frightened roebuck, and finally come back, laughing and glowing, with broken twigs in his hair and deep scratches on his face.

210 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. night express was whipping the maximum time - schedule to a sorry tatter. Glide and hiss and blaze. \" No. 6 \" pierced the tunnels and black ravines like a shooting star. \" Dutton ! \" suddenly shouted the driver, without removing his eyes from the track. \" Do you notice an unusual flare above the trees beyond the curve ? \" Looking intently for a moment, Dutton turned, dropped his shovel, and sprang on the high-heaped coal in the tender. Well above the top of the cab, standing firm lest the wind shrieking over the locomotive hurl him into space, the young man shaded his eyes with both hands and studied the phenomenon with knitted brows. \" Blessed if I know what to make of it,\" said he, jumping back to the driver's side. \" Looks like the glow of a city,\" suggested the driver. \" Yes ; but it can't be. We're only nearing Ball's Bridge.\" Less than a minute later \" No. 6\" rounded the curve and set herself on the straight flight to the river. Simultaneously, with a kind of cataleptic movement, the driver's hands fell heavily on his levers. Bump and lurch and shriek ! The locomotive gave the sensation of resistlessly toppling forward. The train seemed to be doubling up on itself. Ear- splitting noises burst from sliding wheels and crashing bumpers. Beams and panels sounded as if they were parting and shivering. Coal streamed from the tender-top in a galling fusillade. Dust, sweeping up from the right of way, poured into the engine-cab. So thick became the air—thick with earth-dust and coal-dust—that the two men peered through it painfully, like distressed wanderers in a mountain blizzard. Lurid streaks cleft the dusk. Was it an earthquake, a volcano ? Only a flash of time was required to reveal, beyond the possibility of illusion, that Ball's Bridge, from end to end, was a leaping length of flame ! Dutton Byers sprang to his window. Leaning far out, he beheld, not only the blazing bridge, but, off to the right, sketched in fire, the crumbling frame of the mill, with blackened grass-spaces between, dotted with glowing tufts of turf, \" Jump ! \" shoutecj the driver. The spectacle seemed to weave about the young man an unbreakable spell. \" Jump ! \" came that deep cry again. Not a muscle moved. The older man stared at his companion in a puzzled, pitying way. \" Dutton, aren't you going to jump ? \" Not a word, not a sign. The driver leapt forward, seized the fireman

THE HERO OF BALL'S BRIDGE. 211 'NO. 6' SHOT INTO THE FItRV CAVITY OF BALI.'s BKIDGK!' eternal principles in scorn of temporal vicissitudes and menace. \"Jump!\" It was the driver's last desperate appeal. An outward-flashing shadow, and he was gone. Then, and not until then, did Dutton Byers move. With a profound shock it came home to him that he was alone—that every- thing hung on him. The sense of responsi- bility made him dizzy. The thought of that long string of carriages laden with human life was like a crushing weight. For a second he gripped his head despairingly between both hands. Then he struck out savagely, as one beating off phantom adversaries. The effort seemed to steady his faculties. His eyes.lost their pained haze—became lit by definite purpose. Scarcely more swiftly works the electric spark than worked Dutton Byers when he had conquered that sharp onset of weakness and despair. One leap, and he was across the cab and had seized the driver's levers. The air-brakes let go, the throttle swung wide, and with a mighty roar \" No. 6 \" shot into the fiery cavity of Ball's Bridge ! The gambler's chance ? Not this to Dutton Byers ; mere obedience to that fundamental of his nature which could accept defeat only after the last con- •fceivable blow were dealt in vain for victory. Huddling close in his seat, eyes and lips hard-shut, hands tight on the levers, unflinch- ingly he awaited the issue. Flames rushed against the glass before and beside him. Lambent fire, curling in as the cab sped past, singed his eyebrows and hair, cracked his hands and Face, ignited his mechanic's jacket. Everything seemed to reel and sway. Dutton's fancy rang with the crash of timbers. Partly opening his eyes, he saw telegraph wires writhing, falling, and breaking to pieces before the flying smoke-stack. The beech-tops on the bluff were incandescent towers. Fire- brands, dropping and hissing, sent shafts of water hurtling into the air. Blue and black smoke rose in a dense fog, blinding the eyes, stinging the nostrils and throat, oppressing the lungs. Surely an hour, an age, was passing ! Why not, in mercy, the great plunge ? And then came the great plunge—not into the water, but into a wonderful world of rela- tive stillness and coolness. The awful din fled away with the suddenness of shadows

212 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. surprised by the sun. The fire was no longer rushing against the glass, no longer curling into the cab, no longer searching out Button Byers's ultimate powers of endurance. The young man, rising from his levers, glanced exclaimed \" Old Curly,\" bringing all the expressive kindliness of his face to bear on the pinched features of Jennie Byers. \" I'll stay only a minute or so. Just called to see you—you and that fair-haired boy of yours \"BLUE AND BLACK SMOKE ROSE IN A DENSE FOG, BLINDING THE EYES.\" quickly from side to side. On the left echoed the sombrous woods. On the right slept the starlit valley. Button Byers looked back. He blinked his burning eyes and looked again. Then he put the brakes hard on. Every carriage had cleared the fire. The train was safe ! Sunshine on the trees and flowers. \" So delighted to see you're going on well ! \" who staggered the world at Ball's Bridge. By the way, did you hear of the Button Byers Fund ? It's mounting into thousands ; looks like it would never stop going up. And, whatever it comes to, I intend to double it. My artist boy, you may know, Mrs. Byers, died. Great and peculiar will be my joy in doing what I can to help your artist boy to the top of his profession. No ! Bon't thank me. Bon't say a word ! And don't cry ! \"

LEGAL WIT. By MEMBERS OF THE BENCH AND BAR. Illustrated by Geo. Morrow. HERE are those who contend that we have no legal wits of to-day; who sigh for the days when the Bench and Bar were enlivened by the merry quips of Sir Frank Lockwood, Montagu Williams's sly jests, and the more ponderous humour of Serjeant Ballantine. Even Mr. Justice Darling,\" the sprightly Ariel of King's Bench,\" as he has been termed, whose levity, it has been whispered, does not always com- mend itself to his brother judges—not to mention a certain section of the public who consider that mirth and the law should be as far as the poles apart—has actually stated in his delightful book, \" Scintillse Juris \" :— \" It is a common error to suppose that our law has no sense of humour, because, for the most part, the judges who expound it have none.\" \" For the most part\" ! If Mr. Justice Darling includes himself in the in- dictment he must assuredly suffer severely from the bump of uncon- scious humour, an affliction borne with much resig- nation by the irrepressible Mr. P1 o w d e n, who plaintively says, in his autobio- graphy, \" Grain or Chaff ? \" :— \" Often I have sat on the Bench suffering from a violent headache or an attack of neuralgia, in a most melancholy frame of mind. and have been amazed, when I opened my news- paper the follow- \" IF YOU REALLY WISH TO BB COMPLETELY IDLE, PKOBARI.Y FOR THE REST OF ^Ol'R NATURAL L1FR, YOU HAD BKTIER BB A BARRISTER.\" ing morning, to find some of^my remarks headed, ' More Funny Plowdenisms.' \" Referring again fora moment to Mr. Justice Darling, it is interesting to note that he entered upon his profession as light-heartedly as he has continued to follow it. \" When I was young,\" he says, \" I was very idle, and my guardian asked me what I was going to do to earn my living. I think he gave me the selection of several unpleasant ways—all ways seemed unpleasant. I knew nothing about them, and so I said : ' Oh, very well, I'll be a solicitor'; and I began to be a solicitor, but it appeared to me after

2I4 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \"YOU WILL DO NO r.oon AT THE BAR—GOOD MORNING.\" had a long ^hat. No reference was made to the unfortunate prophecy until we were part- ing. Then, as if an afterthought had occurred to him, the famous master said, ' By the way, Mr. Reid, I told you you would do no good at the Bar. I beg your pardon—good morning.' \" By the way, it was Sir Rufus Isaacs who once gave the follow- ing as the royal road to the Woolsack:— \" There are but three things essential to success at the Bar. The first is high animal spirits ; the second is high animal spirits ; and the third is high animal spirits. If, in addition, a young man will take the trouble to read a little law, I do not think that it will impede his profession.\" Here is a story Lord Coleridge is rather fond of telling against himself. He was addressing a large audience of 'Varsity men at Oxford, when he used the phrase, \" We must remember not merely the beauty of the individual col- leges, but the beauty of Oxford as a whole. And what a whole it is ! \" \" Hear, hear ! \" yelled the 'Varsity men. \" Yes ; what a hole ! \" they groaned. \" What a beastly hole ! \" Then it dawned upon Lord Coleridge that this was a thing he might have expressed otherwise. And it is only a short time ago that Lord Alverstone, speaking of the portrait of him- self painted by the Hon. John Collier, remarked that the pleasure of being painted by such a distinguished artist was not without its alloy. \" The other day,\" he continued, \" a friend of mine, looking at this portrait, said : ' Do you think you would like to be as wise as Collier has made you look ? ' 'I should,' I replied. ' Well, you can't,' said the friend.\" Here is another story which Lord Alver- stone tells against himself with immense gusto. When he was only Richard Webster he was acting, on one occasion, as junior to Sir Douglas Straight, the late editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. The defendant, for whom they appeared, was a very irascible old gentle- man. Sir Douglas Straight was called away during a portion of the proceedings, and the conduct of the case was consequently left for a time in the hands of his junior. The next morning a note arrived from their client saying, \" For Heaven's sake let us have no more of Webster's melancholy performances.\" Another of his stories concerns a little loan which he once made to a needy friend. He lent the latter a sovereign, and then bet another friend that he would one day get his DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE AS WISE AS COLLIER HAS MADE YOU LOOK?\"

LEGAL WIT. money back. The second friend was very doubtful, however, and took the bet with alacrity. Some time afterwards Lord Alver- stone met the latter gentleman, who sarcasti- cally inquired : \" Well, have you received the money from poor R yet ? \" \" No,\" replied his lordship ; \" and I shall not press him, for I have received a letter from him which is worth the money.\" The letter read as follows: \" As the date has arrived when the £i has to be repaid, please find a postal order for that amount, for I'm hanged if I can.— Yours,\" etc. One of the wits of the Bench is undoubtedly Judge Rentoul, who takes such a pessimistic view of the legal profession that he has placed the average earnings of barristers at the English Bar at the low figure of two pounds three shillings per week. And yet barristers are held in higher esteem than M.P.'s, if one may judge from this story, which Judge Rentoul tells of an occasion when he was presented with an address setting forth his services to local government. \" I noticed,\" he says, \" that in the address ' M.P.' appeared in very small let- ters, while underneath, in very large letters, were the words, ' barrister - at - law.' When I pointed this out to the artist the latter replied: ' I know what I'm about. I did that purposely. Any duffer can be a member of Parliament, biu it requires a very clever man to become a barrister.' \" It is Judge Rentoul, too, who tells the story, apropos of the peculiar acoustic properties of the new Old Bailey, that when, on one occasion, he sentenced a prisoner to six months' hard labour, the echo of his words came from the back of the court so distinctly that the prisoner turned to the warder •»! his side and said, anxiously, \" Are these yere two sentences to run concurrently ? \" Judge Avory has been accused of never making a joke. This, however, is scarcely correct, for on one occasion the counsel opposed to him in a certain case quoted a text from the book of Job to emphasize a point. \" I do not think that such evidence is admissible,\" said Mr. Avory, gravely,\" seeing that you cannot put Job in the witness-box.\" How the worthy judge came to throw over politics is thus related in his own words. \" I defended,\" he \"said, \" a large number of strikers—at Maidstone, I think it was—who had fallen foul of the law, and they all got off. Within three days of the verdict I was invited to stand as the Radical candidate for that part. \" A few months later I prosecuted a number of Socialists and extreme Radicals who had created a disturbance in the vestry hall in the same district. The men were convicted, and within a few days I was invited to stand as

2l6 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \"FISHING FROM THE SIDE OF A STF.EP BANK, HE SUDDENLY LOST HIS BALANCE AND FKU. IN.\" The morrow was Sunday, and Munro told him it was very unfortunate to fish on the Sabbath, and that something always happened. The ardent angler, however, said he was not afraid, and so they went out fishing. Presently they came to a deep pool, and the angler, fishing from the side of a steep bank, suddenly lost his balance and fell in. \"I don't know what it was,\" he said, after Munro had pulled him out, \" but I was feeling quite all right when some- thing seemed to impel me forward into the water.\" \" He was quite right,\" Munro told the judge on the quiet. \" Something did impel him forward ; he was impelled by me.\" Moral: Do not try fishing in Scotland on a Sunday. \" I have been a fisherman all my life,\" says Mr. Justice Deane, \" and my first real acquaintance with Mr. Justice Bucknill was as a fisherman. We happened to meet un- intentionally at Plymouth. We awoke one morning to find our yachts side by side, and we agreed to go out and have a day's fishing off the Eddy- stone. We had a roughish time of it, but it was one of those happy- days that serve to cement a friend- ship once it has begun.\" And it is Mr. Justice Bucknill who tells this fishing story. \" I am a born poacher,\" he says. \" Once, when shooting in North Wales with a member of the Chancery Bar, I divested myself of coat and vest and showed my friend how to ' tickle ' trout in a wayside stream. My movements were watched by a local lad who accompanied us on our shoot, and the following year, visit- ing the neighbourhood, I inquired for the boy. I was told : ' He is in prison for \" tickling \" trout. He saw you do it last year. He has been doing it himself since, and they caught him.' \" Mr. Justice Eve's penchant for caravanning and holiday-making in remote corners of the country is well known to many people, and his experiences have been varied and unique. Once he was tricked of twopence. \" I visited a fair,\" he says, \" and went to see a mer- maid, which was represented to be half-lady \"l DIVESTED MYSELF OF COAT AND VEST AND SHOWED MY FKIENI) HOW TO 'TICKLE' TROUT IN A WAYSIDE STREAM.\"

LEGAL WIT. 217 and half-fish. The thing I saw was stuffed, with the head of a monkey and the tail of a fish. I had paid twopence, and felt so angry that I was inclined to smash it.\" There is a tale told in the Temple that when Mr. Justice Eve took silk, in 1895, he circulated the usual notice of his inten- tions to his seniors, according to the etiquette of the Bar, and from one of them received the following reply :— \" My Dear Eve,—Whether you wear silk or fig-leaf I do not care.—A. DAM.\" One gets a very good illustration of the wit of Mr. Justice Eve, however, from a speech which he made at the Savage Club on the occasion of the annual dinner in December of last year. He proposed the toast of the club, and confessed that in preparation for his task he had \" studied certain works on the habits and customs of savages, from which I gathered that it was the custom among certain tribes that captives taken in war were kept for a time and fattened for barter. When the fattening process was complete the ' fattee ' was led round the tents of the tribe and would-be purchasers chalked on his body the particular joints they would desire. Let us suppose a state of politics in which such a custom was found prevailing. \" With what alacrity the Suffragists, if they could catch him, would chalk out the Prime Minister. How much of Mr. John Redmond would be left for the second day's soup if Mr. Healy and Mr. O'Brien had a cut at him on the first day ? I believe there are some persons here who would not be averse from a state of things which VoL xliv.—15. 'THE THING I SAW WAS STUFKKD, WITH THE HEAD OF A MONKEY AND THE TAIL OF A FISH.\" 1 IF YOU KAT THREP. OF THEM AND AIN'T SICK IN FIVE MINUTBS, I'LL LOSE MB BLOOMIN'' CASE!\" would give them the opportunity of be- speaking a nice brisket, with plenty

2l8 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \"THE SORT OF HORSE IT WAS CAN BE IMAGINED. to risk his professional reputation in so unusual a manner, and suggested that his client should undergo the ordeal. \" What will happen,\" whispered the fruit merchant, \" if I don't eat those figs ? \" Counsel inti- mated that he would lose his case. \" Well,\" was the reply, \" I would rather do that than eat those figs.\" This recalls the following story, told by Mr. Marshall Hall, of a County Court action in ^hich he took part. \" I remember many years ago being taken down to a County Court. I looked at the brief and found that the whole amount to be sued for was six pounds, while my own fee was more than five times that sum, and I could not make the matter out. It was an action for trespass— seizing a horse in execution, and the sort of horse it was can be imagined—and in the end I won. The case took the whole day. Then, when it was all over, I heard that there was a bet of five hundred pounds depending on the result of the case. The parties were all horsy people, and they knew they would get a fair run for their money, and they used me for the purpose of a gamble.\" One, perhaps, should refer to Mr. Justice Lawrance, who retired at the beginning of 1912, after serv- ing as a judge of the King's Bench Division for twenty - two years, as a sarcastic rather than a humorous judge, although on one occasion he astounded the Court by '•'LET HER BE SWORN,' SAID THE JUDGK. 'SHE KNOWS MORE THAN I DO.' \" innocently asking, in a case in which a barmaid, suing for breach of pro- mise, said her acquaint- anceship with the defend- ant began by his coming in and asking for \" a Scotch,\" \"What's a Scotch ? \" while trying to look as grave as another judge who once asked, \"Who is Dan Leno ? \" Concerning his suavity, however, many stories are related of Judge Law- rance, but the following must suffice. He was once passing sen- tence on a man, and in the course of his preliminary remarks he referred to him as \" a professional burglar.\" The prisoner raised loud protests from the dock. \" Here,\" he exclaimed ; \" I dunno wot you mean by callin' me a professional burglar.

Disentangling Old Percy. By P. G. WODEHOUSE. Illustrated by Alfred Leete. OESN'T some poet or philo- sopher fellow say that it's when our intentions are best that we always make the most poisonous bloomers ? I can't put my hand on the passage, but you'll find it in Shakespeare or somewhere, I'm pretty certain. Anyhow, it's always that way with me. And the affair of Percy Craye is a case in point. I had dined with Percy (a dear old pal of mine) one night at the Bank of England— he's in the Guards, and it was his turn to be on hand there and prevent any blighter trying to slide in and help himself—and as he was seeing me out he said, \" Reggie, old top \" (my name's Reggie Pepper)—\" Reggie, old top, I'm rather worried.\" \" Are you, Percy, old pal ? \" I said. \" Yes, Reggie, old fellow,\" he said, \" I am. It's like this. The Booles have asked me down to their place for the week-end, and I don't know whether to go or not. You see, they have family prayers at half-past eight sharp, and besides that there's a frightful risk of music after dinner. On the other hand, young Roderick Boole thinks he can play piquet.\" \" I should go.\" I said. '' But I'm not sure Roderick's going to be there this time.\" It was a pretty tricky problem, and I didn't wonder poor old Percy had looked pale and fagged at dinner. Then I had the idea which really started all the trouble. \" Why don't you consult a palmist ? \" I said. \" That's not a bad idea,\" said Percy. \" Go and see Dorothea in Bond Street. She's a wonder. She'll settle it for you in a second. She'll see from your lines that you are thinking of making a journey, and she'll either tell you to fizz ahead, which will mean that Roderick will be there, or else to keep away because she sees disaster.\" \" You seem well up in this sort of thing.\" \" I've been to a good many of them. You'll like Dorothea.\" \" What did you say her name was— Dorothea ? What do I do ? Do I just walk in ? Sha'n't I feel a fearful ass ? How much do I give her ? \" \" A guinea. You'd better write and make an appointment.\" \" All right,\" said Percy. \" But I know I shall look a frightful fool.\" You would hardly believe the trouble it took to bring him to the scratch. In the end I took him round myself and left him there, and about a week later I ran into him between the acts at the Gaiety. The old boy was beaming. \" Reggie,\" he said, \" you did me the best turn anyone's ever done me, sending me to Mrs. Darrell.\" \" Mrs. Darrell ? \"

220 THE STRAND MAGAZINE, broken his spirit. He's a mild, hopeless sort of ass, who spends all his time at Weeting and has never been known to come to London. He's writing a history of the family or something, I believe. You see, events have conspired, so to speak, to let Florence do pretty much as she likes with them. The family affairs have got themselves into a bit of a muddle. Originally there was Percy's father, Lord Worplesdon ; Percy's elder brother Edwin, who's Lord Weeting; Florence, and Percy. Lady Wor- plesdon has been dead some years. Then came the smash. It happened through Lord Worplesdon. Most people, if you ask them, will tell you that he is bang off his rocker, and I'm not sure they're not right. At any rate, one morning he came down to breakfast, lifted the first cover on the sideboard, said, in a despairing sort of way, \" Eggs ! Eggs ! Eggs ! Curse all eggs ! \" and walked out of the room. Nobody thought much of it till return, and that all communications were to be addressed to his solicitors. And from that day none of them had seen him. He wrote occasionally, generally from Paris, and that was all. Well, directly news of this got about down swooped a series of aunts to grab the helm. They didn't stay long. Florence had them out, one after the other, in no time. If any lingering doubt remained in their minds, don't you know, as to who was going to be boss at Weeting, it wasn't her fault. Since then she has run the show. I went to Eaton Square. It was one of the aunts' houses. There was no sign of the aunt when I called—she had probably climbed a tree and pulled it up after her—but Florence was in the drawing-room. She is a tall woman with what, I believe, is called \" a presence.\" Her eyes are bright and black, and have a way of getting right inside you, don't you know, and running up and down your spine. She has a deep voice. She is about ten years older than Percy's brother Edwin, who is six years older than Percy. \" Good afternoon,\" she said. \" Sit down.\" I poured myself into a chair. \" Reginald,\" she said, \" what is this I hear about \" 'YOU—DIDN'T—NOTICE—HER—HAIR?\" HE RASPED. about an hour afterwards, when they found that he had packed a portmanteau, left the house, and caught the train to London. Next day they got a letter from him, saying that he was off to the Continent, never to Percy ? \" I said I didn't know. \" He says that you in- troduced him.\" \" Eh ? \" \" To this woman—this

DISENTANGLING OLD PERCY. 221 what I meant to say. I'm not sure I meant to say anything. She glared at me. By this time I was pure jelly. I simply flowed about the chair. \" You are facetious, Reginald,\" she said. \" HE LIFTED THK FIRST COVER ON THE SIDEBOARD AND SAID, IN A DESPAIRING SORT OF WAY, ' EGGS ! EGGS ! EGGS ! CURSE ALL EGGS !' \" \" No, no, no ! \" I shouted. \" It slipped out. I wouldn't be facetious for worlds.\" \" I am glad. It is no laughing matter. Have you any suggestions ? \" \" Suggestions ? \" \" You don't imagine it can be allowed to go on ? The engagement must be broken, of course. But how ? \" \" Why don't you tell him he mustn't ? \" \" I shall naturally express my strong disapproval, but it may not be effective. When out of the reach of my personal influ- ence my wretched brother is self-willed to a degree.\" I saw what she meant. Good old Percy wasn't going to have those eyes patrolling his spine if he knew it. He meant to keep away and conduct this business by letter. There was going to be no personal interview with sister, if he had to dodge about London like a snipe. We sat for a long time without speaking. Then I became rather subtle. I had a brain- wave and saw my way to making things right for Percy and at the same time squaring myself with Florence. After all, I thought, the old boy couldn't keep away from the ancestral for the rest of his life. He would have to go to Weeting sooner or later. And my scheme made it pleasant and easy for him. \" I'll tell you what I should do if I were you,\" I said. \" I'm not sure I didn't read some book or see some play some- where or other where they tried it on, and it worked all right. Chap got engaged to a girl and the family didn't like it, but, instead of cutting up rough, they pre- tended they didn't object, and had the chap and the girl down to stay with them. And then, after the chap had seen the girl with the home-circle as a back- ground, don't you know, he came to the conclusion that the shot wasn't on the board, and broke off the engagement.\" It seemed to strike her. \" I hardly expected so sensible a sug- gestion from you, Reginald,\" she said. \" It is a very good plan. It shows' that you really have a definite substratum of intelligence; and it is all the more deplorable that you should idle your way through the world as you do, when you might be performing some really useful work.\" That was Florence all over. Even when she patted you on the head she did it with her knuckles. \" I will invite them down next week,\" she went on. \" You had better come, too.\"

222 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" There is, Percy, old lovely,\" I said, \" and I'll tell you what it is. I saw her yesterday, and I can give you the straight tip. She thinks that if you see Mrs. Darrell mingling with the home-circle, you'll see flaws in her which you don't see when you don't see her mingling with the home-circle, don't you see. Do you see now?\" He laughed—heroic- ally, don't you know. \" I'm afraid she'll be disappointed. Love like mine is not de- pendent on environ- ment.\" Which wasn't bad, I thought, if it was his own. I said good - bye to him and toddled along, rather pleased with myself. It seemed to me that I had handled his affairs in a pretty masterly manner for a chap who's sup- posed to be one of the biggest chumps in London. Well, of course, the thing was an absolute frost, as I ought to have guessed it would be. Whatever could have induced me to think that a fellow like poor old Percy stood a dog's chance against a determined female like his sister Florence I can't imagine. It was like expecting a rabbit to put up a show with a python. From the very start there was only one possible end to the thing. To a woman like Florence, who had trained herself as tough as whalebone by years of scrapping with her father and occasional by-battles with aunts, it was as easy as killing rats with a stick. I was sorry for Mrs. Darrell. She was a really good sort, and, as a matter of fact, just the kind of wife who would have done old Percy a bit of good. And on her own ground I shouldn't wonder if she might not have made \" SHE SAID, WITH A SORT OF JERK, ' I'M GOING BACK TO LONDON TO-MORROW, MR. PEPPKR.'\" a fight for it. But at Weeting, with the family portraits glaring at her from every wall, and a general atmosphere of chilly- disapproval which would have taken the heart out of anyone who hadn't been brought up to it from childhood, she hadn't an earthly. Especially as poor old