The Strand 1913-4 Vol_XLV №268 April mich

'ONCE FA1RLV OUT ON A ROUND, IT WOULD TAKE THE CRACK. Of STOP A TRUE GOLFER.\" (Set page 369.) DOOM TO

THE STRAND MAGAZINE Vol. xlv. APRIL, 1913. No. 268. THE POISON BELT. iy A. CONAN DOYLE Illustrated by Harry Rountree. Being an account of another amazing adventure or Professor George E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Professor Summerlee, and Mr. E. D. Malone, the discoverers of *\"The Lost World.\" SYNOPSIS OF THE FIRST INSTALMENT. Professor Challenger has invited his old friends, Lord John Roxlon, Professor Summerlee, and E. D. Malone, to spend a day with him at his home in Sussex, and while journeying down they eagerly discuss the news that a mysterious and universal outbreak of illness has occurred among the natives of Sumatra, and that the lighthouses are all dark in the Straits of Sunda. They are doubly interested in the news as Challenger himself has a letter on the subject in that morning's Times. His theory, as he explains when he meets them, is that the world has swum into a stratum, or poison belt, of ether, and that the fate which has befallen the Sumalran natives will quickly overtake the rest of the earth's inhabitants. \" It is,\" he says, \" in my opinion, the end of the world.\" CHAPTER II. (continued). HE end of the world ! Our eyes turned to the great bow-window and we looked out at the summer beauty of the countryside, the long slopes of heather, the great country houses, the cosy farms, the pleasure-seekers upon the links. The end of the world ! One had often heard the words, but the idea that they could ever have an immediate practical significance, that it should not be at some vague distant date, but now, to-day, that was a tremendous, a Vul. xlv.—37. Copyright, 1913, staggering thought. We were all struck solemn and waited in silence for Challenger to continue. His overpowering presence and appearance lent such force to the solemnity of his words that for a moment all the absurdities of the man vanished, and he loomed bifore us as something majestic and beyond the range of ordinary humanity. Then to me, at least, there came back the cheering recollection of how twice since we had entered the room he had roared with laughter. Surely, I thought, there are limits to mental detachment. The crisis cannot be so great or so pressing, after all. !iy A. C 'tian Doyle.

364 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" You will conceive a bunch of grapes,\" said he, \" which are covered by some infini- tesimal bacillus. The gardener passes it through a disinfectant medium. It may be that he desires his grapes to he cleaner. It may be that he needs space to breed some fresh bacillus. He dips into the poison and they are gone. Our Gardener is, in my opinion, about to dip the solar system, and the human bacillus will be sterilized out of existence.\" Again there was silence. It was broken by the high trill of the telephone-bell. \" There is one of our bacilli squeaking for help,\" said he, with a grim smile. He was gone from the room for a minute or two. I remember that none of us spoke in his absence. The situation seemed beyond all words or comments. \" The medical officer of health for Brighton,\" said he, when he returned. \" The symptoms are for some reason develop- ing more rapidly upon the sea-level. Our seven hundred feet of elevation give us an advantage. Folk seem to have learned that I am the first authority upon the question. No doubt it comes from my letter in the Times. That was the mayor of a provincial town with whom I talked when we first arrived. He seemed to put an entirely inflated value upon his own life. I helped him to readjust his ideas.\" Summerlee had risen and was standing by the window. His thin, bony hands were trembling with his emotion. \" Challenger,\" said he, earnestly, \" this thing is too serious for mere futile argument. Do not suppose that I desire to irritate you by any question I may ask. But I put it to you whether there may not be some fallacy in your information or in your reasoning. There is the sun shining as brightly as ever in a blue sky. There are the heather and the flowers and the birds. There are the folk enjoying themselves upon the golf-links, and the labourers yonder cutting the corn. You tell us that they and we may be upon the very brink of destruction—that this sunlit day may be that day of doom which the human race has so long awaited. So far as we know, you found this tremendous judgment upon what ? Upon some abnormal lines in a spectrum— upon rumours from Sumatra—upon some curious personal excitement which we have discerned in each other. This latter symptom is not so marked but that you and we could, by a deliberate effort, control it. You need not stand on ceremony with us, Challenger. We have all faced death together before now. Speak out, and let us know exactly where we stand and what, in your opinion, are our prospects fo~ our future.\" It was a brave, good speech, a speech from that staunch and strong spirit which lay behind all the acidities and angularities of the old -zoologist. Lord John rose and shook him by the hand. \" My sentiment to a t-ck,\" said he. \" Now,

Till'. POISON BELT. 365 tion and mental lucidity—I seem to discern some signs of it in our young friend here— which, after an appreciable interval, turns to coma, which deepens ra idly into death. I fancy, so far as my toxicology carries me, that there are some vegetable nerve poisons \" \" Datura,\" suggested Summerlee. \" Excellent! \" cried Challenger. \" It would make for scientific precision if we named our toxic agent. Let it be daturon. To you, my dear Summerlee, belongs the honour—post- humous, alas ! but none the less unique—of having given a name to the universal destroyer, the great Gardener's disinfectant. The symp- toms of daturon. then, may be taken to be such as I indicate. That it will involve the whole world and that no life can possibly remain behind seems to me to be certain, since ether is a universal medium. Up to now it has been capricious in the places which it has attacked, but the difference is only a matter of a few hours, and it is like an advan- cing tide which covers one strip of sand and then another, running hither and thither in irregular streams, until at last it has sub- merged it all. There are laws at work in connection with the action and distribution of daturon which would have been of deep interest had the time at our disposal per- mitted us to study them. So far as I can trace them \"—here he glanced over his telegrams—\" the less developed races have been the first to respond to its influence. There are deplorable accounts from Africa, and the Australian aborigines appear to have been already exterminated. The Northern races have as yet shown greater resisting power than the Southern. This, you see, is dated from Marseilles at nine-forty-five this morning. I gi e it to you erbatim : — \" ' All night delirious excitement through- out Provence. Tumult of vine growers at Nimes. Socialistic upheaval at Toulon. Sudden illness attended by coma attacked population this morning. Peste foudroyant. Great numbers of dead in the streets. Paralysis of business and universal chaos.' \" An hour later came the following, from the same source :— \" ' We are threatened with utter extermi- nation. Cathedral and churches full to over- flowing. The dead outnumber the living. It is inconceivable and horrible. De ease seems to be painless, but swift and inevitable.' \" There is a similar telegram from Paris, where the development is not yet as acute. India and Persia appear to be utterly wiped out. -The Slavonic population of Austria is down, while the Teutonic has hardly been affected. Speaking generally, the dwellers upon the plains and upon the seashore seem, so far as my limited information goes, to have felt the effects more rapidly than those inland or on the heights. Even a little elevation makes a considerable difference, and perhaps if there be a survivor of the human race, he will again be found upon the summit of some Ararat. Even our own little

366 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. ' CATHEDRAL AND CHURCHES ARE FULL TO OVERFLOWING. THE DEAD OUTNUMBER THE LIVING.\" he had sat while he announced the doom of the planet. \" Come,\" said he. \" If there is little time left, there is the more need that we should spend it in sober and reasonable enjoyment.\" And, indeed, it proved to be a very merry meal. Do not think us flippant, my good reader. The full solemnity of the event loomed ever at the back of our minds and tempered our thoughts. But surely it is the

THE P01SUX BELT. 3*7 soul which has never faced Death which shies strongly from it at the end. To each of us men it had, for one great epoch in our lives, been a familiar presence. As to the lady, she leaned upon the strong guidance of her mighty husband and was well content to go whither his path might lead. The future was with Fate. The present was our own. We passed it in goody comradeship and gentle merriment. Our minds were, as I have said, singularly lucid. Even I struck sparks at times. As to Challenger, he was wonderful ! Never have I so realized the elemental greatness of the man, the sweep and power of his understanding. Summerlee drew him on with his chorus of subacid criticism, while Lord John and I laughed at the contest; and the lady, her hand upon his sleeve, con- trolled the bellowings of the philosopher. Life, death, fate, the destiny of man—these were the stupendous subjects of that memorable hour, made vital by the fact that as the meal progressed strange, sudden exaltations in my mind and tinglings in my limbs proclaimed that the invisible tide of Death was slowly and gently rising around us. Once I saw Lord John put his hand suddenly to his eyes, and once Summerlee dropped back for an instant in his chair. Each breath we breathed was charged with strange forces. And yet our minds were happy and at ease. Pre- sently Austin laid the cigarettes upon the table and was about to withdraw. \" Austin ! \" said his master. \" Yes, sir ? \" \" I thank you for your faithful service.\" A smile stole over the servant's gnarled face. \" I've done my duty, sir.\" \" I'm expecting the end of the world to-day, Austin.\" \" Yes, sir. What time, sir ? \" \" I can't say, Austin. Before evening.\" \" Very good, sir.\" The taciturn Austin saluted and withdrew. Challenger lit a cigarette, and, drawing his chair closer to his wife's, he took her hand in his. \" You know how matters stand, dear,\" said he. \" I have explained it also to our friends here. You're not afraid, are you ? \" \" It won't be painful, George ? \" \" No more than laughing-gas at the dentist's. Every time you have had it you have practically died.\" \" But that is a pleasant sensation.\" \" So may death be. The worn-out bodily machine can't record its impression, hut we know the mental pleasure which lies in a dream or a trance. Nature may build a beautiful door and hang it with many a gauzy and shimmering curtain to make an entrance to the new life for our wondering souls. In all my probings of the actual, I have always found wisdom and kindness at the core; and if ever the frightened mortal needs tenderness, it is surely as he makes the passage perilous from life to life. No,

368 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. another. Come, Challenger, you could not defend such a proposition.\" \" My good Summerlee, this etheric poison is most certainly influenced by material agents. We see it in the methods and dis- tribution of the outbreak. We should not a priori have expected it, but it is undoubtedly a fact. Hence I am strongly of opinion that a gas like oxygen, which increases the vitality and the resisting power of the body, would be extremely likely to delay the action of what you have so happily named the daturon. It may be that I am mistaken, but I have every confidence in the correctness of my reasoning.\" \" Well,\" said Lord John, \" if we've got to sit suckin' at those tubes like so many babies with their bottles. I'm not takin' any.\" \" There will be no need for that,\" Challenger answered. \" We have made arrangements— it is to my wife that you chiefly owe it—that her boudoir shall be made as airtight as is practicable. With matting and varnished paper \" \" Good heavens, Challenger, you don't suppose you can keep out ether with varnished paper ? '' \" Really, my worthy friend, you are a trifle perverse in missing the point. It is not to keep out the ether that we have gone to such trouble. It is to keep in the oxygen. I trust that if we can ensure an atmosphere hyper-oxygenated to a certain point, we may be able to retain our senses. I had two tubes of the gas and you have brought me three more. It is not much, but it is something.\" \" How long will they last ? \" \" I have not an idea. We will not turn them on until our symptoms become unbear- able. Then we shall dole the gas out as it is urgently needed. It may give us some hours, possibly even some days, on which we may look out upon a blasted world. Our own fate is delayed to that extent, and we will have the very singular experience, we fi e, of being, in all probability, the absolute rearguard of the human race upon its march into the unknown. Perhaps you will be kind enough now to .give me a hand with the cylinders. It seems to me that the atmo- sphere already grows somewhat more oppressive.\" CHAPTER III. SUBMERGED. THE chamber which was destined to be the scene of our unforgettable experience was a charmingly feminine sitting-room, some four- teen or sixteen feet square. At the end of it, divided by a curtain of red velvet, was a small apartment which formed the Professor's dressing-room. This in turn opened into a large bedroom. The curtain was still hanging, but the boudoir and dressing-room were practically one chamber for the purposes of our experiment. One door and the window- frame had been plastered round with varnished paper, so as to be practically sealed. Above the other door, which opened on to the landing, there hung a fanlight which could

THE POISON BELT. 369 learn that once fairly out on a round, it would take the crack of doorn to stop a true golfer. Halloa ! There's that telephone-bell again.\" From time to time during and after lunch the high, insistent ring had summoned the Professor. He gave us the news as it came through to him in a few curt sentences. through its delirium and was now comatose. Spain and Portugal, after a wild frenzy in which the Clericals and the Anarchists had fought most desperately, were now fallen silent. No cable messages were received any longer from South America. In North America the Southern States, after some . \"RUSHING AND SNORTING LIKE A WOUNDED BUFFALO, CHALLENGER DASHED PAST ME.' Such terrific items had never been registered in the world's history before. The great shadow was creeping up from the South like a rising tide of death. Egypt had gone Vol. xlv. -3a terrible racial rioting, had succumbed to the poison. North of Maryland the effect was not yet marked, and in Canada it was hardly perceptible. Belgium, Holland, and Denmark

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. had each in turn been affected. Despair- ing messages were flashing from every quarter to the great centres of learning, to the chemists and the doctors of world-wide repute, implor- ing their advice. The astronomers, too, were deluged with inquiries. Nothing could be done. The thing was universal and beyond our human knowledge or control. It was death—painless but inevitable—death for young and old, for weak and strong, for rich and poor, without hope or possibility of escape. Such was the news which, in scattered, distracted messages, the telephones had brought us. The great cities already knew their fate, and so far as we could gather were preparing to meet it with dignity and resignation. Yet here were our golfers and labourers like the lambs who gambol under the shadow of the knife. It seemed amazing. And yet how could they know ? It had all come upon us in one giant stride. What was there in the morning paper to alarm them ? And now it was but three in the afternoon. Even as we looked some rumour seemed to have spread, for we saw the reapers hurrying from the fields. Some of the golfers were returning to the club-house. They were running as if taking refuge from a shower. Their little caddies trailed behind them. Others were continuing their game. The nurse had turned and was pushing her perambulator hurriedly up the hill again. I noticed that she had her hand to her brow. The cab had stopped and the tired horse, with his head sunk to his knees, was resting. Above there was a perfect summer sky—one huge vault of unbroken blue, save for a few fleecy white clouds over the distant clowns. If the human race must die to-day, it was at least upon a glorious death-bed. And yet all that gentle loveliness of Nature made this terrific and wholesale destruction the more pitiable and awful. Surely it was too goodly a residence that we should be so swiftly, so terribly, evicted from it! But I have said that the telephone-bell had rung *once more. Suddenly I heard Challenger's tremendous voice from the hall. \" Malone ! \" he cried. \" You are wanted.\" I rushed down to the instrument. It was McArdle speaking from London. \" That you, Mr. Malone ? \" cried his familiar voice. \" Mr. Malone, for God's sake, see if Professor Challenger can suggest anything that can be done.\" \" He can suggest nothing, sir,\" I answered. \" He regards the crisis as universal and inevitable. We have some oxygen here, but it can only defer our fate for a few hours.\" \" Oxygen ! \" cried the voice. \" There is no time to get any. The office has been a perfect pandemonium all morning. Now half of the staff are insensible. I am weighed down with heaviness myself. From my window I can see the people lying thick in Fleet Street. Judging by the last telegrams, the whole world \" His voice had been sinking, and suddenly stopped. An instant later I heard through

THE I'OISON BELT. moaned, stirred, and sat up. He turned to me, and I felt the tide of life stealing warmly through my arteries. My reason told me that it was but a little respite, and yet, carelessly as we talk of its value, every hour of existence now seemed an inestimable thing. 'hand to rise, while Challenger picked up his wife and laid her on the settee. \" Oh, George. I am so sorry you brought me back,\" she said, holding him by the hand. \" The door of death is indeed, as you said, hung with beautiful, shimmering curtains; for, once the choking feeling had passed, it was all unspeakably soothing and beautiful. Why have you dragged me back ? \" \" Because I wish that we make the passage together. We have been together so many years. Never have I known such a thrill of sensu- ous joy as came with that freshet of life. The weight fell away from my lungs, the band loosened from my brow, a sweet feeling of peace and gentle, languid comfort stole over me. I lay watching Summerlee revive under the same remedy, and finally Lord John took hii CHAI I.ENC.KR 1IKKATI1RD TWO OR TI1RKK TIMKS WITH KNOKMOUS GULPS.\" It would be sad to fall apart at the supreme moment.\" For a moment in his tender voice I caught turn. He sprang to his feet and gave me a a glimpse of a new Challenger, something

372 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. very far from the bullying, ranting, arrogant man who had alternately amazed and offended his generation. Here in the shadow of death was the innermost Challenger, the man who had won and held a woman's love. Suddenly his mood changed and he was our strong captain once again. \" Alone of all mankind I saw and foretold this catastrophe,'' said he, with a ring of exultation and scientific triumph in his voice. \" As to you, my good Summerlee, I trust your last doubts have been resolved as to the meaning of the blurring of the lines in the spectrum, and that you will no longer contend that my letter in 'the Times was based upon a delusion.\" For once our pugnacious colleague was deaf to a challenge. He could but sit gasping and stretching his long, thin limbs, as if to assure himself that he was still really upon this planet. Challenger walked across to the oxygen tube, and the sound of the loud hissing fell away till it was the most gentle sibilation. \" We must husband our supply of the gas,\" said he. \" The atmosphere of the room is now strongly hyper-oxygenated, and I take it that none of us feel any distressing symp- toms. We can only determine by actual experiments what amount added to the air will serve to neutralize the poison. Let us see how that will do.\" We sat in silent nervous tension for five minutes or more, observing our own sensa- tions. I had just begun to fancy that I felt the constriction round my temples again when Mrs. Challenger called out from the sofa that she was fainting. Her husband turned on more gas. \" In pre-scientific days,\" said he, \" they used to keep a white mouse in every sub- marine, as its delicate organization gave signs of a vicious atmosphere before it was per- ceived by the sailors. You, my dear, will be our white mouse. I have now increased the supply and you are better.\" \" Yes, I am better.\" \" Possibly we have hit upon the correct mixture. When we have ascertained exactly how little will serve we shall be able to compute how long we shall be able to exist. Unfortunately, in resuscitating ourselves we have already consumed a considerable pro- portion of this first tube.\" \" Does it matter ? \" asked Lord John, who was standing with his hands in his pockets close to the window. \" If we have to go, what is the use of holdin' on ? You don't suppose there's any chance for us ? \" Challenger smiled and shook his head. \" Well, then, don't you think there is more dignity in takin' the jump and not waitin' to be pushed in ? If it must be so I'm for savin' our prayers, turnin' off the gas, and openin' the window.\" \" Why not ? \" said the lady, bravely. \" Surely, George, Lord John is right and it is better so.\"

THE POISON BELT. 373 at the little birds under the trees ! \" We drew four chairs up to the long, low win- dow, the lady Still resting with closed eyes upon the settee. I re- member that the monstrous and grotesque idea crossed my mind—the illusion may have been heightened by the heavy stuffiness of the air which we were breathing— that we were in four front seats of the stalls at ths last act of the drama of the world. 'THE CHAUFKEUR DOWN IN THB YARD HAD MADE HIS LAST JOURMBY. (To be continued.)

STORIES HEARD AND TOLD BY Sir Herbert Beerbolim Tree. [Concerning this article, which he has been kind enough to revise, the eminent actor-manager writes: \" It appears that at odd moments — at meetings, social gatherings, and among theatrical friends — I have been guilty of endeavouring to amuse by relating anecdotes of persons and incidents in my career. These my friend the writer has, with assiduity somewhat flattering to myself, carefully preserved. I fear I cannot accept responsibility for all the stories related here, as, although 1 may have told them, or heard them told from time to time by friends, they cover such a long period that 1 cannot remember the circumstances in which some of them first gained publicity. However, they may not be deemed by readers of THE STRAND MAGAZINE less interesling or amusing on that account.''] Illustrated by H. M. )roc k, R.I. HAVE often been tempted by biographical publishers,\" Sir Herbert T ee recently re- marked, \" who have assailed me to write my memoirs ; but so Tar I have success- fully resisted their blandish- ments and even the entreaties of my daughter Viola. \" ' Dear Father,' she wrote from Milan not long ago, ' do write your reminiscences. They will be intensely interesting. Write them all about other people, then they will be interested in you.' \" Neither is this the only example of his daughter's somewhat caustic humour which Sir Herbert has given us. A short time ago he signed a document instructing that he should be cremated after death. When informing his daughter of this fact Sir Herbert wrote and said : \" I will send you a beautiful urn holding my ashes.\" To which she replied : \" Dear Father,—That will be a dreadful day - a nasty jar for me ! \" With regard to the writing of memoirs, however, Sir Herbert says that he always considered there are two signs of advancing age. One when people say to you, \" How- young you are looking \" ; the other when publishers write to suggest that you should write your autobiography. He thinks, how- ever, that he has said all he has got to say about himself and other people to the interviewer. \" At first,\" Sir Herbert con- fesses, \" the interviewer filled me with trepidation, but I have now learned some- thing. All you have got to do is to look intelligent, give the interviewer a good time, and allow him to say a number of smart things. You'll really be surprised at yourself when the interview appears.\" Apart, however, from his material interest as a theatrical man, Sir Herbert confesses that he has an individual and personal interest in the Press. In- deed, he once started a journal. It was on board an Atlantic liner, and he threat- ened to fill it with paragraphs attacking the re- putations of pro- minent people on board unless they

STORIES HEARD AND TOLD BY SIR HERBERT TREE. 375 says Sir Herbert, \" was an American ' boss,' and I hinted at the publication of dark passages in his career unless he subscribed handsomely. He agreed to do so, after making some pointed remarks about blackmail. \" Well, we were so successful in our efforts that every paragraph was bought up, and we were free from any expense of printing. The newspaper was pub- lished, but it was a white sheet — the white sheet of blame- less lines. On the night of the concert, at the close, there was a dramatic pause, and I said : ' Now we will have the chief contribu- tion.' The man of millions stepped for- ward and handed me an envelope. I opened it and found inside a one-cent piece — the smallest coin, I believe, known to the Ameri- can Mint. Turning to the ' boss,' I said :— \" ' Sir, what does this mean ? ' \" ' My boy/ an- swered he, with great humour, ' that is all my reputation is worth.' \" Millionaires are too much for the ordinary man.\" As a matter of fact, there are those who consider that Sir Herbert Tree has missed his vocation. One evening, during the run of \" King John,\" he remarked to a friend at the Garrick Club :— \" Is it not strange that I should be appearing in two places at once in my new production ? I shall be on at the Palace in the cinemato- graph and at the same time on the stage at His Majesty's.\" \" I shall go to the Palace for choice,\" said the candid friend, \" for then I sha'n't have to listen to the words.\" \" You would not understand them if you did, my friend,\" Sir Herbert retorted. \" Well, no, perhaps not, as you speak 'em,\" was the genial reply. Then there was the Gaelic guide with whom Sir Herbert got into conversation while on a provincial tour. During his week's visit a Scotch no measured terms. Sir. what a.oe.f fkv w mean f 'divine\" had attacked the stage in \" And what may you do for a living ? \" he asked. \" I ? \" replied the actor-manager, a little taken aback. \" Oh, I'm on the stage.\" \" Circus or handbell-ringer ? \" He explained that he was neither, and

376 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. the critics are applauding or deriding, accord- ing to individual tastes, the extraordinary- work of artists who describe themselves as post-impressionists, the following story which the actor-manager tells is particularly inte- resting and not without its point and humour. \" I have never understood many things,\" he says. \" In particular, post-impressionism is a thing that has baffled me. I believe it was that brilliant man, Mr. Comyns Carr, who said th it post-impressionism is the tem- porary paradise of the charlatan. My first lesson in post- I <tkou mpress onsm was from a goose - herd many years ago at a school in Germany, and he used to paint exactly the pic- tures I see now in the galleries of the advanced post -impres sionists. He was, indeed, the father of post - impres- sionism—or shall I say, post - de pressionism ? He had a great con- science about it, and never painted anything under a .king or a prince or a princess. But onedayl tempted him, with the twopence a week which was allowed me for toffee, to paint a colonel. It was a great social descent for him, and he confided in me that > he considered it only as a ' pot- boiler.' \" There was also an occasion when a famous musical comedy \" star,\" a handsome creature, who was wont to display more of her hand- some self than of her mediocre talent, was a counter-attraction on one of Sir Herbert's visits to Dublin, and someone said that he could not understand Tree's poor success, as she had played to crowded houses. \" Ah,\" said Tree, \" Art cannot compete with Nature.\" This, however, is not the only example of Sir Herbert's caustic humour. Once he was present at a supper where a talented but somewhat effusive Sicilian actor was an honoured and much-fete 1 guest. When the banquet was over and everyone was

STORIES HEARD AND TOLD BY SIR HERBERT TREE. 377 my paper; one word, Sir Rosebery, about your interview with Lord Campbell Bannerman.\" Waving his hand in a lordly manner, Sir Herbert solemnly said :— \" Death opens the door for peace to enter in.\" The next morning the reporter's paper in question contained a long article on the portentous \" opinion.\" No less a personage than Mr. Hall Caine, however, was once made the butt of one of Sir Herbert's little jokes. The famous novelist wished to secure a certain effect in \" The Eternal City.\" Miss Constance Collier played Roma, and Mr. Caine, anxious to get powerful effect in a certain scene she was taking with the late Robert Taber, said, during a rehearsal:— \" I once saw a very striking bit of business. The man picked up the woman and threw her over his shoulder.\" Miss Collier looked at him in constcr- Vol. xlv.-39. TK nation, for she would be rather a Venus de Miloesque person to throw about. \"That reminds me,\" said the actor-manager. \" I saw a play once in which the hero caught hold of the heroine by the feet and banged her head on the floor.\" \" Splendid ! A magnificent idea ! \" interpolated the enthu- siastic author. \" What was the play ? \" \" ' Punch and Judy,' \" replied Sir Herbert. As becomes a witty man, how- ever, Sir Herbert admires the wit of others. On the occasion of a new production, pieceded by a long series of rather weary- ing rehearsals, one member of the company, who had never had anything but a small part, spoke in so weak a voice when his cue came that Sir Herbert asked, in rather a sarcastic tone: \" What's the matter, Mr. X ? Are you saving your voice for the opening night ? \" \" No, Sir Herbert,\" was the retort; \" I've never been able to save anything under your management.\" keel up tne lr\\e man. picked up the woman a' t/vrew Ker overKis sKoulcU-r «•

378 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" Humour is greater than vulgar truth,\" said the manager. and doubled the actor's salary. Occasionally Sir Herbert plays golf. One day he was in particularly bad form on the links, and made such a poor drive that he turned to the caddie and remarked, \" Did you In view of the admiring comments which have been made from time to time regarding Sir Herbert's powers of make-up, the following remarks which he made a short time ago during an interview will be read with con- siderable interest. \"Did you ever .ree player ever see worse play than that ? \" The lad made no answer, and Sir Herbert went on with the game. Presently he made another still worse stroke, which evoked from the actor an exclamation of surprise. \" I say,\" said he again, \" did you ever see a worse player?\" The caddie remained silent for a moment, and then slowly raised his head. \" I heard what ye said,\" he replied, at last, \" and I'm just thinking.\" Next to being worried with critics and budding dramatists, perhaps the greatest trouble of a theatrical manager is that of dealing with stage aspirants. One of the funniest letters Sir Herbert ever received from a stage aspirant was as follows :— \" Veneered Sir,—I wish to go on the stage, and I would like to join your valuable theatre. I have been a bricklayer for five years, but having failed in this branch, I have decided to take on acting, it being easier work. I am not young, but am six foot tall without any boots. I have studied Bell's system of elocution, and am fond of late hours.—I remain, humble sir, yours faithfully, E. S.\" Another aspirant, a Mohammedan gentle- man, recommended himself on the ground that\" I can lift a grand piano with my teeth,\" \" It is the simplest thing in the world to ' make-up' for a character. It is just what you think you are that you become and seem to others—just as the mind is made up. You must bring some imagination to making-up, it is true, and hold yourself in harmony with the picture, whatever it be.\" But there are accidents at times. On one occasion, when playing Falstiff at His Majesty's, he seemed to be going into a rapid decline in the clothes-basket scene. His belt began to slip about, and he grew rapidly thinner. Miss Ellen Terry and Mrs. Kendal were convulsed with laughter, and it was then that Sir Herbert realized that the screw had come off the air-pillow which con- stituted his corpulence. Sir Herbert confesses, however, that one of the funniest and luckiest events in his career was connected with make-up. It happened on the first night of the production of \" The Private Secretary.\" He was the original curate, and it may be remembered that the piece of blue on the lapel of the Rev. Mr. Spalding's coat was one of the best

STORIES HEARD AND TOLD BY SIR HERBERT TREE. 379 invention. When I was going on I asked her if I should pass muster. At first she said ' Yes,' but then had a happy inspiration. ' You want a bit of blue ribbon/ she said, ' just to finish you off.' \" The call-boy was waiting for me, and there was not a bit of blue ribbon in the theatre, or at any rate none that we could lay hands on. Then my wife had another inspira- tion. The painters had been busy behind the scenes, and had left a pot of blue paint. She snipped off a piece of material from somewhere or other, dipped it in the blue paint, and dabbed it on the lapel of my coat. Needless to say, the first appearance of ' The Private Secretary ' was a tremendous success, come, to «njoy . W« c»me to -ree. you \" dear Mrs. Jones,\" said the welcoming hostess, \" I am glad you've come, but I do hope the weather will clear up, or you won't enjoy yourselves much.\" \" Oh, but, Mrs. Wiles,\" replied the polite guest, \" we didn't come to enjoy ourselves; we came to see you.\" The dramatic critic is concerned in a good story told of Sir Herbert's professional dtbui over thirty years ago at Folkestone, in the character of Colonel Challice, in \" Alone.\" \" I was so nervous,\" he says, \" that I arranged with the prompter to snap my fingers when- ever I was forgetting the words. On the first night I snapped often, and felt in consequence very depressed about my performance; but, and the curate has worn the blue ribbon ever since.\" Another of his favourite stories concerns two ladies arriving at a modest country cottage, where they were to be week - end guests, in the midst of a hailstorm. \" My as a matter of fact, the critics commended my work very highly, calling it artistic and clever. Especially did they note ' his realistic twitching of the fingers and con- stant attitude of painful listening, traits so characteristic of the blind.' \"

Number Twenty-Seven. By AUSTIN PHILIPS. Illustrated by A. C. MicKael. ANG it all, I wish you weren't going ! \" said Ferrars, sadly. \"Hang it all, I wish I wasn't, either ! \" said Le- marchand, whistling cheer- fully. \" Sounds like it! \" said Ferrars, with a rueful laugh. \" Sorry ! \" Lemarchand stopped, waste-paper basket in one hand, in the other a dusty mahogany drawer taken from the Chippendale bureau in his wide, high room. He put down the waste-paper basket, took up a duster, wiped the drawer, replaced it, and looked half- ruefully, half-smilingly at his friend. \" I'm sorry,\" he began again. \" I didn't mean to be so beastly cheerful.\" Ferrars sat watching him, glum and down- hearted at Lemarchand's going, yet knowing that he (Lemarchand) had more cause than most people for joy. He had eaten over- much of life's powder; he was now going to taste its jam. Only Ferrars knew what Lemarchand had been through these last three odious years. Lemarchand had come to Belboro, where he had bought—and had been sold—a \" promising nucleus,\" which proved to be a practice which the seller had worked up to its possible zenith — a paper three hundred—which could be worked up to nothing more. Belboro was a spa—hence Lemarchand's belief in the \" promising nucleus \"—a spa which was the property of a ring. The baths were in the hands of trustees for an estate in Chancery, and the trustees were in league with the hotels (which were the estate's property), and the old- established doctors were in league with the hotel-keepers, who kept the ring more close. The ring made a fortune out of visitors to the brine baths. The tiny town, with a moribund industry and a three-parts sub- merged population, provided Lemarchand with practice—and payment deferred. Lemarchand, a man of real ability, by far the best qualified doctor in Belboro, had struggled valiantly—worse still, had struggled knowing it vain. He had had to convince his father, and his fiancte's father, who had thought that he was not doing his best. Now conviction was come to the n; they thought more of him for holding on as he had held ; they were making amends. And Lemarchand was having his chance. A practice—a real practice—had been bought for him at a big West Country town, and he was going to be married at once. No wonder that he was whistling. It was only Ferrars, writer of fiction and Civil Servant, who felt glum. \" It'll be dull,\" he said, presently; \" oh, beastly dull! I shall miss you more than I can say. One is different from the people here, and one speaks a different language, after all.\"

NUMBER TWENTY-SEVKX. \" But \"—Ferrars was persistently incredu- lous—\" but of which I shall guess the end.\" \" I'll bet you those two brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece to that nail-studded bellows at your rooms that you don't. Is that enough ? \" \" It is. Done with you ! Fire ahead ! I'll pull you up—when the brass candlesticks are mine ! \" \" Right ! Just half a second, though.\" Lemarchand turned to his bureau again, opened the third right-hand drawer of its interior, fumbled for something, pulled out some sheets of paper, rolled and elastic- ringed. Then he came back to the big chair opposite to Ferrars's chair, coughed, cleared his throat, smiled at his guest again, and began. \" It was when I was house physician at Bart's. I remember—oh, most awfully well! —the first time I saw the chap. I'd been dining at the Sports Club with another old Malvernian—Jimmy Bird, the Soccer Blue— and I got back to the hospital about twelve, and just as I turned in I did my duty visit round the wards. I came to Marion Ward first. Everything was in order there. Then I went on to Stanley Ward, on the male side. I found the night nurse sewing by the green- shaded light of the central table at which she sat. \" ' Good evening, nurse,' I said. \" ' Oh, good evening, Mr. Lemarchand,' said she. Then she lighted a candle, preparatory to taking me round the ward. ' There's a new patient for you,' she went on,' in Number Twenty-seven. He came in from the out- patients' room this afternoon.' \" When we got to Number Twenty-seven —the last but one on the right—I switched on the light above the patient's head. The new arrival was sleeping. There was not the least tremor of the eyelids ; his breathing was regular and deep. He lay on his side. An arm, bare and muscular, made a pillow for his head. A fine head it was, too—large, with massive features, crowned with a shock of curly, coal-black hair. The nose was some- what aquiline ; the chin was strong and pro- minent. It was distinctly an intellectual face. And yet, even in his sleep, it seemed to me that there was something of the savage about the fellow, something of the brute, and (I said his nose was aquiline) something of the devil, too. \" I looked at him for a couple of minutes or so. He did not stir. I unhooked the notes above his head and got hold of the out-patient letter. Here it is.\" Lemarchand ceased playing with the elastic- banded dossier, slipped the elastic from it, removed a sheet of paper which he put down carefully on the open flap of the bureau. Then he replaced the elastic and tossed the remainder of the dossier into Ferrars's hands. \" That's yours,\" he went on, \" like the tale. You'll find the out-patient letter next the temperature-chart. Got it ? That's it, that's it—that blue-paper thing. What's it say ? \" \" ' Angina Pectoris. Attack in O.P. room.

38* THE STRAND MAGAZINE. at intervals of varying length. The attacks seize him at different times, and seem to have no relation to heavy exercise or excitement. He sweats, vomits, and says he feels afraid he is about to die. There has been no short- ness of breath, no swelling of the feet ' \" Lemarchand stopped, rolled up the paper again, and pursued. \" He was evidently an educated, well-read man. His way of speaking was refined. His voice, however, was rather harsh and loud. \" He w^as a scholar, too, and linguist. He certainly spoke French, for I tested him myself. \" He said that he had lost his post in Melbourne through the hatred and enmity of a man of high position whom he had unintentionally offended. He was, he said, practically hounded out of Australia. Though I tried'my hardest, I was never able to per- suade him to tell me more than this. \" His heart was certainly in a condition in which attacks of angina would be likely to occur. There was no reason to suspect his story—told, already, in a direct manner. Moreover, while in the out-patients' room he had suffered from an attack about which there could bt no doubt. \" In the afternoon Meredith, my chief, visited the wards, and I took him to see Number Twenty-seven. \" ' Well,' he said, ' we must wait till he has an attack. Then watch him closely and note his symptoms with care.' \" Then, obviously interested by the fellow's striking personality, and although he had been in an urgent hurry, he sat down by the bedside and began to talk. He stayed there, too—for, I should think, quite half an hour. They spoke of chemistry, at which Meredith rather fancies himself, and Number Twenty- seven had, apparently, amongst other things, taught chemistry in Melbourne.\" Lemarchand broke off ; he had been speak- ing with head bent, with eyes upon a swinging foot. He looked up, to see Ferrars smiling cynically as before. And Lemarchand smiled too. \" I hold you all right ? \" he asked. \" I have your interest fixed ? \" \" Oh, yes ! I don't quarrel with your story. But of course I've guessed the end. The chap— Lemarchand silenced Ferrars quickly with the wave of a protesting hand. \" You haven't guessed, and you won't guess ; and I'll trust you to admit as much presently, and to send those nail-studded bellows along. In the meantime I may as well dash ahead.\" And Lemarchand pro- ceeded with his tale. \" Well, the new patient certainly had an extraordinary power of arousing interest in people. We all felt it—the resident, the Sister, and the nurses, and now Dr. Meredith himself. Yet in more than one case the interest was hostile—hostile without grounds. \" It was nearly a week after Meredith's

NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN. 383 \"' There's something wrong about that man,' said Sister Caldecott to me one day. ' I hate him, and so do the other patients— one and all. I believe Nurse Flemming is right. I believe he could be a perfect fiend incarnate, given the chance. I shall be thankful when he goes. Can't you manage to get rid of him, Mr. Lemarch- and?' \"Well,I thought about things be- tween then and next morning, and spoke to the resident, and he seemed rather to agree with the nurse. Presently —as he had told me he was going to do — he said this to me as he stood at the bot- tom of Number Twenty - seven's bed:— \" ' This man has not had an attack for some time. I should think he might go out in a day or so, and make room for someone else. I want beds very badly indeed.' \"That same night Number Twenty-seven had a third attack— the severest since his admission. I was with him for two solid hours. His screams were awful, and at last I had to resort to chloroform to get him quiet and to give the morphia time to act. \" I have never, either before or since, seen a man so sick. I will spare you the details. The Sister told me that at tea-time he had eaten enormously of bread and butter. Could it, after all, be only indigestion ? Could indigestion alone bring on such pains ? \" The next day old Dr. Meredith, to whom I had reported this violent attack, went straight to Number Twenty-seven and, \"'THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG ABOUT THAT MAN,' SAID SISTER CALDECOTT TO MB ONE DAY. 'I HATE HIM, AND SO DO THE OTHER PATIENTS.'\" having gathered his class round him in a circle about the bed, he called upon the clerk

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" I did so. \" ' Ah !' he said. ' Very interesting—very interesting indeed. And does he ever com- plain of pain shooting up into his neck and down the left arm ? ' \" 'No, sir.' \" ' That is curious—very curious.' And old Meredith began to question his class upon the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of angina pectoris, and how a false angina may be separated from a true. \" I still had faith in the patient, and I believed his attacks to be absolutely genuine, in spite of the Sister and the night nurse, whose dislike of the man grew greater each day. \" Two nights later, while at the dinner- table, I was summoned hurriedly to the ward. I found Number Twenty-seven again in the apparent agony of an attack, but with this additional symptom: between his groans and cries of pain (his lips were curved and twisting, his body rocked, writhing to and fro) he held his left arm with his right hand and muttered, through tight-clenched teeth, ' Oh, my arm—my arm !' And then, a moment later, ' Oh, my neck—the pain in my neck !' \" The Sister gave me an expressive look. \" I examined him carefully and closely before I did anything, and I satisfied myself beyond doubt that the man was in extremity of pain. The drawn and twisted face, the great beads of sweat upon the forehead were proof enough. \" And yet this was not true angina. I was sure of it—sure ! Could the man produce this fearful pain at will ? I wondered—wondered if he could, and why. \" Well, I sat and watched, gave him only a mild and harmless draught, although he raved and cried aloud for chloroform. I watched him in his apparent anguish—cruelly, if you like, but resolved to learn how long the attack would last if left to take its course. \" Presently he lay quiet, moaning slightly, hands gripping the coverlet, eyes tight-closed, teeth clenched. Then he looked at me and cursed me horribly, he who till then had passed—with the padre—for a religious and God-fearing man. \" At the end of two hours the pain left him, and not till then did I give him a sleeping draught to keep him quiet through the night. I had no desire to stay with him longer, nor did I wish the night nurse to be troubled by him, should he renew his oaths and blas- phemies. \" In the morning I telephoned to my chief and told him of this last attack in detail. •'' The man must go,' he said.\" Lemarchand paused, looked curiously at Ferrars, who was knitting puzzled brows. \" I hold you ? \" he asked. \" You think it's worth while my going ou ? \" \" Oh, yes ! \" Ferrars spoke quickly, eagerly. \" It's worth your while going on, all right. You hold me, because medical details are always interesting to a layman,

NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN. 385 • \"HE STARKD HARD AT NUMBER TVVKN1V-SKVBN, WHOSE PROFILE WAS IN FI'LI. VIKW.\" Vol. xlv.-40.

386 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. kindly to him asking him how he was. The case, however, was nothing special, and—he was a man with a personality, and one couldn't help watching him—Dr. Spottis- woode let his glance travel up and down the ward. His eyes rested at last upon Number Twenty-seven as he sat, brooding, directly facing us. \" I saw the police surgeon start slightly, pull out his pince-nez, adjust them, and gaze searchingly across the ward. Then he strolled off casually, and stood lounging by a window a short way down upon the opposite side. But he did not look out upon the quadrangle. He stared hard and long at Number Twenty- seven, whose profile was in full view. \" Presently he strolled back again and stood waiting till old Meredith had finished and was moving on to the next bed. \" ' I should like a word with you in private,' I heard him say. \" Then he and old Meredith moved off together to the central table, talking in under- tones. I saw them both turn, and look at Number Twenty-seven more than once. \" Old MereditI beckoned to me. I joined them. \" ' Dr. Spottiswoode has just given me serious information,' he said. ' He is almost certain that he recognizes in Number Twenty- seven Dempster, who is wanted by the police for the murder of his wife in February. You remember the case ? ' \" I did. It had been a brutal and much- talked-of crime, and the murderer had eluded all efforts to trace his whereabouts. \" ' We must, of course, act with caution, and not allow the man to think he is suspected. The best thing will be to dismiss him in the usual way, and then the police can have him arrested as he leaves to-morrow morning. We do not want a scene here.' \" ' Right,' said the police surgeon. ' I will see MacAlister and get him to put things in train.' \" So it was done. The order of dismissal was signed that evening by the resident, and Number Twenty-seven, clamouring to be allowed to stay, received his congt. \" At the door of the hospital, as he walked out, he was arrested on a warrant for the murder of his wife on February igth of that year. It took four men ten minutes to get him into a cab. \" As you may imagine, I watched the case with interest. His identity was clearly proved ; the evidence against him was over- whelming ; he was found guilty, and sentenced to the extreme penalty of the law.\" Once more Lemarchand stopped. This time Ferrars rose and stood, an arm on the mantelpiece, with his back to the fire. \" And he was hanged ! That's the end of your story. It's good, but not good enough. It wants building treatment before it can be sold. The idea, too—the idea of a criminal shamming illness and hiding in a hospital is so old that I guessed it from the first. It's

NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN. 337 he came back to the fireplace and stood by Ferrars's side. \" Here is the real explanation,\" he said, quietly. \"Number Twenty-seven's confes- sion — a copy of it, rather—(which he had been writing at the very moment of his seizure) — which they found crushed and bundled in his hand.\" ' A confession ? ' \" Yes. Read it—read it; then admit that you did not guess the end.\" And Lemarchand tossed the paper across. Ferrars caught it, had it open, read it aloud. \" ' It is nearly two and a half years since discovered that by ervous will-pressure on the two carotid arteries at either side of the neck I could produce at will attacks of pain in the region of the heart. The severity of those attacks depends upon the amount of pressure and upon the length of time that such pressure is kept up. I made use of this knowledge (accidentally discovered) to hide from justice—and, but for an accident, I should still be free. \" ' To-day it is my intention to make an effort, by continuous pressure, to compass my death. If I succeed, this paper will interest the world of medicine and of science. \" ' I shall succeed. I go to join my wife. I loved her. \" ' Farewell!' \" \"THEY FOU.N'I) HIM LVINO HACK DOWNWARDS ON THE FLOOR.\"

TO THOSE WHO IMAGINED THE USE OK ELECTRICITY IN THE CULTIVATION OF PLANTS TO BE A NKW IDEA, THE ABOVE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ILLUSTRATION WILL COME AS A GREAT SURPRISE. The Antiquity of Modern Inventions. By HENRY E. DUDENEY. [Recent discovery has shown that ihe palace of the Cttsars was furnished with lifts. The following article provides even more extraordinary instances—such as the taximeter, the penny-in-the-slot machine, looping-lhe-loop, and even the growing of plants by electricity — of the truth of the saying that there is nothing new under the sun.] HE -saying that \" there is no new thing under the sun \" may be very hackneyed, but it is very true. We take a natural pride in our wonderful modern inventions, but are apt to overlook the fact that they are, after all, largely the developments and improvements of ideas as old as the hills. This has recently received one more proof, if that were necessary, in the announcement that Professor Boni, while carrying out excavations in Rome, on the site formerly occupied by the palace of the Gesars on the Palatine Hill, has proved that at least three large lifts were used in the palace, enabling the Roman Emperors to ascend from the Forum to the top of the Palatine. One shaft, which has not yet been completely cleared from the debris and rubbish which encum- bered it, is no less than a hundred and twenty feet deep. Imagination is the true begetter of all these things. The man who first thought of a flying-machine in ages long past was doubtless scoffed at as a superstitious dreamer, yet here we have to-day men flyine around us in all directions. It will probably always be the same. Even so late as 1884 a careful thinker like Richard Proctor had so little faith in the possibility of dirigible balloons that he could write : \" The buoyancy of balloons is secured, and can be secured, only by one method, and that method is such as to preclude all possibility—so, at least, it seems to me—that the balloon can be navi- gated.\" The fact is that the impossibility of yesterday frequently becomes a probability to-day and a commonplace achievement to- morrow. The application of electricity to the culti- vation of plants may strike the reader as being the very \" last cry \" in gardening and floriculture, but a glance at the interesting print that we reproduce from a book pub- lished towards the end of the eighteenth century will show that even here we have been anticipated. We have not succeeded in tracing the source of this old print that has come into our possession, but we have discovered the following interesting fact. A letter signed \" Stephen Demainbray,\" and dated Edinburgh, February loth, 1747, is

THE ANTIQUITY OF MODERN INVENTIONS. 389 printed in the old Gentleman's Magazine, in which the writer says : \" As the following discovery may be of future benefit to society, if the hint be rightly taken., I make no doubt of your inserting the sketch'of an application of electricity towards the improvement of vegetation, which I have reason to believe the first put in execution, since nothing hath ever been published of the kind. On the 2oth December last I had a myrtle from Mr. Boutcher's greenhouse, which since that time I have electrified seventeen times, and allowed the shrub half a pint of water each fourth day, which you will please to observe was kept in the room most frequented of my house, and consequ en tly most exposed to the injuries of the air, by the doors and win- dows being oftenest opened. This myrtle has since, by electri- zation, produced several shoots, the longest measuring full three inches; whereas num- bers of the same kind and vigour, left in the said greenhouse, have not shown the least degree of increase since that time.\" Hero of Alex- andria (about 125 B.C.) was an ingenious inventor of mecha- nical toys. In his works, \" Pneumatics \" and \" Automata,\" he describes some hundred small machines that he probably never carried beyond the \" model \" stage. These included a steam-engine which is said to be of the form no'v known as Avery's patent, and a double forcing pump to be used as a fire- engine. Hero was also the original inventor of the automatic, delivery, or penny-in-the- slot, machine. He describes \" a sacrificial vessel which flows only when money is introduced.\" When the coin is dropped through the slit it falls on one end of a balanced horizontal lever, which, being depressed, opens a valve suspended from a chain at the other end, and the water begins Ancient. THF. MECHANISM OF THIS MACHINE, USKI) HY THE EGYPTIAN PRIESTS FOR SUPPLYING SACRED WAFER AT THE DOORS OF THE TEMPLES, MORE THAN TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO, IS PRACTICALLY IDENTICAL WITH THAT OF THE PRESENT-DAY PENNY-1N-THE-SI.OT MACHINES. to flow. When the lever has been depressed to a certain angle the coin falls off, and the valve being weighted returns to its seat and

39° THE STRAND MAGAZINE. if each of them had a needle touched with one Magnes, then the vertue is such that in the same time that the needle which is at Prage shall moove, this that is at London shall also ; provided that the parties have like secret notes or alphabets, and the observation be at a set houre of the day or night; and New. ALTHOUGH THE TAXI-CAB IS A COMPARATIVE NOVELTY, THE TAXIMETER WAS IN USE ABOUT A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. when the one party will declare unto the other, then let that party moove the needle to these letters which will declare the matter to the other, and the mooving of the other parties needle shall open his intention. The invention is subtile, but I doubt whether in the world there can be found so great a stone, or such a Magnes which carries with it such vertue ; neither is it expedient, for treasons would be then too frequent and open.\" Here we have foreshadowed not merely telegraphy but wireless telegraphy ! John Willdns, Bishop of Chester, who died in 1672, wrote some extraordinarily prophetic pseudo-scientific works, such as \" The Dis- covery of a New World,\" \" A Discourse Concerning a New Planet,\" \" Mercury ; or the Secret and Swift Messenger,\" and \" Mathe- matical Magic ; or the Wonders That May be Performed by Mathematical Geometry.\" In his \" Mercury \" Wilkins says the idea just quoted from Van Etten is due to the old author, Famianus Strada, and adds : \" This Invention is altogether imaginary, having no Foundation in any real experiment.\" But he gives a code in anticipation of the Morse code now in general use, which is really the biliteral cipher invented by Bacon. It is practically the same as the dot and dash system of Morse, only every letter is represented by five symbols in different order. Thus five dots for A, four dots and one dash for B, three dots, a dash, and a dot for C, and so on. He shows that this code can be used with \" two Bells of different Notes, or some such audible and loud Sounds, wh.'ch we may command at Pleasure, as Muskets, Cannons, Horns, Drums, etc.\" The reader ma.'? suppose that at least the switchback and.' the looping-the-loop are modern inventions. But they are not so. We reproduce * print of a switchback that was constructed in 1813, and a facsimile of a public advert;.:ement of a loop at Dubourg's Waxwork Exhibition in the Haymarket a little later. The first loop seems to have been set up in 1833 in the Paris Hippodrome by the inventor, a French engineer named Clavieres. It disap- peared for a period, until 1865, when it turned up again in Paris as a modern invention. At any rate, the reader may be apt to think, the submarine is a quite modern notion; but this is not so.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MODERN INVENTIONS. THIS VIEW OF A SWITCHBACK RAILWAY IN RUSSIA OVER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO PROVES THE IDKA TO BE ANYTHING BUT A MODKRN ONE. go back another century, for a submarine boat was actually exhibited on the Thames in 1625 with King James I. on board. Fulton also elaborated complete plans of a submarine at the beginning of the last century. As for dirigible balloons, M. G. Tissandier, in 1883, appears to have been the first to apply an electric motor to balloons, although, as we have already remarked, Proctor thought in the following year that the navigation of these things was quite impossible. But there exist illustrations of two earlier conceptions of dirigible balloons. The first is the one proposed by Green in 1840 for a voyage across the Atlantic ; the second, which ascended from Vauxhall Gardens in 1843, is remarkable for its resemblance to the modern dirigible air- ship, having a rudder and propeller complete. But let us pass to the heavier-than-air flying-machine, as being perhaps one of the most \" modern \" of all inventions. In the very earliest times men have conceived the idea of flying with wings like birds. There is no reason whatever to doubt the fact that Archytas of Tarentum (about three hundred and ninety-four years before the Christian era) constructed an automaton pigeon that would fly. Cardan, the mathematician (1501- 1576), says : \" There is no reason why such a machine should not be put in motion, especially by a favourable breeze. The lightness of the body would contribute to this result, as would the largeness of the wings and the strength of the wheels ; and probably the dove could take its flight in a certain fashion, but with a wavering motion, like the flickering of a lamp. Thus it would sometimes mount upwards spontaneously, flutter its wings, then leave off suddenly and fall, its motive power being unequal to its weight.\" Regiomontanus also made an eagle that would fly. But a flying-machine invented by a Vienna watchmaker named Began, in 1809, has so many points in common with the aeroplane of to-day that we will give a description of it. A frame was made, principally consisting of rods of some strong but light materials, on which the man stood erect. A flat-shaped wing, nine feet long, eight feet broad at the swell, and terminating at a point, proceeded from that part of the frame close to each shoulder, and a fan-shaped tail, apparently connected with both wings, proceeded from behind as far as their swell. Each wing was concave, like a parachute, and, by a series of cords frorn the different ribs composing it, could be suddenly contracted so as to give percussion against the air, and consequently by its resistance produce elevation. It is not sufficiently explained how the working was effected, but it seems that this was done by elevating, depressing, or revolving

392 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. a crank connected at each extremity with the series of cords which displayed or con- tracted the wings. Began is said not only to have mounted high in the air with his machine, but to have exhibited a flight resembling that of a bird, \" not consisting merely in ascent or descent, but in real aerial navigation.\" Swedenborg, to whose submarine destroyer I have already referred, wrote a description of a flying-machine, with a pen drawing of the same, about the year 1716. It consisted of a light frame covered with strong canvas, and was provided with two long oars or wings moving on a horizontal axis, and so arranged that the up stroke met with little resistance, while the down-stroke provided the lifting power. He was confident that the problem of motive power would be solved. \" There are sufficient proofs and examples from Nature,\" he said, \" that such flights can take place without danger, although when the first trials are made you may have to pay for the experience and not mind an arm or a leg.\" We give a facsimile of Swedenborg's own drawing. Roller-skating came up as a new invention about forty years ago. It was, however, merely a revival. Most people will learn with great surprise from the accompanying old print, which was issued about the year 1829, that it was in vogue at least fifty years before the date at which it was looked upon as something quite new. SWEPENBORG'S DRAWING OF A FLYING-MACHINE, MADK ABOUT THE YEAR It is noteworthy, too, that even in our games we only improve the pastimes of the an;uents. We invent very little. Games with a ball, such as cricket, football, golf, ninepins, and ping-pong, were played, with slightly different rules, by our ancestors in the dim past, while chess, draughts, cards, bark- gammon, and dominoes are, in their elements, of tremendous antiquity. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. Finally, readers of Mr. Richard Marsh's \" Judith Lee : the Experiences of a Lip- Reader,\" recently contributed to this maga- zine, will be interested to know that Bishop Wilkins, in a book published in 1641, states, \" It is related of an ancient doctor, Gabriel Neale, that he could understand any word by the mere motion of the lips, without any utterance.\" EVEN ROI.LF.R-SKATING WAS INDULGED IN BY OUR FORF.FATHF.RS, AS WIT.I. BE SEEN BY THE ABOVE PRINT I'Dlil.lSHED ABOUT l8zq.

Tne Folly or Feodora. By MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS. Illustrated by F. \"Wiles. T'S altogether ripping, hav- ing you home, old Fee ! \" \" It's altogether ripping to be at home again, young Ber, even with your boots in my lap ! \" laughed Feo- dora, gladly. She sat by the great schoolroom fire toasting crumpets, with a big apron over her dress and a girlish flush upon her still smooth cheeks. She was going to be thirty-four next birth- day, so she was old enough to savour a certain topsy-turvy relish about crumpets and school- room tea. She was the eldest of the Leslies, and Bernard, the youngest, was but fifteen. \" It's like old times,\" suddenly observed Dr. Prideaux, who, having come round to remind the vicar of a board meeting, had been inveigled in to tea, with the presence of Feodora as a bait. \" Like old times,\" was what he said ; in his heart he was thinking how detestably unlike it all was—with that familiar, terrible unlikeness which we see on the faces of the dead. \" Ah, such far-away old times ! \" sighed Fee, half smiling, but half melancholy too. It was thirteen years since she had steeled her heart, set her face like a flint, and gone out into the world to qualify as a nurse. The Vicarage was overfull of nestlings. Some of them must needs take wing. She had gone nursing, Elsie had married, Mildred was a High School mistress, Hugh in orders, James and Walter in the Colonies. There remained at home now only two lively girls, Honor and Constance. Just at present, Bernard also, since it was Easter and holiday-time. Fourteen or fifteen years ago Feodora Leslie had been a really pretty girl, had there been anyone to remark the fact. She had, however, as it were, had no time to be pretty. That she was so, hardly occurred to her over- worked mother, whose health had given way under pressure of the never-ending duties of maternity, and who would have been unable to carry on the fight at all without \" old Fee.\" To her brothers and sisters she was just the VoL xlv.—41 eldest—a person who was always patient and kind, who never wanted to go to parties or have outings; she was always \" too busy.\" She was as much outside the social scheme ot things as if she had been the nursery governess. Gervase Prideaux, in those days, was the only person to whom the idea of her beauty presented itself. He was quite young then, not firmly established in his practice ; and Feodora, besides being so much occupied, was extremely shy and difficult of approach. She had taken her resolution, left home, gone off to do her training, and he had presently found himself married to the daughter of Major Jones, who lived almost at his gates, and whose wife was not a lady to allow her daughter to miss chances. Feodora, after completing her three years'

394 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. the throat. He sat beside the woman who as a girl had haunted his pillow and coloured his day dreams; and it was all prosaic, drab, dull. The trailing clouds of glory had dis- persed. The light of common day glared on the bald patch in his brown locks. She was a self-sufficing, energetic woman, with her own career, her own interests. He, a slightly embittered, essentially middle-aged person, to whom life had ceased to present a lure. His profession now was the only object which had power to kindle him. He was deep in research work, upon the function of animals and insects in spreading infection. As they sat chatting, Fee frivolling—with a levity which half surprised him—among the youngsters, he was reflecting that she could, if she would, do him a great favour. He knew that Dr. Clintock, the great authority upon the tsetse fly and its evil works, was one of the consulting physicians in the hospital wherein she was known as Sister Mary Crossdale. This important personage was now in London. Dare he, Gervase Prideaux, ask Feodora for an introduction ? He was inclined to think he dare not. She was too changed, too utterly a stranger. She stood in the full rays of the afternoon sun, bringing him his second cup of tea. \" March is indeed going out like a lamb,\" said she. \" The air is as soft as June.\" \" We shall rJay for it later,\" he replied. \" Let me see, this is March 3oth. Here is an article from to-day's paper about a warm April meaning a cold summer.\" He took a cutting from his pocket-book and showed it to her, noting with a fresh pang that she had to adjust her pince-nez in order to read the print. That did indeed mark the flight of time. He sighed quite deeply. Bernard, only just home from school and in riotous spirits, was threatening to make April-fools of all his sisters on the first of the month, and receiving from the two younger ones a direct challenge of his ability to do so. No sensible conversation was possible. How could YOU talk about science amid such babble ? Gervase recalled a wild March morning, fifteen years ago, when there had been troops of volunteers manoeuvring on the downs, and \" old Fee \" had for once obtained per- mission to ride the staid Vicarage cob. He had met her, with the sting of the spring air in her cheeks, the tossing of the wind blowing out her golden hair like a banner; and they had ridden together, for a long way, all the morning ! And it had seemed but a moment. Now he was considering the question of malarial infection, and she put on glasses to read the paper ! He took his departure a little abruptly, without having brought the talk within measurable distance of a request for the introduction which he so coveted. \" Dear me,\" said \" old Fee,\" pensively, when he had gone, \" how Dr. Prideaux has

7HE FOLLY OF FEQDORA. 305 \"HE \\\\HiRLED HKR ROUND UN1IL SHE BEGGED FOR MERCY. it sounds. It only means that I can't read or sew for a day or two. Anything else I can do almost as well as ever ; and, luckily, one knows all the Easter hymns and things by heart,\" It so chanced that when Dr. Prideaux reached home that night he found awaiting him sundry copies, r e- cently printed, of a pamphlet writ- ten by himself and read before a medical society. He was particu- larly anxious that Dr. Clintock should see this pamphlet, which embodied the most recent results of his research. He therefore made up his mind, at all hazards, to beg Miss Leslie to help him to an introduction if she could. A distant patient was taken suddenly worse upon the afternoon of Easter Day. „

396 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. The doctor was sent for, and did not reach home until past midnight, too tired to think of anything at all. On Monday morning, however—being the first of April and Bank Holiday — he found himself at leisure, his patient having passed beyond reach of his ministrations, and accordingly he wrote a note and sent it round to the Vicarage. It was an exquisite morning. Fee had been down the garden to see if there were violets under the old red wall, as in past days. She had gathered a bunch, and their perfume awoke in her various little, foolish, tender memories of her girlish life. She was not, as a rule, a sentimentalist, but something about this home-coming of hers had touched her curiously. She was still a young woman, in full health and vigour. She could not help feeling that she still had a future. Here at home, however, she stood, separated from her youth by a great gap of years, treated by the younger ones as a person of a bygone generation. Everything at the Vicarage seemed to be unchanged—every- thing except herself and Gervase Prideaux. She had this morning just a glimpse of the real meaning of words which hitherto she would have classified as hysterical and over- strained :— \" Oh, death in life, the days that are no more ! \" She saw Bernard, gracefully attired in an ancient Norfolk jacket, grey flannel trousers, and tennis shoes, coming down the garden- path with an envelope in his hand. \"Letter for you, old Fee!\" he cried, cheerily. Feodora took the letter. She could see it bore no stamp. \" It's only a note,\" she observed. \"Who from ?\" was the terse, if ungram- matical, demand. \" I can't say, Ber. Somebody who writes very small. Have you forgotten that you blinded me on Saturday ? I've been groping for violets and only just managing to find them. Open it and read it to me, there's a dear boy.\" \" It's from Dr. Prideaux.\" \" Then it's probably an invitation to tea,\" said Fee, unconcernedly. Even at this point—so he subsequently declared—temptation had not assailed Ber- nard. He was in a beatific mood, for he had just April-fooled Honor quite gloriously. He persuaded cook—who adored him—to allow him to open the eggs she required for her custards by drilling a small hole in one side of them. He then re-filled the shells with sand, adhesive paper off stamps sealed the holes, and they were all artistically dis- tributed, holes downwards, among the hens' laying-places. Honor, collecting her treasures, picked up each gingerly, deposited it in her lifted apron, and carried these Apples of Sodom triumphantly to the store-room. Bernard and cook had hardly done laughing yet.

THE FOLLY OF FEOUORA. 397 saying, as though unconscious of her own words. At this crucial moment Bernard heard his father's voice from the house, loudly calling to him. That summons meant stormy waters ahead. To make the vicar an April-fool was a venture fraught with peril, but Bernard had never been one to shrink from the con- sequences of his pranks. He was ready to go to his father, own up, and take punishment like a man ; but he quailed as he perceived dimly, but unmistakably, what he had done to poor old Fee. There flew to his mind the idea that, if he could escape now, if he could run to his father and leave Fee alone, she must realize, the moment she reflected, that he had been hoaxing her. If not, he might coax Honor or Con to tell her. At any rate, while she stood there, with that look on her face, it was simply beyond the boy's power to cry out \" April-fool ! \" He turned, and ran for his life, leaving her there with her letter. In the shock of the moment Feodora - was quite unable to think. She could only feel. No such reflection as, \" Would he be likely to address me in this way thus abruptly ? \" crossed her mind. He had so addressed her. There was the fact. She dealt with the situation as it was. Though he had never said, \" I love you,\" in the old times, she had believed him to be her lover. She could recall now, at this moment, the numbing pain she had endured, the blank dreadfulness of that day, in the second year of her training, when she received from home the news of his engagement to Lottie Jones. When her sisters, yesterday, told her of his having owned to his wife that she was not his first love, Feodora had felt sure she knew who that first love had been. Therefore his letter could cause surprise only to the present - day, common - sense, active- minded Sister Mary Crossdale. To the 'IN THE SHOCK OF THE MOMENT FEODORA WAS QUITE UNABLB 1J THINK.\"

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. primitive Feodora Leslie it needed little explanation. Slowly, without consciously directing her own movements, she went down the garden, opened a gate in the outer wall, and found herself upon the moor. Not far from the Vicarage grounds there was a ridge, surmounted by a Danish barrow. It was there, sitting on that barrow, with her brothers and sisters playing around, that she had told Gervase of her decision to go and be a nurse, and had asked his advice as to the best hospital in which to train. He had not seized his moment. He had not said, \" Let us dare poverty and join our lives.\" Nothing had happened; she had gone away and shouldered life's burden, bravely solitary. As she reached the mound, with its out- growing hawthorn bush just budding into leaf, she was thinking, with Aurora Leigh, that 'twas morning then, and now 'twas night. It did not surprise her at all to see Gervase Prideaux approaching. To have known the reason of his approach—the quest that brought him thither—would have surprised her far more could it have been revealed to her. It is probable that when, years ago, he first took to haunting that spot there may have been a sentimental cause which drew him there. It resulted, however, in a scientific discovery. There was a dew-pond beyond the barrow, on the same ridge, which • formed a breeding-place for a kind of gnat very closely allied to the malarial mosquito. Specimens for experiment could usually be collected there. It was early this season to hunt for eggs, but the phenomenal mildness of the weather had tempted him to the search. He walked along, his mind concentrated upon the desire to know what Clintock would think of his pamphlet: and there in the sun- shine stood Feodora, as if awaiting him, looking at him in a fashion that made him wonder whether he was awake or dreaming. She had walked out just as she was, without a hat, in a blue dress whose simple folds admirably expressed her almost statuesque figure. Her rippling hair was as golden as ever ; it gleamed in the warm light. As for her expression, one could but admit that it was an invitation. Eyes, lips, attitude, all said, as though she had spoken, \" Come ! \" What could it mean ? The doctor looked at her almost horrified. His approach re- sembled nothing so little as an eager lover's. But if her aspect was bewildering, her first words completed his mystification. \" Oh,\" she cried, in a voice with a new thrill sounding in it—\" oh, Gervase, you have come too soon—I am not ready yet ! \" Too stupefied to be able to ask himself the meaning of these extraordinary words, he could only echo them. \" Not ready ? \" he repeated, mechani- cally.

THE FOLLY OF FEODORA. Now you have the plain truth. I have actually not read the whole letter. I can't read it for myself, because Bernard broke my glasses on Saturday, and your writing is too small for me to be able to make it out without them. So you see it is true to say I am not ready to answer you.\" 'I'M ASHAMED TO HAVE WRITTEN SUCH STUFF AS THIS,' HE SAID, HOARSELY.\" I just expected it to be some trifling thing— how could I guess ? But as soon as he got to—to that part, of course, I snatched it away; I could not let him finish. There ! She was half laugh- ing, half tearful, wholly adorable and young — a girl once more, but with charms which the unfledged Feodora had never boasted. Meanwhile, as he listened to her faltering words, the man at her side was recapturing his power to think. From the confusion of mind and senses into which her incomprehensible be- haviour had thrown him there was beginning to emerge the idea that she was the victim of some error, some trick. She was under some fatal misapprehension.

400 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. What could he do—how lay his finger on the cause of the mistake ? \" Feodora,\" he said, softly, \" have you got it here with you—this stupid note you could not read ? \" \" Ye-es,\" owned Feodora, shamefacedly. \" May I,\" he asked, persuasively—\" will you let me read the rest of it to you myself ? \" With lowered eyes, she raised her hands and slowly drew it from the folds of her bodice, handing it to Gervase. He opened it, leaning forward with his arms upon his knees, and read the first page—read it, as it were, from her point of view, and saw how easily it might have sounded like the prelude to—something very different. Bernard had volunteered to read it. In a moment his mind leaped to the truth. He had heard Bernard, on Saturday, speaking of the approach of the first of April. Elderly sisters are fair game. In his passion of sympathy for Feodora he could have wept. \" I'm ashamed to have written such stuff as this,\" he said, hoarsely. \" It's a good thing you haven't read it. I can put things a little nearer the truth than that.\" He tore it across and across, laid the bits on the rough grey stone beside him, lit a match, and watched it burn. \" I can't think how I had the cheek,\" he muttered. \" If I were to say to you what I had the hardihood to write, I should expect you to get up and laugh in my face. How well it sounds, doesn't it ? I loved you, but never had the pluck to tell you so. I let myself be married to a woman I never cared about. I never ceased to hanker for you, but I believed I had forgotten all about you, Feo, until—until I saw you again.\" It was almost the truth—as near, perhaps, as one ever comes in human intercourse. As a matter of fact, he had walked home on Saturday convinced that his love was dead. He might have gone on so, seeing and hold- ing communication only with the outward Feodora, had not Bernard's unjustifiable con- duct touched the spring, so that the doors of the years rolled back, and his own girl came through them—came back to him out of the past, with dewy eyes and shining hair, and hands outstretched in welcome. They were sitting side by side, and he caught those hands in his. As once more he felt them, warm and thrilling in his own, he knew that he could never let them go. \" Feo,\" he said, laughing to hide the fact that his voice would not be controlled, \" thank God, without glasses you won't be able to see the crow's-feet round my eyes, nor the grey hairs on my temples. Lucky I have caught you during • your days of blindness, my dear. Oh, my dear ! Is it possible you always cared ? \" After all, it being but the fifth day of the holidays, the vicar let off Bernard lightly. It was in the untold relief of having escaped scot-free that the boy's conscience began to prick him, and he went everywhere, searching

The Humours of Doctoring. By NORMAN PORRITT, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. LOND., Consulting Surgeon, H udders field Royal Infirmary. Illustrated by Bert TKomae. XE does not associate the sick-room or the work of a doctor with humour. The problems of life and death which confront a doctor by night as well as by day, year in and year out, seem to leave no room for the humorous ; whilst the suffering and sorrow, the pathos and the tragedy which fill the long-drawn vigils of the sick-room would seem to elbow humour out. I am prepared to hear that the humour of which the doctor is most cogni ant is the ill-humour of some of his patients. But every one has a funny-bone.'One bone —the bone of the arm—is altogether humerus. Wherever there is human nature there will be humour. There is no finer field for the study of human nature than a sick-room. And the best doctor is he who studies human nature. and treats the individuality as well as the disease of his patient. For the chord of life at the top of the scale vibrates very much as it does at the bottom. Hearts touched in the same way answer with like emotions. In the crises of life, in sudden sorrow or tragic bereavement, the duchess behaves very much after the manner of the seamstress. When the heir of the ducal house was lost he was found bathing with the village lads. \" And would you believe it, my lady,\" said the maid who found him, \" but I could see no difference between his little lordship and the village boys ! \" To the great comfort of doctors the human body is the same in all ranks of society. And when disease has stripped men of their differences, feelings, emotions, humour, nay, human nature itself, not the veneer of expression which usage and custom have stamped upon it, are found to bubble forth alike in every rank of society. My ears have been tickled by the humour of the well-to do no less than by the wit of the poor and penniless. Some men are born humorists. They VoL xlv.-42. would crack a joke on the most solemn occasions, like the man who, when the doctor remarked that his cough was no better, said he couldn't understand it, as he \" had been practising all night\" ; or like poor Tom Hood, who, when a mustard plaster was put on his wasted frame, observed. \" It's a great deal of mustard to very little meat.\" Sayings such as' these could come only from inveterate jokers. The humorists the doctor sees often utter their funny things unconsciously. When patients called to see me during my dinner hour because, as they said, \" they were sure to find me at home,\" or when they told me that when I saw two patients at one visit I was \" killing two birds with one stone.\" I gave them credit for being

402 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" ' OH,' THE MAN ANSWERED, ' DR. ROBINSON, DR. PORRITT, AND A NUMBER OF OTHKR BUTCHERS.'\" stormed the man, \" there's this difference between me and such men as you, I have to work for my living.\" No doubt he had ; he was a coalheaver. I wonder what this man would have said if he had worked straight on for three days and nights, without going to bed, as I have done, or had been up ten nights in one fortnight as I was once, or had been fetched out of bed at six o'clock on the morning of the Sabbath, the day of rest, and had to work straight on without a stop, except for scamped meals, till seven-thirty on Monday morning, as I once did ? A doctor who had had a run of night work was called to a case where an examination of the lungs was necessary. In certain con- ditions, the sound vibrations are tested by listening to the chest while the patient uses his voice. If the patient counts, one gets the best results. The tired doctor seated himself at the bedside, and too lethargic and listless to use his stethoscope, rested his head upon the patient's chest. \" Count till I tell you to stop,\" the doctor directed. \" One, two, three,\" began the patient. When next the doctor heard him the man was plodding on in steady monotone, \"6,121, 6,122, 6,1*3.\" \" Good gracious, man, you don't mean to say you've counted over six thousand ? \" \" I 'do, doctor. You said I was to count till you told me to stop.\" '' Dear me. I must have been asleep,\" replied the doctor, feeling bright and re- freshed by the nap he had taken as soon as his weary head rested on the patient. A young doctor needs every encouragement, and it is not the ablest doctor who makes his way most rapidly. It is the loud talker, the confident asserter, the self-advertiser, the subtle depredator of his fellows, who jumps quickly into a practice. \" I never have my patients prayed for at church,\" said one of these men. \" Don't you ? \" replied the lady. \" Dr. Smith always does.\" \" Yes, of course,\" the self-sufficient boaster answered. \" You see, they need it.\" A young doctor may stumble into the good graces of a patient by a fluke, as in the story fathered, like so many stories, upon Abernethy. After a convivial gathering Abernethy was

THE HUMOURS OF DOCTORIXG. 4°3 the matter when anyone is ill and to know the cause of the illness would be humorous if it were not pathetic. They set down a doctor who cannot tell them as an ignorant man. It is sometimes the ignorant doctor who does tell them ; the cautious, careful man who withholds his opinion until he can see his way clear is the safe man. When the late Sir William Gull told the wife of a patient that he could not tell what was the matter with her husband, the wife wrung her hands. \" Is there no one who can tell us ? \" she beseeched. \" Yes, lots. There are lots ignorant enough to tell you what is the matter with your husband,\" the great doctor replied. The messages the doctor receives summon- ing him to his patients are not infrequently a source of amusement. The queerest message I ever received was delivered somewhat as follows :— \" We want you to come at once, doctor.\" \" Which house is it ? \" I asked. \" Do you know where old Mr. Mellor lives ? \" the messenger asked. \" But he's dead,\" I said. \" Is he ? Then it's the place opposite.\" If the places to which the doctor is sum- moned are ambiguous the services demanded of him are sometimes remarkable. \" My wife's mother lies at death's door,\" ran the well-known message. \" Come at once and pull her through.\" It is said that a famous Leeds doctor, now dead, received a message somewhat as follows :— \" You don't know me, doctor,\" the mes- senger said, \" but you have attended several of my relatives. You attended my mother, ; nd she died. You attended my sister, and she died. You attended a cousin of mine and she died. You attended one of my wife's brothers, and he died. And now my wife's mother is ill, and we want you to attend her.\" Messages come at all hours, and to cases of every degree of severity or danger. And the humorous part is that the messages to the slight cases are as urgent and peremptory as to the dangerous illnesses, and are some- times as ambiguous as they are urgent. One day when I reached home I was told that Mrs. Smith desired me to go to her imme- diately I came in. \" What Mrs. Smith ? \" I asked. \" Oh, they said you were attending them and would know.\" \" And didn't the messenger leave the address ? \" \" No; he said you would know who it was.\" At that time I had three Mrs. Smiths under my care, two of them very ill. I hurried to the most seriously ill. found her better and surprised to see me. I scampered off to the other Mrs. Smith who was so ill. She had not sent for me, so I had to trot off to Mrs. Smith No. 3, who I found wanted to know

404 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. help for it, the operation was again performed. On the following morning, once more the doctor reappeared at the bedside, and with a face still longer than before informed his patient that this time the scissors had been overlooked. \" Good heavens ! \" said the patient, \" you don't sav so : Well, what must be, must be. The message brings the doctor face to face with the patient, and for humour I give the palm to children. There is something at once so incongruous and innocent, so subtle and yet so unforced, so unexpected and yet so natural in the humour of children. I wish I could remember all the delightful things I have heard from children. One little girl \"HE FOUND THE INFANT PHENOMENON, SUPPOSE!) TO BE ALMOST AT DEATH'S DOOR, SEATE1> AT THK FAMILY TKA-TAHI.B, IN ITS INFANT'S CHAIR, AM) BEING RK.r.ALEI> WITH SARDINES.\" Cut me open, but for Heaven's sake don't sew me up this time. Put some buttons on.\" Another story refers to a medical friend who was disturbed from his bed on a wild night. The rain came down in torrents — the wind was a gale and the sky one stretch of blackness. At his door stood a woman who had come two miles to fetch the doctor. She was dripping wet, and the reflected light of the lamp shone from her soaked shawl and dress. \" Good gracious, Mrs. Jones/' asked the doctor, \" what are you doing out a wild night like this ? \" \" I want you to come and see t'child.\" \" But could your husband not have come ?,\" \" I wanted him to come. But he said I would have to come myself, for he wouldn't turn a dog out on such a night.'7 told me that when her brother Jack grew up he was going to be an engine-driver. \" And what are you going to be ? '' I asked. \" Oh, when I grow up I'm going to be a widow.\" Another child asked if she might go for a walk in my carriage ; and another, wishing to inflict upon a disobedient doll the most severe punishment she could devise, shook the speechless doll, saying :— \" You naughty girl. But 1 know what I'll do if you won't behave yourself—I'll send you to live with Dr. Porritt.\" A doctor pushed his way into a nursery where the children were playing at holding a service. \" I'm the minister and Doris is the con- gregation,\" the boy explained. \" We've had the hymns and the prayers and the sermon, and now I'm going to give out the notices.

THE HUMOURS OF DOCTORING. 405 You can be one of the congregation.\" As soon as the doctor had seated himself the boy, pretending to read from a paper in his hand, announced : \" On Monday evening, in the senior class-room, at half-past seven, there will be a Christian and Devil meeting.\" The little fellow had gone with his parents to service, and in his unaccustomed ears the announcement of the Christian Endeavour meetings had formed itself as he, with mock solemnity, pave out. When I asked a little boy in pain what sort of a pain it was. \" I don't know.\" he moaned : \" I haven't seen it.\" A boy I brought into the world came running into the house with the news that the member of Parliament for the borough was dead. \"What will they do with him. now he's dead ? \" he asked. \" \" Bury him. love.\" his mother answered. \" What, in a grave ? \" \" Yes, in a grave.\" \" And when I die shall I be buried in a grave ? \" \" Yes.\" \" And then I shall be a graven image, shan't I ? \" Of the adult patients, some are heroes and heroines, some are cowards, some are grateful, and it is a pleasure to do anything for them ; others are surly grumblers it is something of a penance to visit, but of all the difficult ones to deal with the most trying is the suspicious patient who will not give you his confidence. Then there is the dense patient, from whom it is difficult to get an answer to a simple question. Such a one brings her child to be cured of a cough. \" When did the child begin to cough ? \" the doctor asks. \" When we gave her the ipecacuanha.\" \" When did you give the ipecacuanha ? \" \" Oh, we give it to her whenever she coughs.\" \" But when did you give it ? \" \" We give her half a teaspoonful.\" \" Listen, please ; on which day did the child begin to cough ? What day was it ? \" \"It was the day I went to ask my neighbour which doctor to bring her to.\" \" Tell me the day of the week • was it Monday or Tuesday, or which day ? '' \" It was a Monday.\" \" Now we've got at it at last.\" \" Hut it wasn't a proper cough.\" \" Then when did she have a proper cough ? \" \" When we gave her the ipecacuanha.\" Curiosities of dialect, until they are mas- tered, are embarrassing. Each district has its own words, peculiar to and restricted to itself. One of the most expressive ways of locating pain was that of the big, stout women who came from the moorland hills between Lancashire and Yorkshire. \" It's all in mi huggins. doctor—such a

406 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. choledochostomy, endo - aneurysmorrhaphy, choledocho - enterostomy. appendicectomy, appendicostomy, as well as appendicitis, hypertrophic pulmonary osteo-arthropathy, cheiro - pompholyx, polio - encephalomyelitis. and that they sometimes stumble over them. •'AH,'SAID THE OLD LADY, WHEN THE DOCTOR TOI.D HER SHE HAD A CATARACT IN HER EYE, 'THAT EXPLAINS WHY IT IS ALWAYS WATKKINd.' \" in his breathing. Who ever heard of a change stroke in the breathing of anybody ? But there is a type of breathing called \" Cheyne- Stokes,\" after the men who first described it. The breathing seems to stop, then gradually resumes, the breaths come faster and faster until they die down again almost to a standstill. That is Cheyne-Stokes breathing, which the reporters descri- bed as \" the change stroke.\" Then patients have had haricot veins, instead of varicose veins. There is the man with indignation in the liver, and the lady with indis- cretion in the stomach, which pre- vented her from domesticating her food Another complained of an adulterated stomach and insufficiency of bile to justify her food : one man complained of an affectation of the bronchit- tal tubes, and some of such things as ulsters in the throat, inflammation of the consols, instead of the tonsils, an affection which at the present time would pro- bably be greatly appreciated on the Stock Ex- change. One woman told me that her h u s b a nd had died of a kan garoo in his leg. The case was in- explicable until I discovered that the man's leg mortified. The doctor's name for morti- fication is gan- *ve shall not be surprised to find that those to whom medical terms are a foreign tongue make ludicrous yet natural mistakes. But even those who are understood to have some special knowledge, the reporters, to whom we owe so much, occasionally trip and stumble. When Mr. Gladstone lay on his deathbed and the progress of his illness was watched from day to day, and everyone turned to the latest reports in the paper. I was much amused to read, when the illustrious statesman became worse, that the '' change stroke \" had appeared grene, which had gone through the changes of gangereen,

THE HUMOURS OF DOCTORIXG. 4°7 But the perversions of language are not necessarily confined to medical terms. The native Anglo-Saxon tongue provides pitfalls for everybody. \" My little bov is much better,\" said a fond mother; \" you may know he is when I tell you he's had juggled rabbit for dinner.\" And the intricacies of our common tongue have led to misunderstandings, some of them serious, some ending in a good laugh when the cause of the mistake is explained. \" Do you feel better ? \" asked the doctor. \" Oh, yes,\" replied the patient. \" Then you take your food with a relish now ? \" \" No. I never take nothing with it,\" said the man. But sometimes serious consequences follow^ misunderstood directions. A storv is told of a doctor who ordered poppy-head tea for the patient. \" He's much better.' the man's wife said next day. \" But I don't know what he'll say when he hears. They were a pedigree strain, and he was so proud of them and expecting them to take prizes.\" \" But what has that got to do with poppy- head tea ? \" the doctor asked. \" Why, doctor, I did just as you told me. You said give him puppy - head tea; and I was determ ined he should have what- ever you ordered if it would do him good, and so I cut off their heads and boiled them and he had the tea, and I'm sure it's done him good, and that's everything.\" Another doctor who had ordered leeches found the patient no better on his next visit. \" Did they draw much blood ? \" he asked. \"How could they draw blood?\" answered the wife. \"I chopped them up and he had them for his tea, same as cockles.\" The story of the patient who never got his medicine because it was ordered to be taken in a recum- bent posture and

408 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" Pop and cockles.\" Another is told of a butler who, during his master's illness, learnt how to take the temperature. On the doctor's visit the first inquiry was always the height of the patient's temperature. \" Well, John,'' the doctor asked one morning, \" what is your master's temperature this morning ? \" \" 'Deed, sir,\" replied the man, \" 1 shouldn't like to say. He died last night.\" Drugs as well as diseases get their share of mangling. \" Mother wants a penn'orth of glory- divine.\" grocer's supplement ; Scott's emulsion as Scotch emotion ; belladonna plaster as Bernard Donald's plaster ; phosphorus paste as prosperous paste ; paregoric as Paddy's glory ; and Benger's food as vengeance food : whilst a girl attributed her recovery to the DKKD, SIR,' REPLIED THE MAN, 'I SHOULDN'T I.IKK TO SAY. HE DIED LAST NIGHT.' \" We don't keep that,\" said the chemist. \" Oh, yes ! you do,\" the little maid retorted. \" We've got it here before. Mother puts it down the drain in the back yard.\" Then the chemist knew that glory divine was another way of saying chloride of lime. Corrosive sublimate has masqueraded as She \" God deliver all \" she had taken, meant cod liver oil. I have referred to strange and perverted feelings as the starting-points of strange complaints, and may now say a word on the strange manner in which people treat or prevent disease. The strangest remedy T ever heard of was one a patient told me she

THE HUMOURS OF DOCTOR1XG. discovered in a dream. She dreamt that 1 ordered her to be enveloped from head to foot—with only her head sticking out—in one big poultice of warm potted meat. But one comes in contact with beliefs and practices that are something more than the fabric of a dream. The surprising thing is that it is not only sensitive women and hysterical girls who adopt them, but shrewd, level-headed men. One of the cutest business men I knew never went anywhere without a raw potato in his pocket. He said it kept off rheumatism ; and many wear the talismanic rings which are said to ward off \" Who are you in black for ? \" he asked. \" For thee,\" said the wife. \" If anything had happened thee, I don't know how I could have got another rig out for the bairns. So I thought I might as well be ready for t'worst. and if thou does happen to get better, there's no harm done, thou knows, and t'bairns has had their new things.\" A lady visitor calling to see a man who • had been very ill was delighted to find he had taken a turn for the better, and left with the hope that he would soon be up and about (\"ailing again in a few days she was surprised to see that he was still in bed. \\\\ \"'WHO ARE YOU IN BLACK FOR?' HE ASKED.\" that painful affection. Then there are those who cannot sleep unless glass insulators support the feet of their bed. Another keen business man called to pay a bill for my attendance on his wife. \" You see,\" he said, \" whilst you were attending we rubbed her with liniment we got from R (a well-known quack), and as it's that that did her good, I've deducted what it cost us from your note and you'll have to be content with the balance.\" In the North, Whitsuntide is a time for rejoicing and a great time for new clothes. A Yorkshireman who lay ill in hospital instructed his wife that the children must have their new clothes as usual. To please him the matron of the hospital allowed the wife and children to visit the patient on Whit-Sunday afternoon. To his surprise they came wearing mourning. \"You see. miss,\" the wife explained, \" it's this way. When the doctor gave him up, and we thought he wouldn't get better, we sold his clothes.\" But for the humorous incidents which brighten the work of a doctor and stand out the more sharply for the dark background in which they are set, the life of the doctor, face to face with sorrow, sickness, and bereave- ment, from one year to another, would be more depressing than it is. It is a hard life, and the recompense, if compared with the rewards in other callings for an equal amount of labour, miserably inadequate. And the doctor, in his quiet moments, wonders if he would not have done better for his wife and family in some other calling. But as another day dawns he manfully faces his task, drawn to it by something higher and nobler than

THE WOOING OF WEE MACGREEGOR. By J. J. BELL. Illustrated by MVarwick Reynolds. [Most of us have a warm place in our hearts for Wee Macgreegor and Christina, those delightful children whose sayings and doings Mr. J. J. Bell has described in two of his best-known books. Unlike Peter Pan. however, they have not refused to grow up, and now Mr. Bell has carried out the happy idea of bringing them together into one story, in which he relates, with a charm and humour that go straight to the heart of the reader, the joys and trials of their courtship.] FIRST PART. i. RS. ROBINSON conveyed sundry dishes from the oven, also the teapot from the hob, to the table. \" Come awa',\" she said, briskly, seating herself. \"We'll no' wait for Macgreegor.\" \" Gie him five minutes, Lizzie,\" said Mr. Robinson. \" I'm in nae hurry,\" remarked Gran'paw Purdie. who had come up from the coast that afternoon. \" I'm awfu' hungry, maw,\" piped a young voice. \" Whisht, Jimsie,\" whispered daughter Jeannie. Said Mrs. Robinson, a little impatiently : \" Come awa', come awa', afore everything gets spiled. Macgreegor has nae business to be that late.\" She glanced at the clock. \" He's been the same a' week. Haste ye, John.\" John opened his mouth, but, catching his wife's eye, closed it again without speech. Excepting Jimsie, they came to the table rather reluctantly. \" Ask a blessin', fayther,\" murmured Lizzie. \" Shut yer eyes,\" muttered Jeannie to her little brother, while she restrained his eager paw from reaching a cookie. Mr. Purdie's white head shook slightly as he said grace : he had passed his five-and- seventieth birthday, albeit his spirit was cheerful as of yore; in his case old age seemed to content itself with an occasional mild reminder. John distributed portions of stewed finnan haddie, Lizzie poured out the tea, while Jeannie methodically prepared a small feast for the impatient Jimsie. Gran'paw Purdie beamed on the four, but referred surrep- titiously at brief intervals to his fat silver watch. \" Ye see, Maister Purdie,\" John was ex- plaining. \" Macgreegor's busy the noo at a job in the West-end, an' that's the reason he's late for his tea.\" \" 'Deed, aye. It's a lang road for him to come hame,\" said the old man. \" An' is he still likin' the pentin' trade ? \" \" Aye, aye. An' he's gettin' on splendid —jist splendid ! \" \" It's time enough to be savin' that,\" Lizzie interposed. \" He's no' ony furder on nor a lad o' his age ought to be. I'm no' savin' he's daein' badly, fayther ; but there's nae sense in boastin' aboot what's jist or'nar'. Na, Jimsie, it's no' time for jeelly yet. Tak' what

THE WOOIXG OF WEE MACGREEGOR. 411 \" What ? \" exclaimed the old man. \" Has the laddie commenced the smokin' a'ready ? \" \" Oh, nacthing to speak aboot,\" said John, a trifle apologetically. \" They commence earlier than they did in your day, I suppose, Maister Purdie. No' that I wud smoke a ceegarette if I was paid fcr *t.\" \" / can smoke,'' declared Jimsie, indis- creetly. Jeannie pressed his arm. John guffawed. Gran'paw looked amused until Lizzie demanded : \" What's that ye're savin', Jimsie ? \" \" But I'm no' a reg'lar smoker,\" mumbled Jimsie. crestfallen. \" Aye,\" said John, with a jocular wink at his father - in - law, \" ye're feart ye singe yer whiskers, ma mannie.\" \" John,'' said Lizzie, \" it's naething to joke aboot. Jimsie, if ever I catch ye at the smokin', I'll stop yer Seturday penny an' gie ye castor ile instead. D'ye hear ? \" \"Hoots!\" cried i_rran'paw, \" that's a terrible severe - like punishment, Lizzie.\" \" I wud rayther tak\" ile twicet an' get the penny,\" quoth Jimsie. Lizzie was about to speak when the bell rang. Jeannie slipped from her chair. \" I'll gang, maw,\" she said, and went out. \" It's Macgreegor,\" remarked John. \" Hae ye kep' his haddie hot for him, Lizzie ? \" \" What for wud I dae that ? \" retorted Mrs. Robinson, in a tone of irony, going over to the oven and extracting a covered dish. She came back to the table as her son entered, a very perceptible odour of his trade about him—an odour which she still secretly disliked though nearly three years had gone since her first whiff of it. \" What kep' ye ? \" she inquired, pleasantly enough. It is possible that Macgregor's dutiful greeting to his grandfather prevented his answering the question. He returned his father's smile, glanced at his mother, who was engaged in filling his cup, winked at his young brother, and took his place at the table, between the two men. \" Ye'll be wearied,\" remarked John. \" No' extra,\" he replied, stretching his tired legs under cover of the table. \" Did ye walk ? \" his mother asked, passing him his tea. \" Aye.\" \" It'll be three mile,\" said John.