The Strand 1913-1 Vol_XLV №265 January mich

MY REMINISCENCES OF ^PETER PAN.\" PETER HAN AND THE BOVS relieved when I made my final exit. \"Some time after the incident I happened to meet Mr. Barrie. and, knowing his love for a little joke, I asked him to tell me, when he gave me the French line to speak in ' Peter Pan,' if it was for the benefit of the soeech or for a joke at my ex- pense. He looked at me for a moment and said. ' My dear Shelton. it is not decided yet!' \" By the way. here is yet another new story about the author of \"Peter Pan.\" As an ardent cricketer, if his achievements ON 111H. I'IKA'lk M that line scarcely march with his am- bitions. One sum- mer Mr. Barrie and his friend, Mr. E. \\V. Hornung, another cricket enthusiast, were walking in the country when they came to a village green, on which a number of very, very old men were playing cricket. \"\"Ah,\" said Mr. Hornung, joking. \" you should bring your team down to play this lot.\" Mr. Barrie turned the proposal over in his mind, and then a n s w e r e d . with great solemnity :— \" No, no. Horn- ung ; they're too young. But they • seem a healthy lot Ivre. Go and ask them if their fathers are alive, and if so we'll challenge them.\"

48 THE STRAXD MAGAZINE. And still another story, which was told to me by a very great friend of his. In his younger days Mr. Barrie had one great hobby—collecting cigars. All his spare cash went in the purchase of good brands, and a cabinet in his chambers was full of fine cigars which he had \" laid down \" as a connoisseur fills the bins of his cellar with rare wine. There was a boy attached to Mr. Barrie's chambers who was far from satisfactory. He became, in fact, a perfect nuisance, and one day, when my godfather returned to his rooms and found the fourteen-year-old youth indulg- ing in a short and grimy clay pipe full of rank, evil-smelling tobacco, he seized the occasion to dismiss him. Two days afterwards Mr. Barrie was enter- taining a friend, and with some pride announced that he would give him \" a really and had ! it hung through- of the \"A FOURTEEN-VKAR-OLI) YOUTH INDULGING IN GRIMV CLAY PIPE.\" good cigar.\" He went to the sacred cabinet which contained his expensive treasures, all neatly packed in layers of green tea, when, to his horror and dismay, he found it entirely empty ! In place of the matured Havanas he found only a laconic note from the dis- missed page, who wrote saying that, as his former master objected to a clay pipe, he had thought the matter over seriously, and had come to Mr. Barrie's own way of thinking, and had resolved to smoke nothing but good cigars for the future ! He further remarked that, as he had full confidence in his master's judgment, he begged to tender him his earliest thanks ! Miss Viva Birkett, who you will remember as Mrs. Darling, tells quite a good story of Xana. the dog, and herself. Going down- stairs to the stage at the Duke of York's Theatre, Miss Birkett met Xana (played by Mr. Silwood), who, on seeing her, ex- claimed :— \" Don't tread on my tail, mumsie ! \" \" Alas ! \" she says, \" the next minute I did stupidly tread on that tail, and out came wire springs and wool stuffing, I know not what. One of the dressers to patch up the mischief with safety- pins, but of course Nana could not wag her tail that night, and most dejectedly out the rest evening.\" Some years ago certain members of the \" Peter Pan \" company began to fear that, although this pre- cocious boy \" never grows up,\" there might still be some sort of danger that he

MY REMINISCENCES I'KTtK PAN AM) THE CHILDREN MOURNING FOR WBNDY, WHOM THEY BELIEVE TO BE DEAD. To the few people who do not understand \" Peter Pan \" language perhaps this menu may seem rather unintelligible, but as I am sure quite ninety-nine people out of a hundred talk \" Peter Panish \" I need not, I know. apologize for using an \" unknown \" tongue. It goes without saying, of course., that since I have been playing Peter I have had quite a number of interesting experiences, some amusing, some sad, and some just \" betwixt and between.\" For instance, when I was playing in Edinburgh not long ago a certain children's hospital there elected to give a few of its convalescent inmates a chance of going to see the play, and for this purpose a special box was booked at the theatre. Needless to say, the fortunate children who were going to be allowed to have this treat were simply wild with excitement for days beforehand—with one exception, a wee and very nervous little boy, who, on being informed by one of the nurses that he was going to see \" Peter Pan \" in a box, burst into a flood of tears, and, between his convulsive sobs, asked, plaintively : \" Will there be a lid to the box ? \" So much envy, by the way, was caused amongst the other children who were unable to go to the theatre through illness—only a few, unfortunately, were on the \"convalescent list\"-—that, at their special request, I promised to pay a personal visit, to the hospital in my \" Peter Pan \" clothes, as one of the children called them. Well, when 1 arrived, a certain little cripple girl who had listened with great big wondering eyes and mouth gaping with astonish- ment to the accounts of Peter's extraordinary skill as a \" flyer\" became so excited that a nurse, fearing

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. that her little patient would make herself ill, inquired anxiously as to what was the matter. I must tell you that, at the moment, I had gone to visit the inmates of another ward. \" Can't 'oo understand,\" said the child, with feverish anxiety, \" dat I'm wait- ing for Peter Pan to come back to teach me how to fly, so that I need never, never use my nasty horrid heavy crutches any more ? \" There was one dreadfully hard-hearted little boy who came to the theatre not to clap. That was his object for coming, and he came round \" behind \" to tell me so in the middle of the play. His teeth were firm set. \" I won't clap,\" he said, doggedly ; \" I'm not going to clap.\" And when the time came THE HOUSE IN THE TREE TOPS WHICH PAl'I.INE CHASE HAS HAD BUILT FOR HER PIGEONS AT HER COUNTRY COTTAC.R, \" TREE TOPS,\" NEAR FARXHAMCOMMON. they won't go to sleep till she barks at them. They all love Nana, the dog, and I suppose they know she is p1ayedbya human being, but not all their elders seem to know it. for we have heard of a nice old lady say- ing, at the end of the play. \"It is wonderful how they train animals nowadays.'' And 1 think she was another nice lady (and probably a Nana herself) who summed up \" PeU-r Pan\" in these words : \" It never would have hap- pened if they had had a propernurse.\" And now I'm quite sure you will be getting quite tired of my rambling reminiscences o f \" Peter Pan.1' I must, however, tell you just one more PETER PAN AND WENDY RETURNING To THEIR HOME IN THE TREE TOPS. he didn't clap; above the clapping of all the others I could hear him shouting from a box, \" Peter, I'm not clapping ! \" I think the very nicest story I know about the play is one of some

MY REMINISCENCES OF '•[PETER PAN.\" story, which I think provides one of the most extraordinary coincidences it is possible to imagine. Many years ago, when I was a tiny mite of four, my father and mother brought me over to England for a trip. At the time we knew very few people in England, and one morn- ing we were taking a quiet stroll up Regent Street—I was dressed in the some- what quaint costume shown in the illustration on this page—when, riot looking where I was going, I bumped up against a tall, beautiful lady who was just going into a big shop. For a moment I was afraid that she was going to scold me for my care- lessness. Instead, however, she looked down at me, and then, picking me up in her arms, she gave me a kiss and said, \" What a sweet little American girl ! And what a pity to ever grow up ! Children,\" she said, turning to my father, \" are ever so much nicer than grown-up people, don't you think ? \" Who do you think the lady in question was ? •I'm sure you'd never guess in a thousand years. She was your wonderful Ellen Terry, who is now one of my godmothers. Surely it is passing very strange that she should now be one of my god- mothers, and that she should have made a remark about \" children growing up,\" for of course, as long as I'm Peter Pan, it's quite impos- sible that I ever shall grow up, so that in this respect at least I have proved myself an obedient godchild. PAl'LINE CHASB AT THE AGB OF FOUR. I seem to have written a tremendous lot, but even at the risk of incurring the Editor's displeasure I must just add a few more lines to make an announcement which I am sure will be received with considerable surprise. .And that is that Mr. Charles Frohman has lately, and since the first production of \" Peter Pan,\" been seriously con- sidering the advisability of adding the work of an artist to his many arduous labours. Often during the run of the play he looks into my dressing-

A Jot of Work By P. G. WODEHOUSE. Illustrated by E. H. Shepard. HAVE always admired the \" Synopsis of Preceding Chap- ters \" which tops each instal- ment of a serial in a daily paper. It is so curt, so com- pelling. It takes you by the scruff of the neck and hurls you into the middle of the story before you have time to remember that what you were really intending to read was \" How to Make A Dainty Winter Coat for Baby Out of Father's Motor-Goggles \" on the next page. I can hardly, I think, do better than adopt the same method in serving up the present narrative. As follows :— BEGIN TO-DAY. LORD FREDDIE BOWEN. visiting New York, has met, fallen in love with, proposed to, and been accepted by MARGARET, daughter of FRANKLYN BIVATT, an unpleasant little millionaire with a weak digestion, a taste for dogmatic speech, and a personal appear- ance rather lik« one of Conan Doyle's ptero- dactyls. Lord Freddie has called on Mr. Bivatt, told him the news, and asked for his consent. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY. Mr. Bivatt looked at Lord Freddie in silence. He belonged to the second and more offensive class of American millionaire. There are only two kinds. One has a mauve face and an eighteen-stone body, and grinds the face of the poor on a diet of champagne and lobster a la Newburg ; the other—Mr. Bivatt's type—is small and shrivelled, weighs seven stone four, and fortifies himself, before clubbing the stuffing out of the widow and the orphan, with a. light repast of hot water, triturated biscuit, and pepsine tabloids. Lord Freddie also looked at Mr. Bivatt in silence. It was hard to believe that this curious little being could be the father of a girl who did not look really repulsive even in a photograph in a New York Sunday paper. Mr. Bivatt broke the silence by taking a pep- sine tabloid. Before speaking he took another look at Freddie—a thoroughly nasty look. The fact was that Freddie had chosen an unfortu- nate moment for his visit. Not only had Mr. Bivatt a bad attack of indigestion, but he had received that very morning from Margaret's elder sister, who some two years before had married the Earl of Datchet, a letter which would have prejudiced the editor of '• Debrett\" against the British Peerage. Lord Datchet was not an ideal husband. Among other things, he was practically a lunatic, which is always such a nuisance in the home. This letter was the latest of a number of despatches from the seat of war, and the series, taken as a whole, had done much to diminish Mr. Bivatt's simple faith in Norman blood. One titled son-in-law struck him as sufficient. He was not bitten by a craze for becoming a collector.

A JOB OF WORK. heard your name before. I've forgotten it now. What is your name ? I only know it's got a ' Lord' tacked on to it.\" \" By Nature. Not by me. It runs in the blood. Don't you like lords ? \" Mr. Bivatt eyed him fixedly and swallowed another tabloid. \" Do you know the Earl of Datchet ? \" he asked. \" Only by reputation.\" \" Oh, you do know him by reputation ? What have you heard about him ? \" \" Well, only in a general way that he's a pretty average sort of rotter. A bit off his chump, I've heard. One of the filberts, don't you know, and all that sort of thing. Nothing more.\" \" You didn't hear that he was my son-in- law ? Well, he is. So now perhaps you understand why I didn't leap at you and fold you in my arms when you suggested marrying Margaret. I don't want another Datchet in the family.\" \" Good Lord ! I hope I'm not like Datchet! \" \" I hope you're not, for your sake, if you want to marry Margaret. Well, let's get down to it. Datchet's speciality was aris- tocratic idleness. He had never done a day's work in his life. No Datchet ever had, appa- rently. The last time any of the bunch had ever shown any signs of perspiring at the brow was when the first Earl carried William the ( onqueror's bag down the gangway. Is that your long suit, too—trembling when you see a job of work ? How old are you ? Twenty- seven ? Well, keep it to the last six years, if you like. What have you done since you came of age ? \" \" Well, I suppose if you put it that way \" \"I do put it just that way. Have you earned a cent in your life ? \" \" No. But—-\" \" It isn't a case of but. I know exactly what you're trying to say, that there wasn't any need for you to work, and so on. I know all that. That's not the point. The point is that the man who marries Margaret has got to be capable of work. There's only one way of telling the difference between a man and a jack-rabbit till you get to know them, and that is that the man will work.\" Mr. Bivatt took another tabloid. \" You remember Jacob ? \" he said. \" Jacob ? I've met a man called Jacob at the National Sporting Club.\" \" I mean the one in the Bible, the one who worked seven years for the girl, got the wrong one, and started in right away to do another seven years. He wasn't a jack-rabbit! \" \" Wonderful Johnny,\" agreed Lord Freddie, admiringly. \" They managed things mighty sensibly in those days. You didn't catch them getting stung by any pop-eyed Datchets. It's given me an idea, talking of Jacob. That's the sort of man I want for Margaret. See ? I don't ask him to wait seven years, let alone fourteen. But I will have him show that there's something in him. Now. I'll make a

THE STRAXD MAGAZINE. slip of paper, he perceived that his ordeal was to be a mere few months' canter of unexacting work in quite comfortable sur- roundings. Datchet himself could have done it on his butter-coloured head. There is always a catch in these good things. For four days all went well. He found his duties pleasant. But on the fifth day came reaction. From the moment he began work a feeling of utter loathing for this particular form of money-making enveloped him as in a cloud. The customers irritated him. He was hopelessly bored. Freddie's gaze circled round the lobby and eventually rested on the object before him. \" Stamp ! \" Freddie inspected him with frigid scorn. \" Why should I ? \" he asked, coldly. The hotel in which Freddie had found employment was a sporting hotel in the heart of that section of New York known as the Tenderloin. Its patrons were mainly racing men, gamblers, and commercial travellers, men of action rather than words. This particular patron was essentially the man of action. Freddie's question offending him. he 'THE HATTLE WAS RAC.ING ALL OVER THE LOBBY. The end was in sight. It came early on the afternoon of the sixth day, through the medium of one of the regular customers, a man who, even in happier moments, had always got on his nerves. He was a man with a rasping voice and a peremptory manner, who demanded a daily paper or a penny stamp with the air of one cursing an enemy. Freddie had fallen into gloomy meditation, business being slack at the time, when this man appeared before him and shouted :— \" Stamp ! \" Freddie started, but made no reply. \" Stamp ! \" hit him in the eye, and a minute later Freddie, breathing slaughter, had vaulted the barrier of newspapers, and the battle was raging all over the lobby, to the huge contentment of a mixed assortment of patrons, bell-boys, bar- keepers, pages, and waiters from the adjoin- ing cajt. Six minutes later, when Freddie, panting a little and blinking to ease the pain of his injured eye. was waiting for his oppo- nent to rise, which he did not do. the manager entered the arena. The manager was a man with sporting blood and a sense of the pro- prieties. The former had kept him an inte- rested spectator during the late proceedings ; the latter now made him step forward, tap

A JOB OF WORK. 55 Freddie on the shoulder, and inform him that his connection with the hotel was at an end. Freddie went out into the world with twelve dollars and a black eye. As he passed through the swing door a slight cheer was raised in his honour by the grateful audience. I would enlarge on Freddie's emotions at losing his situation, were it not for the fact that two days later he found another. There was a bell-boy at his late hotel to whom he had endeared himself by allowing him to read the baseball news free of charge ; a red-headed, world-weary, prematurely aged boy, to whom New York was an open book. He met Freddie in the street. \" Halloa, you ! \" he said. \" I been huntin' after you. Lookin' fer a job ? My cousin runs a cafe on Fourteenth Street. He's wantin' a new waiter. I seen the card in the window yesterday. You try there and say I sent you. It's a tough joint, though.\" \" After what happened the day before yesterday, it seems to me that the tougher the joint the more likely I am to hold my job. I seem to lack polish.\" \" The East Side Delmonico's is the name.\" \" It sounds too refined for me.\" \" It may sound that way,\" said the bell- boy, \" but it ain't.\" Nor was it. The East Side Delmonico's proved to be a dingy though sizable estab- lishment at a spot where Fourteenth Street wore a more than usually tough and battered look. Fourteenth Street has that air of raffish melancholy which always marks a district visited for awhile and then deserted by fashion. It appeared that the bell-boy, who had been deeply impressed by Freddie's handling of the irritable news-stand customer, had given him an excellent character in advance ; and he found, on arrival, that he was no stranger to Mr. \" Blinky \" Anderson, the proprietor. The bell-boy's cousin welcomed him, if not with open arms, with quite marked satis- faction. He examined the injured eye, stamped it with the seal of his approval as \" some lamp,\" and, having informed him that his weekly envelope would contain five dollars and that his food was presented free by the management, requested him to slip out of his coat, grab an apron, and get busy. Freddie was a young man who took life as it came. He was a sociable being, and could be happy anywhere so long as he was not bored. The solitude of the news-stand had bored him, but at the East Side Delmonico's life was too full of movement to permit of ennui. He soon perceived that there was more in this curious establishment than met the eye, and this by design rather than accident. The fact was that \" Blinky's,\" as its patrons tersely styled Anderson's Parisian Cafe and Restaurant, the East Side Delmonico's, offered attractions to the cognoscenti other than the mere restoration of the inner man with meat and drink. On the first floor, for

THE STRA\\D MAGAZINE. had appeared to be impressed by it ; but it was the doubt as to its perfect efficacy which was depressing Mr. Bivatt. There was no doubt that Twombley was a trial. It was only the awe with which he regarded his father that kept him within bounds. Mr. Bivatt sighed and took a pepsine tabloid. It was at this point that T. Mortimer Dunlop, summoning the waiter, ordered two Dawn of Hope cocktails. \" Nonsense ! \" he wheezed, in response to Mr. Bivatt's protest. \" Be a sport ! I'm a dead game sport. Hurry up, waiter. Two Dawn of Hope.\" Mr. Bivatt weakly surrendered. He was there entirely to please Mr. Dunlop, for there was a big deal in the air. to which Mr. Dunlop's co-operation was essential. This was no time to think about one's digestion or the habits of a lifetime. If, to conciliate invaluable Mr. Dunlop, it was necessary to be a dead game sport and drink a cocktail, then a dead game sport he would be. He took the curious substance from the waiter and pecked at it like a nervous bird. He blinked, and pecked again—less nervously this time. V'ou. gentle reader, who simply wallow in alcoholic stimulants at every meal, will find it hard to understand the wave of emotion which surged through Mr. Bivatt's soul as he reached the half-way point in the magic glass. But Mr. Bivatt for thirty years had confined his potions to hot water, and the effect on him was remarkable. He no longer felt depressed. Hope, so to speak, had dawned with a jerk. Life was a thing of wonderful joy and infinite possibilities. We therefore find him, at the end of dinner, leaning across the table, thumping it with clenched fist, and addressing Mr. Dunlop through the smoke of the latter's cigar thus:— \" Dunlop, old man, how would it be to go and see a show ? I'm ready for anything, old man, Dunlop. I'm a dead game sport, Dunlop, old fellow ! That's what I am.\" One thing leads to another. The curtain falls on Mr. Bivatt smoking a Turkish cigarette in a manner that can only be described as absolutely reckless. These things, I should mention, happened on a Saturday night. About an hour after Mr. Bivatt had lit his cigarette Freddie, in the caji at the East Side Delmonico's, was aware of a thick-set, short-haired, tough-looking young man settling himself at one of the tables and hammering a glass with the blade of his knife. In the other hand he waved the bill of fare. He was also shouting, \" Hey!\" Taking him for all in all, Freddie set him down as a hungry young man. He moved towards him to minister to his needs. \" Well, cully,\" he said, affably, \" and what will you wrap yourself around ? \" You were supposed to unbend and be chummy with the customers if you were a \\vaiter at\" Blinky's.'' The customers expected it. If you called a patron of the East Side Delmonico's \" sir,\" he scented sarcasm, and

A JOB OF WORK. 57 Sorry to hear the news, sir.\" Hey ? \" said Mr. Anderson, moodily. I hear the main event has fallen through.\" Who told you ? \" I have been waiting on one of the fighters upstairs.\" Mr. Anderson nodded. \" That would be the Tennessee Bear-Cat.\" \" Very possibly. He had that appearance.\" Like the Bear-Cat, Mr. Anderson was ren- dered communicative by grief. Freddie had a sympathetic manner, and many men had confided in him. \" It was One-Round Smith who backed and he's worth all sorts o' money. And now there won't be no fight. Wouldn't that jar you ? \" \" Can't you find a substitute ? \" \" Substitute ! This ain't a preliminary between two dubs. It was the real thing for big money. And all the sports in town come to watch it. Substitute ! Ain't you ever heard of the Bear-Cat ? He's a wild Indian. Who's going to offer to step up and swap punches with a terror like him ? \" \" I am,\" said Freddie. Mr. Anderson stared at him with open mouth. \"I'M A DKAD GAME SPORT, UUNI.OP, OLD FELLOW! THAT'S WHAT I AM.\" down. Says he's hurt his foot. Huh ! \" Mr. Anderson grunted satirically, but pathos succeeded satire again almost at once. \" I ain't told them about it yet,\" he went on, jerking his head in the direction of the invisible audience. \" The preliminaries have just started, and what those guys will say when they find there ain't going to be a main event I don't know. I guess they'll want to lynch somebody. I ought to tell 'em right away, but I can't seem to sorter brace myself to it. It's the best audience, too. we've ever had. All the sports in town are there. Rich guys, too—none of your cheap skates. I just seen old man Dunlop blow in with a pal, VoL x!v.-7. \" You ! \" \" Me.\" \" You'll fight the Tennessee Bear-Cat ? \" \" I'd fight Jack Johnson if he'd just finished the meal that fellow has been having,\" said Freddie, simply. Mr. Anderson was not a swift thinker. He stood, blinking, and allowed the idea to soak through. It penetrated slowly, like water through a ceiling. \" He'd eat you,\" he said, at last. \" Well, I'm the only thing in this place he hasn't eaten. Why stint him ? \" \" But, say, have you done any fighting ? \" \" As an amateur, a good deal.\"

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" Amateur ! Say, can you see them sports down there standing a main event between the Tennessee Bear-Cat and an amateur ? \" \" Why tell them ? Say I'm the heavy- light-weight champion of England.\" \" What's a heavy-light-weight ? \" \" It's a new class, in between the lights and the welters.\" By this time the idea had fairly worked its way through into Mr. Anderson's mind, and its merits were beginning to appeal to him. It was certain that, if Freddie were not allowed to fill the gap, there would be no main event that night. And in the peculiar circumstances it was just possible that he might do well enough to satisfy the audience. The cloud passed from Mr. Anderson's face, for all the world as if he had taken a Dawn of Hope cocktail. \" Why, say,\" he said, \" there's something in this.\" \" You bet there is,\" said Freddie. \" There's the loser's end, three hundred of the best.\" Mr. Anderson clapped him on the shoulder. \" And another hundred from me if you last five rounds,\" he said. \" I guess five'll satisfy them, if you make them fast ones. I'll go and tell the Bear-Cat.\" \" And I'll go and get him his coffee and the strongest cigar you keep. Every little helps.\" Freddie entered the ring in a costume borrowed from one of the fighters in the pre- liminaries, and, seating himself in his corner, had his first sight of Mr. \" Blinky \" Anderson's celebrated basement. Most of the light in the place was concentrated over the roped plat- form of the ring, and all he got was a vague impression of space. There seemed to be a\" great many people present. The white shirt-fronts reminded him of the National Sporting Club. His eye was caught by a face in the first row of ring-side seats. It seemed familiar. Where had he seen it before ? And then he recognized Mr. Bivatt—a transformed Mr. Bivatt, happier-looking, excited, altogether more human. Their eyes met, but there was no recognition in the millionaire's. Freddie had shaved his moustache as a preliminary to the life of toil, and Mr. Bivatt, beaming happily up at him from beside that dead game sport, T. Mortimer Dunlop, had no recollection of ever having seen him before. Freddie's attention was diverted from audience to ring by the arrival of the Tennessee Bear-Cat. There was a subdued murmur of applause—applause had to be merely mur- mured on these occasions—and for one moment, as he looked at him, Freddie re- gretted the contract he had undertaken. What .Mr. Anderson had said about wild Indians came home to him. Certainly the Bear-Cat looked one. He was an extra- ordinarily-muscled young man. Freddie was mainly muscle himself, but the Bear-Cat appeared to be a kind of freak. Lumps and cords protruded from him in all directions His face wore a look of placid content, and he had a general air of happy repletion, a

A JOB OF WORK. 59 Bear-Cat, overwhelmed by these tributes, shifted his chewing-gum to the other cheek, and simpered coyly, as who should say, \" Stop your nonsense, Archibald ! \" And the gong clanged. Freddie started the fight with the advantage that his plan of campaign was perfectly clear in his mind. Rapid attack was his policy. When a stout gentleman in shirt-sleeves has been exhausting his scanty stock of breath calling you a whirlwind, decency forbids that you should behave like a zephyr. He shook hands, and, on the principle of beginning as you mean to go on, proceeded without delay to poke his left earnestly into the middle of round that he received a shock. Till then the curious ease with which he had reached his opponent's head had caused him to con- centrate on it. It now occurred to him that by omitting to attack the body he was, as it were, wasting the gifts of Providence. Consequently, having worked his man into an angle of the ropes with his back against a post, he feinted with his left, drew a blow, and then, ducking quickly, put all his weight into a low, straight right. The effect was remarkable. The Bear-Cat uttered a startled grunt; a look came into his face of mingled pain and reproach, as if his faith in human nature had been shaken, 'HIS FACE WOKE A LOOK OF PLACID CONTENT, AND HE HAD A GENF.RAL AIR OF HAPPY REPLETION.\" the Bear-Cat's face. He then brought his right round with a thud on to what the latter probably still called his ear—a strange, shapeless growth rather like a leather cauli- flower—and sprang back. The Bear-Cat shifted his gum and smiled gratefully. A heavy swing on the part of the Bear-Cat was the next event of note. Freddie avoided it with ease and slipped in a crisp left. As he had expected, his opponent was too slow to be dangerous. Dangerous ! He was not even making the thing interesting, thought Freddie, as he side-stepped another swing and brought his right up to the chin. He went to his corner at the end of the round, glowing with satisfaction. This was easy. It was towards the middle of the second and he fell into a clinch. And as Freddie vainly struggled to free himself a voice murmured in his ear :— \" Say, cut that out ! \" The stout referee prised them apart. Freddie darted forward, missed with his left, and the Bear-Cat clinched again—more, it appeared, in order to resume the interrupted conversation than from motives of safety. \" Leave me stummick be, you rummy,\" he hissed, rapidly. \" Ain't you got no tact ? ' Blinky' promised me fifty if I'd let you stay three rounds, but one more like that, and I'll forget meself and knock you through the ceiling.\" Only when he reached his corner did the full meaning of the words strike Freddie.

6o THE STRAND MAGAZINE. All the glow of victory left him. It was a put-up job ! \"Jglinky,\" to ensure his patrons something resembling a fight, had induced the Bear-Cat to fight false during the first three rounds. The shock of it utterly disheartened him. So that was why he had been making such a showing ! That was why his jabs and hooks had got home with such clockwork precision ! Probably his opponent had been laughing at him all the time. The thought stung him. He had never been remarkable for an even temper, and now a cold fury seized him. He would show them, by George ! The third round was the most spectacular of the fight. Even the regular patrons of \" Blinky's \" Saturday night exhibitions threw aside their prudence and bellowed approval. Smiling wanly and clinching often, the Bear- Cat fixed his mind on his fifty dollars to buoy himself up, while Freddie, with a nasty gleam in his eyes, behaved every moment more like a Santa Barbara Whirlwind might reasonably be expected to behave. Seldom had the Bear-Cat heard sweeter music than the note of the gong terminating the round. He moved slowly to his corner, and handed his chewing-gum to his second to hold for him. It was strictly business now. He thought hard thoughts as he lay back in his chair. In the other corner Freddie also was think- ing. The exhilarating exercise of the last round had soothed him and cleared his brain ; and he, too, as he left his corner for the fourth session, was resolved to attend strictly to business. And his business was to stay five rounds and earn that hundred dollars. Connoisseurs in the ring-seats, who had been telling their friends during the previous interval that Freddie had \" got him going,\" changed their minds and gave it as their opinion that he had \" blown up.\" They were wrong. He was fighting solely on the defen- sive now from policy, not from fatigue. The Bear-Cat came on with a rush, head down, swinging with left and right. The changt; from his former attitude was remark- able, and Freddie, if he had not been prepared for it, might have been destroyed offhand. There was no standing up against such an onslaught. He covered up and ducked and slipped and side-stepped, and slipped again, and, when the gong sounded, he was still intact. Freddie came up for the fifth round brim- • ming over with determination. He meant to do or die. Before the end of the first half- minute it was borne in upon him that he was far more likely to die than do. He was a good amateur boxer. He had been well taught, and he knew all the recognized stops for the recognized blows. But the Bear-Cat had either invented a number of blows not in the regular curriculum, or else it was his manner of delivering them that gave that impression. Reason told Freddie that his opponent was not swinging left and right

A JOB OF WORK. 61 room became suddenly light again his head was clear and, except for a conviction that his neck was broken, he felt tolerably well. His eyes having grown accustomed to the light, he saw with astonishment that remark- able changes had taken place in the room. With the exception of some half-dozen per- sons, the audience had disappeared entirely, and each of those who remained was in the grasp of a massive policeman. Two more intelligent officers were beckoning to him to come down from the platform. The New York police force is subject to periodical attacks of sensitiveness with regard to the purity of the city. In between these spasms a certain lethargy seems to grip it, but when it does act its energy is wonderful. The East Side Delmonico's had been raided. It was obvious that the purity of the city demanded that Freddie should appear in court in a less exiguous costume than his present one. The two policemen accom- panied him to the dressing-room. On a chair in one corner sat the Tennessee Bear-Cat, lacing his shoes. On a chair in another corner sat Mr. Franklyn Bivatt, holding his head in his hands. Fate, Mr. Bivatt considered, had not treated him well. Nor, he added mentally, had T. Mortimer Dunlop. For directly the person, to be found in every gathering, who myste- riously gets to kno\\v things in advance of his fellows had given the alarm, T. Mortimer, who knew every inch of \" Blinky's\" basement and, like other dead game sports who fre- quented it. had his exits and his entrances— particularly his exits—had skimmed away like a corpulent snipe and vanished, leaving Mr. Bivatt to look after himself. As Mr. iJivatt had failed to look after himself, the constabulary were looking after him. \" Who's \"the squirt ? \" asked the first policeman, indicating Mr. Bivatt. \" I don't know,\" said the second. \" I caught him trying to hook it, and held him. Keep an eye on him. I think it's Boston Willie, the safe-blower. Keep these three here till I get back. I'm off upstairs.\" The door closed behind them. Presently it creaked and was still. The remaining policeman was leaning against it. The Tennessee Bear-Cat nodded amiably at Freddie. \" Feeling better, kid ? Why didn't you duck ? I told you it was coming, didn't I ? \" Mr. Bivatt groaned hollowly. Life was very grey. He was in the hands of the police, and he had indigestion and no pepsine tabloids. \" Say, it ain't so bad as all that,\" said the Bear-Cat. \"Not if you've got any sugar, it ain't.\" \" My doctor expressly forbids me sugar,\" replied Mr. Bivatt. The Bear-Cat gave a peculiar jerk of his head, indicative of the intelligent man's contempt for the slower-witted. \" Not that sort of sugar, you rummy. Gee ! Do you think this is a tea-party ?

THE STRAND MAGAZINE; \" I am not following you,\" said Freddie. \" We are walking arm in arm.\" Mr. Bivatt wrenched himself free. \" Go away, or I will call a police—er—go away ! \" \" Have you forgotten me ? I was afraid you had. I won't keep you long. I only wanted to tell you that I had nearly made that five hundred dollars.\" Mr. Bivatt started and glared at Freddie in the light of a shop-window. He gurgled speechlessly. \" I haven't added it all up yet. I have been too busy making it. Let me see. alluded to responsible, respectable work. I did not include low prize-fighting and—•—\" \" You said manual work or brain work. Wasn't mine about as manual as you could get ? \" \" I have nothing further to say.\" Freddie sighed. \" Oh, well,\" he said,\" I suppose I shall have to start all over again. I wish you had let me know sooner. I shall try brain work this time. I shall write my experiences and try and sell them to a paper. What happened to-night ought to please some editor. The \"'SAY,' HE SAID, SEVERELY, AS HE HELD OUT HIS HAND, 'YOU DON'T RECKON I'D TAKE A BRIBE, I HOPE?'\" Twelve dollars from the hotel. Two weeks as a waiter at five a week. Twenty-two, Tips, about another dollar. Three hundred for the loser's end—I can't claim a draw, as I was practically out. And 'Blinky' Anderson promised me another hundred if I stayed five rounds. Well, I was on my feet when the police broke up the show, but maybe, after what has happened, he won't pay up. Anyway, I've got three hundred and twenty- three \" \" Will you kindly stop this foolery and allow me to speak ?\" said Mr. Bivatt. \" When I made our agreement I naturally way you got us out of that dressing-room ! It was the smartest thing I ever saw. There ought to be money in that. Well, good night. May I come and report later ? \" He turned away, but stopped as he heard an odd choking sound behind him. \" Is anything the matter ? \" Mr. Bivatt clutched him with one hand and patted his arm affectionately with the other. \" Don't—er—don't go away, my boy,\" he said. \" Come with me to the drug-store while I get some pepsine tabloids, and then we'll go home and talk it over. I think we may be able to arrange something, after all.\"

.at pleasure I^Jet out * An unusual succession of annoyances Tke Case of tke Plain M an. Second Article : \" THE TASTE FOR PLEASURE.\" By ARNOLD BENNETT. Illustrated by Alfred Leete. I. \\E evening—it is bound to happen in the evening when it does happen — the plain man whose case I endeavoured to analyse in a previous paper will suddenly explode. The smouldering volcano within that placid and wise exterior will burst forth, and the surrounding country will be covered with the hot lava of his immense hidden grievance. The business day has perhaps been marked by an unusual succession of annoy- ances, exasperations, disappointments—but he has met them with fine philosophic calm ; fatigue has overtaken him—but it has not overcome him ; throughout the long ordeal at the office he has remained master of himself, a wondrous example to the young and the foolish. And then some entirely unimportant occurrence—say, an invitation to a golf four- some which his duties forbid him to accept — a trifle, a nothing, comes along and brings about the explosion, in a fashion excessively disconcerting to the onlooker, and he exclaims, acidly, savagely, with a profound pessimism :— \" What pleasure do / get out of life ? \" And in that single abrupt question (to Cops-right, 1912, which there is only one answer) he lays bare the central flaw of his existence. The onlooker will probably be his wife, and the tone employed will probably imply that she is somehow mysteriously to blame for the fact that his earthly days are not one unbroken series of joyous diversions. He has no pose to keep up with his wife. And, moreover, if he really loves her he will find a. certain curious satisfaction in hurting lu-r now and then, in being wilfully unjust to her, as he would never hurt or be unjust to a mere friend. (Herein is one of the mysterious differences between love and affection !) She is alarmed and secretly aghast, as well she may be. He also is secretly aghast. For he has confessed a fact which is an inconvenient fact; and Anglo-Saxons have such a horror of inconvenient facts that they prefer to ignore them even to themselves. To pretend that things are not what they are is regarded by Anglo-Saxons as a proof of strength of mind and wholesomeness of disposition ; while to admit that things are indeed what they are is deemed to be either weakness or cynicism. The plain man is incapable of being a cynic ; he feels, there- fore, that he has been guilty of weakness and this, of course, makes him very cross.

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" Can't something be done ? \" says his wife, meaning, \" Can't something be done to ameliorate your hard lot ? \" (Misguided creature ! It was the wrong phrase to use. And any phrase would have been the wrong phrase. She ought to have caressed him, for to a caress there is no answer.) \" You know perfectly well that nothing can be done ! \" he snaps her up, like a tiger snap- ping at the fawn. And his eyes, challenging hers, seem to say: \" Can I neglect my business ? Can I shirk my responsibilities ? Where would you be if I shirked them ? Where would the children be ? What about old age, sickness, death, quarter-day, rates, taxes, and your new hat ? I have to provide for the rainy day and for the future. I am succeeding, moderately ; but let there be no mistake—success means that I must sacrifice present pleasure. Pleasure is all very well for you others, but I \" And then he will fin'sh aloud, with the air of an offended and sarcastic martyr : \" Something be done, indeed ! \" She sighs. The domestic scene is over. Now, he may be honestly convinced that nothing can be done. Let us grant as much. But obviously it suits his pride to assume that nothing can be done. To admit the contrary would be to admit that he was leaving some- thing undone, that he had organized his existence clumsily, even that he had made a fundamental miscalculation in the arrange- ment of his career. He has confessed to grave dissatisfaction. It behoves him, for the sake of his own dignity and reputation, to be quite sure that the grave dissatisfaction is unavoid- able, inevitable, and that the blame for it rests with the scheme of the universe, and not with his particular private scheme. His role is that of the brave, strong, patient victim of an alleged natural law, by reason of which the present must ever be sacrificed to the future, and he discovers a peculiar miserable delight in the role. \" Miserable \" is the right adjective. II. NEVERTHELESS, in his quality of a wise plain man, he would never agree that any problem of human conduct, however hard and apparently hopeless, could not be solved by dint of sagacity and ingenuity—provided it was the problem of another person ! He is quite fearfully good at solving the problems of his friends. Indeed, his friends, recog- nizing this, constantly go to him for advice. If a friend consulted him and said :— \" Look here, I'm engaged in an enterprise which will absorb all my energies for three years. It will enable me in the meantime to live and to keep my family, but I shall have scarcely a moment's freedom of mind. I may have a little leisure, but of what use is leisure without freedom of mind ? As for pleasure, I shall simply forget what it is. My life will be one long struggle. The ultimate profit is extremely uncertain. It may be fairly good ; on the other hand, it may be nothing at all.\" The plain man, being also blunt, would

THE CASE OF THE PLAIN MAN, J^ Cqo to him for advice Irritability which others discuss behind his bo.cK The relish pleasure has mm, and unwillingly fitting the cap will irately protest: \" Do you suppose I haven't examined my own case ? Do you suppose I don't understand it ? I understand it thoroughly. Who should understand it if I don't ? I beg to inform you that I know absolutely all about it.\" Still the strong probability is that he has not examined it. The strong probability is that he has just lain awake of a night and felt extremely sorry for himself, and at the same time rather proud of his fortitude. Which process does not amount to an examina- tion ; it amounts merely to an indulgence. As for knowing absolutely all about it, he has not even noticed that the habit of feeling sorry for himself and proud of his fortitude is slowly growing on him, and tending to become his sole form of joy—a morbid habit and a sickly joy ! He is sublimely unaware of that increasing irritability which others discuss behind his back. He has no suspicion that he is balefully affecting the general atmosphere of his home. Above all, he does not know that he is losing the capacity for pleasure. Indeed, if it were suggested that such a change was going on in him he would be vexed and dis- tressed. He would cry out: \" Don't you make any mistake ! I .could amuse myself as well as any man, if only I got the chance ! \" And yet, how many tens of thousands of plain and (as it is called) successful men have been staggered to discover, when ambition was achieved and the daily yoke thrown off and the direct search for immediate happi- ness commenced, that the relish for pleasure had faded unnoticed away—proof enough that they had neither examined nor under- stood themselves ! There is no more in- genuous soul, in affairs of supreme personal importance, than your wise plain man, whom all his friends consult for his sagacity. Mind, I am not hereby accusing the plain man of total spiritual blindness—any more than I would accuse him of total physical blindness because he cannot see how he looks to others when he walks into a room. For nobody can see all round himself, nor know absolutely all about his own case ; and he who boasts that he can is no better than a fool, despite his wisdom ; he is not even at the beginning of any really useful wisdom. But I do accuse my plain man of deliberately shutting his eyes, from pride and from sloth. I do say that he might know a great deal more about his case than he actually does know, if only he would cease from pitying and prais- ing himself in the middle of the night, and tackle the business of self-examination in a

66 THE STRAND MAGAZ1XE. of Chinese. Certainly nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a. thousand reach the age of sixty before getting the rudiments of it. The majority of us die in almost complete ignorance of it. And none may be said to master it in all its exciting branches. Why, you can choose any of your friends — the wisest of them — and instantly tell him something glaringly obvious about his own character and actions —and be rewarded for your trouble by an indignantly sincere denial ! You had noticed it; all his friends had noticed it. But he had not noticed it. Far from having noticed it, he is convinced that it exists only in your malicious imagination. For example, go to a friend whose sense of humour is notoriously imperfect, and say gently to him : \" Your sense of humour is imperfect, my friend,\" and see how he will receive the information ! So much for the rarity of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is difficult because it demands intellectual honesty. It demands that one shall not blink the facts, that one shall not hide one's head in the sand, and that one shall not be afraid of anything that one may happen to see in looking round. It is rare because it demands that one shali always be able to distinguish between the man one thinks one ought to be and the man one actually is. And it is rare because it demands impartial detachment and a certain quality of fine shame- lessness — the shumelessness which confesses openly to oneself and finds a legitimate pleasure in confessing. By way of compensation for its difficulty, the pursuit of self-knowledge happens to be one of the most entrancing of all pursuits, as those who have seriously practised it are well aware. Its interest is inexhaustible and grows steadily. Unhappily, the Anglo-Saxon racial temperament is inimical to it. The Latins like it better. To feel its charm one should listen to a highly-cultivated Frenchman analysing himself for the benefit of an intimate companion. Still, even Anglo- Saxons may try it with advantage. The branch of self-knowledge which is particularly required for the solution of the immediate case of the plain man now under considera- tion is not a very hard one. It does not in- volve the recogni- tion of crimes or even of grave faults. It is simply the know- ledge of what inter- ests him and what bores him. Let him enter upon the first section of it with candour. Let him be himself. And let him be himself without shame. Let him ever remember that it is not a sin to be bored by what interests

THE CASE OF THE PLAIN MAN. had, a secret desire, a hidden leaning. Let him discover what his is, or was—garden- ing, philosophy, reading, travel, billiards, raising animals, training animals, killing animals, yachting, collecting pictures or postage-stamps or autographs or snuff-boxes or scalps, astronomy, kite-flying, house - furnishing, foreign lan- guages, cards, swimming, diary- keeping, the stage, politics, car- pentry, riding or driving, music, and exigent. For the sake of argument I will grant that he cannot safely give it an instant's less time than he is now giving it. But even so his business does not absorb at the outside more than seventy hours of the staying up late, getting up early, tree-plant- ing, tree - felling, town - planning, amateur soldiering, statics, entomology, botany, elocu- tion, children-fancying, cigar-fancying, wife- fancying, placid domestic evenings, conjuring, bacteriology, thought - reading, mechanics, geology, sketching, bell-ringing, theosophy, his own soul, even golf. . . . I mention a few of the ten million directions in which his secret desire may point or have pointed. I have probably not mentioned the right direction. But he can find it. He can perhaps find several right directions without too much trouble. And now he says :— \" I suppose you mean me to ' take up ' one of these things ? \" I do, seeing that he has hitherto neglected so clear a duty. If he had attended to it earlier, and with perseverance, he would not be in the humiliating situation of exclaiming bitterly that he has no pleasure in life. \" But,\" he resists, \" you know perfectly well that I have no time ! \" To which I am obliged to make reply :— \" My dear sir, it is not your wife you are talking to. Kindly be honest with me.\" I admit that his business is very exhausting hundred and ten hours during which he is wide awake each week. The rest of the time he spends either in performing necessary acts in a tedious way or in performing acts which are not only tedious to him, but utterly unnecessary (for his own hypothesis is that he gets no pleasure out of life)—visiting, dinner - giving, cards, newspaper - reading, placid domestic evenings, evenings out, bar- lounging, sitting aimlessly around, dandifying himself, week-ending, theatres, classical con- certs, literature, suburban train-travelling, staying up late, being in the swim, even golf. In whatever manner he is whittling away his leisure, it is the wrong manner, for the sole reason that it bores him. Moreover, all whittling of leisure is a mistake. Leisure, like work, should be organized, and it should be organized in large pieces. The proper course clearly is to substitute acts which promise to be interesting for acts which have preyed themselves to produce nothing but tedium, and to carry out the change with brains, in a business spirit. And the first essential is to recognize that something

68 THE STRAND MAGAZINE Never free from with othe.r across d? to everlasting boredom for the mere sake of acting like everybody else ? He continues in the same strain :— \" But you are asking me to change my whole life—at my age ! \" Nothing of the sort ! I am only suggesting that he should begin to live. And then finally he cries :— \" It's too drastic. I haven't the pluck ! \" Now we are coming to the real point. IV. Tin-; machinery of his volition, in all direc- tions save one, has been clogged, through persistent neglect, due to over-specialization. His mind needs to be cleared, and it can be cleared—it will clear itself—if regular periods of repose are enforced upon it. As things are, it practically never gets a holiday from business. I do not mean that the plain man i.i always thinking about his business ; but I mean that he is always liable to think about his business, that his business is always present in his mind, even if dormant there, and that at every opportunity, if the mind happens to be inactive, it sits up querulously and insists on attention. The man's mind is indeed rather like an unfortunate domestic servant who, though not always at work, is never off duty, never night or day free from the menace of a damnable electric bell; and it is as stale as that servant. His business is capable of ringing the bell when the man is eating his'soup, when he is sitting alone with his wife on a warm summer evening, and especially when he wakes just before dawn to pity and praise himself. But he defends the position :— \" My business demands much reflection— constant watchfulness.\" Well, in the first place, an enterprise which demands watchfulness day and night from the same individual is badly organized, and should be reorganized. It runs contrary to the common sense of Nature. And. in the second place, his defence is insincere. He does not submit to the eternal preoccupation because he thinks he ought, but simply because he cannot help it. How often, especially just before the dawn, has he not longed to be delivered from the perfectly futile preoccupation, so that he might go to sleep again—and failed to get free ! How often, in the midst of some jolly gathering, has he not felt secretly desolate because the one tyrannic topic would run round and round in his mind, just like a clockwork mouse, accomplishing no useful end. and making impossible any genuine participation in the gaiety that environs him ! Instead of being necessary to the success of his business, this morbid preoccupation is positively detrimental to his business. He would think much more usefully, more power- fully, more creatively, about his business if during at least thirteen consecutive hours

THE CASE OF THE PLAIN MAN. might as well be communicating with each other across a grille against which a turnkey is standing and listening to even' word said ! Let him imagine how flattering for her ! She might be more flattered, at any rate more thrilled, if she knew that instead of thinking about his business he was thinking about another woman. Could he shut the front door every afternoon on his business, the effect would not only be beneficial upon it and upon him, but his wife would smile the warm smile of wisdom justified. Like most women, she has a firmer grasp of the essence of life than the man upon whom she is depen- dent. She knows with her heart (what he only knows with his brain) that business, politics, and \" all that sort of thing '.' are secondary to real existence, the mere pre- liminaries of it. She would rejoice, in the blush of the compliment he was paying her, that he had at last begun to comprehend the ultimate values ! So far as I am aware, there is no patent desire for suddenly gaining that control of the mind which will enable one to free it from an obsession such as the obsession of the plain man. The desirable end can, however, be achieved by slow degrees, and by an obvious method which contains naught of the miracu- lous. If the victim of the obsession will deliberately try to think of something else, or to think of nothing at all—every time he catches himself in the act of thinking about his business out of hours, he certainly will, sooner or later—probably in about a fort- night—cure the obsession, or at least get the upper hand of it. The treatment demands perseverance, but it emphatically does not demand an impossibly powerful effort. It is an affair of trifling pertinacious touches. It is a treatment easier to practise during daylight, in company, when distractions are plentiful, than in the solitude of the night. Triumphantly to battle with an obsession at night, when the vitality is low and the egoism intensified, is extremely difficult. But the small persistent suc- cesses of the day will gradually have their indirect influence on the night. A great deal can also be done by simple resolute suggestion. Few persons seem to know—- what is, nevertheless, a fact—that the most effective moment for making resolves is in the comatose calm which precedes going to sleep. The entire organism is then in a pas- sive state, and more permanently receptive. of the imprint of volition than at any other period of the twenty-four hours. If regularly at that moment the man says dearly and imperiously to himself, \" I will not allow my business to preoccupy me at home ; I will not allow my business to preoccupy me at home ; I will not allow my business to pre- occupy me at home,\" he will be astonished at the results ; which results, by the way, are reached by subconscious and therefore unper- ceived channels whose workings we can only guess at. And when the obsession is beaten, destroyed,

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. little ^obscrrfmrndedrvee-s me. • hobbies are dismissed as being unworthy of a plain man's notice. Then comes the hour of decision, in which the wise plain man should exert all that force of will for which he is famous in his house. For this hour may be of supreme importance —may be the close of one epoch in his life and the beginning of another. The more volitional energy he can concentrate in it, the more likely is he to succeed in the fine enter- prise of his own renaissance. He must resolve with as much intensity of will as he once put into the resolution which sent him to propose marriage to his wife. And, indeed, he must be ready to treat his hobby somewhat as though it were a woman desired—with splendid and uncalculating generosity. He must shower money on it, and, what is more, he must shower time on it. He must do the thing properly. A hobby is not a hobby until it is glorified, until some real sacrifice has been made for it. If he has chosen a hobby that is costly, both in money and in time, if it is a hobby difficult for a busy and prudent man to follow, all the better. If it demands that his business shall suffer a little, and that his lifelong habits of industry shall seem to be jeopardized, again all the better. For, you know, despite his timid fears, his business will not suffer, and lifelong habits, even good ones, are not easily jeopardized. One of the most precious jewels of advice ever offered to the plain man was that he should acquire industrious habits, and then try to lose them ! He will soon find that he cannot lose them, but the transient struggles against them will tend always to restore the sane balance of his nature. He must deliberately arrange pleasures for himself in connection with his hobby, and as often as possible. Once a week at least his programme should comprise some item of relaxation to which he can look forward with impatience because he has planned it, and because he has compelled seemingly more urgent matters to give way to it; and look forward to it he must, tasting it in advance, enjoying it twice over ! Thus may the appetite for pleasure, the ability really to savour it, be restored—and incidentally kept in good trim for full use when old age arrives and he'enters the lotus-land. And with it all, when the hour of enjoyment comes, he must insist on his mind being free ; expelling every pre- occupation, nonchalantly accepting risks like a youth, he must abandon himself to the hour. Let him practise lightheartedness as though it were charity. Indeed, it is charity—to his household, for instance. Ask his household. He says :— \" All this is very dangerous. My friends won't recognize me. I may go too far. I may become an idler and a spendthrift.\" Have no fear. Next month Mr. Arnold Bennett will make a most interesting contribution to our series of articles, entitled \" MY REMINISCENCES.\"

THE CHINESE MIRROR. By HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. Illustrated by Gilbert Holiday. I. T'S the best bedroom in the house,\" declared George Rochford. Lord Rochford, George's cousin, and the head of the family, exchanged a smile with his wife as he mur- mured : \" No complaints, my dear George, I assure you.\" Indeed, the room was charming, with an atmosphere of dignity about it which may be found in ancient houses not suffered to fall into decay. Finely proportioned, panelled in oak, with a deep oriel window and a wide fireplace in which some logs were smouldering, it combined happily splendour with comfort. The vast four-poster bed was hung with crimson brocade; the furniture was Chippen- dale of the best period; the carpet had come long ago from Aubusson; and above the chimneypiece hung a beautiful lozenge- shaped Chinese mirror, the work of a master- craftsman of the K'ang Hsi dynasty. \"Halloa!\" said George. \"They ought to have drawn the curtains.\" Lady Rochford answered him. \" I told my maid not to shut out the moonlight.\" These three persons had entered the room together, George, as host, leading the way. He presented pleasantly the type to be found wherever hounds run fast over stiff country, a jolly, red-faced, well-nourished squire, whose only grievance was accumulating weight. In salient contrast, Lord Rochford stood beside him, tall, slender, with a pale face delicately modelled, obviously a man of sensibility and refinement. George wore the evening coat of a famous hunt; Lord Roch- ford was in black. Lady Rochford's gown of white satin belonged to a bride. The men might have been anything between thirty and thirty-five ; the woman was hardly out of her teens, as distinguished in appearance as her husband—not quite a beauty, but extraordinarily attractive by reason of her graceful bearing and the intelligence which sparkled in her clear hazel eyes. Upon entering the room she had crossed to the fireplace and, bending down, spread her hands before the softly glowing logs. She did not move when George exclaimed, loudly :— \" Look here, you two ! 1 want to make it plain that you are occupying this spooky room against my wish and against my judgment.\" \" Good old George ! \" said Lord Rochford. \" I tell you, I wouldn't sleep in it for fifty pounds.\" Lady Rochford turned to look at him. Her voice had an amused inflection as she said, gently :— \" But you won't tell us what has happened.\" George replied explosively:— \" Because I can't. That's the spooky part.

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. refused to say a word, and left my service the next day.\" \" Suppressed hysteria,\" suggested Lord Rochford. \" Her goin' upset the other servants.\" \" Naturally. Same stale old story.\" George continued, speaking in the hard, aggressive tone of a man who detests ridicule. \" I shoved old Archie Sinclair into that four-poster when he came to us for a few days' cubbin'. You must admit, Arthur, that Archie is a tough nut. He spent one hour in that bed, and the rest of the night in the dressing-room. And he left us next mornin'. Ran mute, too—confound him ! \" \" Did himself too well at dinner.\" \" The next cove was a parson. He did tell us something.\" For the first time Lady Rochford betrayed interest. She lifted her head sharply. \" Ah ! \" \" It seems that whatever happens happens in the dark.\" Lord Rochford laughed again. He had slspt in many rooms reputed to be haunted. Hut he had seen no ghosts. \" Parson bolted too. lookin' like a hunted cat. The second investigator of what he called psychical phenomena was Gideon Murgatroyd.\" The illustrious name fell triumphantly from George's lips, and he perceived that he had made an impression at last. The head of the family, altogether too cool a card, was genuinely impressed. \" Are you speaking of the surgeon ? \" \" I am. He ran down to have a look at my knee just before Christmas. -I told him about the parson, and he insisted, like you, upon movin' in. He moved out bright and early next mornin' and he told me to—to \" \"\"Yes ? \" \" To smash that Chinese mirror.\" As he spoke George pointed dramatically at the mirror. Deliberately he had worked up to his climax. Against his protests a nice couple had chosen to occupy this room, although another had been prepared for them. Weakly he, the host, had consented. Nevertheless, throughout dinner, sitting next to the bride, and sensible of an increasing interest in and liking for so charming a creature, he had said to himself that it wasn't quite fair on her, a mere girl, obviously a woman of imagination. \" Smash that mirror ? \" repeated Lady Rochford. She stared at its shimmering surface as George went on :— \" Of course, it isn't mine to smash.\" \" And it's a gem.\" said Lady Rochford. \" I was told that it was loot from the Imperial Palace at Peking, and Murgatroyd asked me some questions about it. He saw something in it. What, he refused to say. And, for a man in his profession, he talked a lot of bosh about occultism, which I couldn't follow at all. Well, there you are ! I don't believe in the common or garden ghost, but something cryptic takes place in this room.\"

THE CHINESE MIRROR. 73 instantly that here were true lovers tenderly isn't he ? \" As she smiled acquiescence he and passionately devoted to each other, continued, reflectively: \" I stand between Rochford kissed the lips that came eagerly him and many things that men value, and to meet his; he held her head between his our marriage, Joan, must have made a ' 1 difference, and yet he has always been the same cheery, kind pal; and I could see that he was sorely con- cerned at our sleeping in this jolly old room. Well, he is quite right about one thing—you must pass the night in the dressing-room.\" \" Oh, no.\" \"Oh, yes. That absurd yarn about Sir Gideon Murgatroyd impressed you. I saw the pupils of your dear eyes dilating.\" \" I shall stay here with you, Arthur. Pop into the dressing-room, and let me get my things off.\" \" You are quite sure you don't funk it a tiny bit ? \" hands, gazing deep into the hazel eyes which \" Quite, quite sure.\" mirrored faithfully his image. Then he She pushed him towards the door of the whispered : \" George is a good, kind fellow, dressing-room, murmuring, \" I'm so sleepy.\" \"AS HE SPOKE GEORGE POINTED DRAMATICALLY AT THE MIRROR.

74 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" You're a plucky darling ! If we both see something \" \" No such luck.\" she replied, gaily. \" Shall I ring for your maid ? \" \" Don't. I told her to go to bed, because,\" she laughed softly, \" I want somebody else to brush my hair. Hurry up *. \" He lingered for another moment, loath to leave her. \" The honeymoon was up yesterday,\" she remarked. He replied fervently: \" An enchanting month, with nothing to mar it.\" She sighed. \" A sigh, Joan ? Why ? \" She smiled at him reassuringly. \" 1 sighed, Arthur, because we have been almost too happy.\" \" The honeymoon must go on.\" She looked at him attentively. \" If it could \" Her charming face had grown serious, reflective, as if she were trying to analyse happiness. Profoundly in sympathy with her, he said, gravely: \" Do you doubt me or yourself ? \" \" As if I could doubt you ! \" He shifted uneasily beneath her tender glance, sensible that he stood upon a giddy pinnacle of her building, wearing a mantle of her fashioning. Tentatively he continued :— \" If I were other than what you think me to be ? \" His tone, rather than the words, puzzled her. But she said, proudly : \" I know my husband.\" He shrugged his shoulders, as the slightly derisive smile flickered once more about his lips. \" Is it possible,\" he asked, \" for even you to know the man as apart from his trappings ? Strip me of my position, my rank, and the good things that go with these. Can you see me without them ? \" \" It is difficult,\" she admitted. \" Natu- rally, I am proud of those good things. They count, oh, yes, but they can be counted also— turned into pounds, shillings, and pence. What remains under the trappings is above price, far beyond my reckoning.\" She spoke so simply, with such sincerity and feeling, that he was deeply moved. He kissed her with an odd fierceness, exclaiming : \" For Heaven's sake don't mount me on a pedestal! Now I shall leave you alone for a few minutes with a clear conscience, because we have George's solemn assurance that nothing happens when the lights are on.\" He went into his dressing-room. Lady Rochford began to take off her ornaments, the diamonds and pearls which were part of his trappings, historic jewels worn by genera- tions of women who had married into an ancient and honourable house. Having done this, she examined herself in the mirror, smiling because she knew that trinkets added nothing to her attractiveness. But she remarked that the surface of the mirror was

THE CHINESE MIRROR. 75 faltered : \" Arthur — they have gone out again.\" He swung round. \" By Jove, so they have ! \" He spread out his hands, feeling for some draught, some intermittent current of air. \" Is the window open ? \" \" No. Arthur—I am frightened. See, the mirror is quite dull again. Oh, I can't stand it! \" He replied, soothingly : \" Of course you can't.\" Then, without another word, he crossed to the bed, taking from it the nightgown and dressing-gown that lay upon it. Smilingly he placed these upon her arm, patting her shoulder. \" No arguments ! You pop off. I'll stick this out alone.\" \" Arthur, please come with me.\" \" I couldn't face George's grin to-morrow. Off you go ! \" Gently but masterfully he half pushed her towards the dressing-room. Upon the threshold she murmured :— \" Will you call me if anything does happen ? \" \" Perhaps.\" \" I won't go till you promise.\" \" I promise.\" He kissed her and shut the door between them. For a few seconds he stood still, examining carefully every object in the room. He saw that the fire had burned low, and was about to replenish it when his face hardened. Beholding his face at this moment, none could have doubted that here was a man of in- flexible resolution. He walked swiftly to the door leading into the passage and switched off the electric light. The room became dark, but there was light enough from the window and the smouldering logs to see the mirror. He sat down opposite to it, staring at its surface, conscious of an intense mental alertness, a quickening of all the senses. He could hear, for example, the ticking of his watch, and he could smell what he had not yet noticed—a faint but unmistakable odour of drugs, an odour disagreeable but antiseptic, which suggested the cool, clean wards of a hospital. A minute or so may have passed. And then he made an odd discovery. The ticking became louder and more insistent. He put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, to find that the watch was not there. And at once he remembered that he had laid it upon the table in the dressing-room. And the ticking was that of a clock. But no clock was in the room. Also the odour of carbolic acid became stronger. The co-ordination of this double appeal to the senses brought to mind a painful scene—a death-bed. He had watched the slow passing of one very dear to him, of one sunk into the merciful oblivion of coma. He had sat during many hours waiting for the inevitable change, with faculties dulled by sorrow, with senses that recorded two things alone—the solemn tick of a clock and the

76 THE STRAXD MAGAZIXE. His eyes met hers with a certain defiance. Very steadily they gazed at each other. Fear seemed to have left her, and colour had flowed back into her cheeks. Far other- she was on her knees beside him, the minis- tering angel, aflame to console, thinking only of his wounds, not her own. But she per- ceived, with an ever-increasing dismay, that 'ARTHUR : WHAT HAVE YOU SKR.N?\" wise was it with him. She saw the sweat break upon his forehead; his eyes fell moodily as he said, listlessly :— \" I can't explain.\" \" You mean—is it possible ?—that you won't ? \" \" Joan, for pity's sake don't torment me.\" He sank back upon the sofa. Instantly her whispered words of love, her tender caresses, evoked no response. He sat im- passive beneath them. She rose from her knees. \" Arthur \"—her voice was soft, but clear— \" is this horror, for it is a horror, going to stand between our love for each other ? \" He repeated the words stammeringly :—

THE CHINESE MIRROR. 77 \" Our l-love for each other ? \" \" Dearest, there can be no perfect love without trust. I entreat you to trust me.\" He remained silent, looking at the mirror, not at her. She whispered : \" Do you see anything now ? \" \" Nothing, nothing. What I saw, Joan, was a memory visualized, a very poignant memory. That is all.\" \" A memory ? May I not share that memory ? \" '• Not yet,\" he faltered. \" The memory, you say, was visualized in that glass, a memory which seems to have affected you most terribly. And you, the sanest, the coolest of men, talk to me of a disordered mind. I refuse to believe that your mind is disordered. You saw some- thing in that mirror. You saw what others have seen.\" \" No, positively no! Others have not seen what I thought I saw.\" \" Sir Gideon Murgatroyd saw something ; Mr. Sinclair saw something. Now, I have a suggestion to make: I will sit beside you on this sofa, and in the darkness I will gaze with you into that mirror. Then, if f do not see what you see, 1 shall know that your mind is disordered. What do you say ? \" \" It would be a real test,\" he answered, slowly. She seated herself beside him. \" Please turn out the lights.\" For the second time her courage infused energy and courage into him. He seemed to have recovered his self-control as he said, tenderly :— \" Joan, are you strong enough for such a test ? Is it fair on you ? \" \" Nothing else will satisfy me. Turn out the electrics ! \" \" If you should see what terrified me ? \" \" We should see it together. I am not afraid any longer. Perhaps my love for you has cast out my fear.\" He took her hand and kissed it. \" So be it.\" he said, solemnly. He left her rigidly upright on the sofa, and walked towards the door. But he paused at the corner of the great bed and turned. When he spoke she noted that his voice was quietly normal, but she marked an inflection of entreaty in the familiar tones, a supplica- tion almost, both new and strange. \" I want to make a sort of bargain with you.\" \" A bargain—with me ? \" \" If nothing comes of this experience, and I feel a conviction that nothing will come of it, will you let matters rest as they are ? Will you believe, as I believe, that I have suffered from some monstrous nightmare ? \" \" You called it a memory just now.\" \" A nightmare is a memory distorted.\" He continued, with greater urgency : \" Even you, Joan, might shrink from telling me some horrid dream, some appalling vision of night and darkness from which you have waked

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Unconsciously she withdrew her hand and leaned forward, her lips parted, her bosom rising and falling with excitement. \" You see something ? \" he said, hoarsely. Her voice was steadier than his as she answered : \" Yes, I see the garden of my old home.\" \" I see a room—a bedroom.\" \" Arthur, it's a garden. Surely you see what I see ? \" He made no reply, leaning forward, peering into the mysterious glass which revealed to each a vision so different. The woman gasped. \" What do you see now, Joan ? \" She answered constrainedly : \" The face of a man.\" \" You are sure that it is not the face of a woman ? \" \" Absolutely.\" Her voice quavered oddly, and she wondered whether her husband could hear the beating of her heart. Fear possessed her. In a moment she knew that she would scream. \" A woman's face is staring at me,\" muttered Rochford. \" She is beckoning—beckoning.\" He rose up and moved a step nearer to the chimneypiece, holding out his hands, speaking in a low voice broken by emotion, speaking not to his wife, but to the face in the mirror. \" I promised—yes, I promised.\" At his voice, hardly recognizable, a palsy shook her limbs. She desired to move, but could not. Her tongue defied the craving to scream. Rochford had moved nearer to the mirror. She could hear him speaking in the same hoarse whisper, but his words were inarticu- late. Moreover, to her eyes the glass had grown dull; the vision had faded. The significance of what she had seen ceased to challenge her attention. She became absorbed in watching the man she loved, who of a sudden seemed remote from and alien to her. Domi- nating these confused impressions was the yearning to break the spell, to tear him from that unknown woman with whom he was pleading desperately as if for his very life. \" Oh,\" she exclaimed, \" I can't bear it any longer ! \" When she spoke power returned to her limbs. She rose to her feet as he turned to confront her, and for an instant they stared in silence deep into each other's souls. Upon each face terror had convulsed the features, an evil fear of—what ? She hardly recognized him. He gazed at her defiantly, almost savagely, with a frowning interrogation, discovering in her some strange woman. It may have been the effect of the dim light, but the clear pallor of his skin had become a dingy yellow, as if the vital fluid had ceased to circulate. The crowning horror to her was the certainty that some devil possessed and was tearing him. She moved swiftly to the door and switched on the electric current. Rochford passed his hand across his eyes and laughed derisively. Then he said :— \" What did you see in that cursed glass ? \"

THE CHINESE MIRROR. 79 \" One moment, Arthur. I have told you what was a great shame and misery to me, although it appears negligible to you. Now it is your turn. What did you see in that mirror ? \" \" Joan, don't ask me. I entreat you.\" \" You promised.\" \" I beseech you to release me from that promise. I saw what you saw, what Murga- the family honours, a certain lucidity of speech had distinguished him. \" It has been held by wiser men than I that nothing is destroyed irrevocably, that- given the right conditions—what has been may be reproduced again, a theory which explains many mysteries transcending ordi- nary experience. The mystery of that mirror may lie in us. It would seem that the persons who have gazed into it, under certain conditions, have beheld some scene in their previous lives which they have believed to be buried in their own hearts. I PROMISF.D—YES, I PROMISED.\" trovd saw—a scene out of a past that I had The natural solution is that the whoie thing thought buried.\" He continued hurriedly, is an effect of conscience.\" dreading an interruption, although he selected \" There is more than that, Arthur.\" his words with care. As a debater in the \" Possibly. How it was made I cannot House of Commons, before he succeeded to guess, but I do not know how the receivers

So THE STRAND MAGAZINE. and transmitters of the Marconi instruments are made.\" \" And I do not care,\" she said, sharply. \" What concerns me vitally is this: our happiness is at stake.\" \" Our happiness ? \" \" I am no longer a child, but a woman, Arthur, with a woman's passionate love and a woman's jealousy. You saw a woman's face in that glass ; you spoke to a woman in words I couldn't hear, in words broken by intense emotion.\" He passed his hand across his forehead. \" Did I ? I don't remember.\" \" I shared a past with you that I loathed. Share your past with me, even if you loved it.\" He opened his lips to speak, and then closed them. She came nearer, moved by his distress, but determined to hold him to his pledge. \" Was that woman very dear to you, Arthur ? \" \" Yes.\" He spoke curtly, but not harshly, and his expression softened. \" Oh ! \" Ingenuously she put her hand to her heart, wounded the more deeply because he appeared to be unconscious of the pain his admission inflicted. She detected tears in his eyes. \" Who was this woman ? \" \" She is dead. Ask me no more, dearest. My secret is not what you think it to be.\" She hesitated, completely puzzled by his manner, by his strange air of detachment. Torn by conflicting emotions, she muttered :— \" Can you swear that this secret is no concern of mine ? \" He did not answer. \" Ah ! you can't. If you could I would leave it at that willingly, gladly ; but it does concern me.\" \" It does,\" he admitted, reluctantly. \" Directly or indirectly ? \" \" Directly and indirectly.\" \" Arthur, you must share it with me.\" She laid her hand gently upon his arm, constraining him to sit down beside her. Then she slipped her hand into his with a pretty confidence, and a faint beguiling smile upon her lips. He said, vehemently :— \" This secret has been a dreadful burden to me. It will hurt you cruelly; more— alter your life.\" \" I want to share all your burdens.\" She pressed closer to him, trying to make him understand that no woman, dead or alive, could come between them. He returned the tender pressure, staring intently at her face, as he said :— \" The woman I saw in that mirr-or was my mother.\" \" Your mother ! \" \" I have never talked to you about my mother.\" \" That has hurt me a little.\" \" We were tremendous pals. I regarded

THE CHINESE MIRROR. 81 may be sure that the devil furnished me with other excellent reasons for holding my tongue. George has plenty of money. And I told myself that a promise extorted by the dying from the living is a pledge not binding. I would have promised anything to save her pain. Afterwards I comforted myself with the reflection that I was cherishing her good name. Everybody loved and honoured her ; everybody knew that my reputed father had behaved like a brute to her. \" I always wondered,\" she said, softly,\" how vou could be his son.\" She rose swiftly, clasping him in her arms, pulling his head down to hers, kissing his lips fervently. \" It makes no difference to my love for you.\" \" You sweet woman ! '' Unmistakable joy animated his voice. He began to kiss her hair, her eyes, her cheeks in a passion of emotion. She returned his ardent caresses, clinging to him, whispering again and again that she was his eternally, and that he was hers till death and after death. When these first ardours had passed, she exclaimed, triumphantly:— \" You thought that your position counted with me ; others thought so too.\" \" You are simply wonderful ! \" \" When will you tell George ? \" He stood back from her, the light fading out of his eyes. \" Tell George ? Do you want me to tel' George ? \" \" Is anything else possible ? \" \" That seems almost impossible. Am I not the better man?\" He continued, quickly: \" George will remain what he is to-day, a fox-hunting squire, addicted to the pleasures of the chase—and the table. I \"—he drew himself up—\" well, you know what I have done with another's birthright.\" \" It is another's birthright.\" \" Joan, I shouldered that responsibility when I married you. It is mine, not yours.\" \" Half of it is mine now.\" \" But the cost of renunciation to you ! \" \" Nothing counts with me in comparison with your honour.\" \" My honour ? Isn't it rather late in the day to speak of that ? \" \" You told me, but you have no intention of telling George ?\" \" You insisted on sharing this secret.\" She had thought that the battle was over ; it had only just begun. She essayed a flight into the future, beating her wings against a gale, peering into the darkness, seeking some VOL *iv.—a ark of refuge. She heard him saying, hoarsely :— \" You could never stand the exposure.\" Desperately she clutched him. \" Never mind about my standing it. Could you stand it ? \" He replied, evasively : \" Not if it affected you—I am convinced of that.\"

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" I think so ''—he spoke judicially— \" because you have most to lose. The things you will have to surrender are dear to all women. I pledge myself to abide by your decision.\" She flashed a hunted glance upon him, but he turned his head aside and sat down. The sparkle of her diamond ornaments arrested attention. She loved these pretty things, but nearly all of them were heirlooms. The colour flowed into her pale cheeks as she remembered that she might bear children. She tried to compute the effect of straitened means upon them. Then she looked at the mirror, and a curious whim seized her. \" Don't move,\" she said to her husband. \" I want to consult that.\" She switched off the lights and stood in front of the glass, waiting for a change that never came. \" Do you see anything? \" he whispered. \" Nothing.\" She knew that she would see nothing, if she waited till Doomsday. The mirror had revealed her own soul and his. The evil that may be comprehended in a lie had filled her with terror. The same effect was produced in him. She grasped what is perhaps the divinest of all truths, the real attribute of the soul, its faculty of reflect- ing and transmitting light. The mind might blunder and grope in obscurity; it might—how often it did ! — be inspired with craven fear of the soul, unwilling to face its blind- ing radiance. Thus it had been with him and her. But henceforward she would know positively that happiness could not be achieved by the mind ; it depended wholly upon the soul, upon the light, lack- ing which it must be ex- tinguished ; and then the baser weeds of the human heart would flourish monstrously in darkness and silence. She wondered afterwards \" SF.RN how much time had passed while she stood at the parting of the ways, looking down in horror, looking up in ecstasy, conscious in every fibre of her being that her soul's verdict had been delivered. She walked swiftly to the door and switched on the light. Her husband stood up, staring at her face, as if it were the face of an angel. She pressed the electric bell communicating with George's room, and in the distance the

DREAMS: The Latest Views or Science. By WILLIAM BROWN, M.A., D.Sc., Head of the Psychological 'Department, King's College, University of London. Illustrated by Vernon Anson. HE meaning of dreams has exercised man's imagination throughout the ages, and may with some plausibility be regarded as the first question which the human mind set to itself in the earliest dawn of reason on our planet. Among the ancients the explanation most readily accepted was that dreams, in many if not in all cases, were revelations of a superior power, the voice of a god or demon, imparting to the dreamer knowledge of things future or far distant which he could not acquire by his own unaided faculties. However absurd a dream might superficially appear, interpretation according to the right \" code\" of symbolism was considered capable of giving it sense. In modern times, however, the theory that is on the whole most popular is one which denies all meaning to dreams, and regards them as merely the confused and jumbled reappearance during sleep of memories belong- ing to the person's past history, strung together in any chance order. At least, this is the theory adopted by many so-called scientists who do not happen to have studied this particular problem scientifically. These two views are the extremes between which the manifold opinions held by modern thinkers will be found to oscillate. Some- where between them, no doubt, the truth must lie. It is quite possible that no one explanation will suffice for all cases, but that different types of dreams require different theories to explain them. In any case, one is now able to limit the possibilitiis within fixed bounds, thanks to the careful scientific research that has been done in connection with the subject during quite recent years. Not only have trained scientists observed and recorded their dreams with great accuracy over long stretches of time ; they have also studied dreams experimentally, by delibe- rately interfering with a person's sleep in certain ways and noting the effect on his dreams. The object of the present article is to state the more important of these scientifically-ascertained facts in simple lan- guage, to describe several important theories that have been suggested in recent years, giving actual dreams as examples, and to indicate what seems to be the most probable explanation of dreams in the light of our present knowledge. Since the explanation of dreams given quite recently by Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna, is exceptionally original, as well as being highly ingenious and interesting, much space will be devoted to the description and explanation of this theory. Even if it is not the entire truth about dreams, there is little doubt that it contains a great part of the truth. Almost all scientific observers agree that the materials of which dreams are made are

THE STRAXD MAGAZIM-:. \"A WHOLE HOST OF LIZARDS COMING TO THE WALL IN A LONC. PROCESSION WHICH COVERED THE ENTIRE STREF.T.\" Aspleniuiii ruta inuraria really existed. Sixteen years later, however,he happened to be turning over the pages of a friend's album of dried flowers, and to his surprise came across the very fern, with the Latin name written under- neath in his own handwriting. He then remembered that in 1860, two years before the dream, he had met the sister of this friend, and to please her had written the Latin names under the various plants in her album at the dictation of a botanist. Fifteen years after the dream he also discovered the source of the lizard procession in an old illustrated paper, dated 1861, which, as a regular sub- scriber, he must have seen. Innumerable cases of a similar nature are on record, and go to show how remarkably heightened the memory may be in dreams. They also warn us not too rashly to believe that incidents in a dream which seem entirely new are really so. Another characteristic of the memory in dreams is that it chooses incidents that in the waking life are the most unimportant and trivial, and passes over events that have absorbed the dreamer's attention during the day. This is especially the case with regard to the parts of the dream originating in the events of the previous day. Indeed, upon this fact has been built the theory that dreaming is to be explained as the method which the mind employs for eliminating or \" excreting \" the unimportant incidents of the day, which if left in the mind would disturb its normal functions. A very remarkable feature of dreams is the apparent speed with which they occur. A fraction of a second may suffice for quite a long and complicated dream. The classical instance of this is a dream recorded by Maury. Maury dreamt that he was living in Paris at the time of the French Revolu- tion ; that, after many adventures, he was eventually arrested and brought before a tribunal consisting of Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and the rest, was cross- questioned, and eventually condemned to death. Accompanied by an innumerable crowd of people, he proceeds to the scaffold, the executioner binds him to the plank, the knife falls, he feels his head severed from his body, and—wakes up terror-stricken, to find that the curtain-pole of his bed has fallen across his neck. If the facts are correct, it would seem that this complicated dream took place between the moment that the curtain-pole fell and the moment the dreamer awoke. But another explanation of this and similar dreams is possible, as we shall presently see. It is interesting to note how appropriately

DREAMS. the dream adapts itself to the nature of the waking stimulus, and yet how di- vergent the dreams may be which on different occasions end with the same waking stimulus. Hildebrandt gives three striking ex- amples of dreams brought t o an end (or aroused ?) by an alarum- clock. In the first the dreamer is sau n tering through the fields on a beautiful spring morn- ing, meets people walk- ing in their best clothes, prayer - book in hand, and remembers that it is Easter Day. Eventually reaching a village church, he rests in the churchyard to cool himself, and hears the bell-ringer slowly mount the rickety stairs of the steeple. After an appreciable pause the bell begins to move and sends out a clear note, which quickly changes to a harsh clamour, and he awakes to hear the alarum- clock. In another dream k is the depths of winter, snow lies deep on the ground, he pre- pares for a sleigh-ride. The sleigh is at the door. He dons fur coat and cap, mounts, and, after a few moments' delay, during which the horses paw the ground with impatience, shakes the reins. The horses bound forward, the sleigh-bells tinkle—then the note changes, \"THE CURTAIN-POLE OF HIS BED HAD FALLEN ACl:OSS HIS NECK.'' and he awakes to the sound of the alarum- clock. In a third dream he sees a maid- servant carrying a tall pile of plates from the kitchen, and calls out: \" Be careful ; they will fall ! \" The maid ignores his warning, stumbles on the threshold, he sees the column sway in the air and then fall with a crash, and he awakes—again to hear the alarum-clock. One is tempted to conclude from these

86 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Maury, Weygandt, and others have experi- mentally produced dreams in this way. Maury got someone to tickle him on the lips and nose with a feather while asleep. He dreamed of a frightful torture, in which a plaster mask was laid on his face and then torn away, dragging the skin with it. On another occasion water was dropped upon his forehead. He dreamt that he was in Italy and perspiring profusely from the heat; also that he was drinking the white wine of Orvieto. These experi- ments are cer- tainly sufficient to show how im- portant the wak- ing stimulus is in the production of dreams, but it needs little reflec- tion upon them to see that the state of the per- son's mind and brain at the moment is of at least equal im- portance. In every case the real explanation of the dream, if an explanation is demanded at all, must be looked for in the latter of these two factors. Professor Freud's theory of dreams does explain them in this way, and, conse- quently, is far more satisfactory than most other theories. But before describing this theory I must just mention another which, as it were, paves the way to Freud's view. This is the theory of Schemer. Schemer held that dreams were due to organic sensations— i.e., sensations aroused by changes in the internal organs, such as the stomach, liver, heart, etc. These sensations are, of course, present during waking life, but in sleep, owing to the suppression of sensations of sight, hearing, etc., they become very much more prominent. The mind then reacts to them \" symbolically,\" translating them into sensations of sight and touch which may correspond to their shape or represent them in some other plausible and metaphorical way. Thus, in a headache during sleep the head may be represented by a room with spiders crawling over the ceiling. The sensa- tions from the lungs, when pronounced, may be symbolized in the dream-consciousness by

DREAMS. 87 it is shadowy, confused, seem i n g 1 y unintelligible, and is made up of elements that come from (in many cases) long- forgotten in- cidents of the dreamer's past life. The differ- ent parts of the dream are joined together in an appa- r e n 11 y arbi- trary manner. The \" latent content \" is the hidden meaning of the dream, and in every case re- presents the fulfilment of some wish. The wish often originates from the earliest years of one's life and dis- guises itself in the fragment- ary memories of the previous day, although many wishes of one's recent life may also be represented in dreams. Often it is only upon analysis and in- terpretation of a dream that one becomes aware of the very existence of the wish. The wish exists in what is called the subconscious or unconscious part of the person's mental life, and may only come to the surface of the mind in this disguised form of a dream. Why should the wish be hidden or disguised in this way ? Because, says Freud, it is not in harmony with the ethical or conventional ideals of the waking life. Many wishes of early childhood are evidently of this nature, and therefore they have been \" suppressed \" (but not annihilated) by the censor of the waking and conventional self. Even during sleep this censor still keeps watch over the mind, though not with the same alertness as in the daytime. The PERSONS SUFFERING FROM HEART-TROUBLE MAY DREAM OF DRIVING SWEATING HORSES UP A STEEP HII.L.\" forbidden wishes, which in waking life are kept out of consciousness altogether, find that they can evade the vigilance of the censor during sleep by disguising themselves —i.e., by assuming a symbolic dress patched up out of the neglected memories of the dreamer's repent experiences—and can so slip

88 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. wipe out the traces of the dream altogether. This is Freud's explanation of the remarkable rapidity with which most dreams are forgotten after waking. The wish may be of a quite innocuous nature, and yet appear in the dream in a disguised form. It is reported that Alexander the Great, when besieging Tyre (which was making such a stubborn resistance that he despaired of taking it), dreamt one night that he saw a satyr dancing on his shield. An astrologer, Aristandros, who happened to be in his train, interpreted this dream as meaning that he would take Tyre, since \" saturos,\" the Greek for satyr, could be split up into \" sa Turos,\" which equals \" Tyre is thine.\" Encouraged by the dream, Alexander pressed the siege with great vigour, and quickly took the town. This example is a very neat illustration of Freud's theory, and also shows the play upon words which is so frequent a way in which wish-fulfilments are symbolized. Freud has himself remarked upon the fact that most of our \" dream-books/' which are still popular among the ignorant at the present day, are translations from Eastern writings, where the interpretation of dreams was mainly a matter of verbal similarity. Of course, these verbal similarities and analogies lose their force when translated into another tongue, and so become merely misleading. Freud would explain Maury's dream of the guillotine, described earlier in this article, as being an entire memory, or rather imagina- tion, originating from early life, when the stirring history of the French Revolution produced a wish to have lived in those times, which is aroused en bloc by the fall of the curtain-pole. The hidden wish seized the opportunity afforded by this guillotine-like stimulus to realize itself as an actual incident of Maury's life. That the wish culminated in a tragedy docs not necessarily make the explanation a far-fetched one. The wish to continue sleeping is the cause of many dreams. A medical student, who was very fond of his bed, was one morning called by his landlady: \"Mr. Pepi, get up; you must go to the hospital! \" Thereupon the sleeper proceeded to dream of a ward in the hospital, where he lay on a bed, with a card over his head containing the legend: \" Pepi, H., medical student, twenty-two years.\" He said to himself in his dream : \" Since I am already in the hospital, I don't need to go there,\" turned over, and continued his sleep. A similar explanation will partly account for the following dream. A father has lost his dearly-loved child. The open coffin is in a room adjoining the father's bedroom, lighted candles are placed near it, and an old man watches during the night while the father snatches a few hours' much-needed sleep. The latter dreams that his little son stands at his side and cries reproachfully : \" Don't you see, father, that I am burning ? '' Waking up, he sees through the half-open door the old

RAGAN IN RUINS. The Experience of a Millionaire in Search or Sincerity. By BERTRAM ATKEY. Illustrated by W. R. S. Stott. IGAR, please, Belton.\" Ragan bent over the box his man brought him. \" The last of the dandies, eh, Belton ? \" he said, look- ing up at the valet. \" Let's hope it's a case of the sur- vival—until now—of the fittest.\" His lips twitched as he noted the uncomfortable look on Belton's impassive face. \" You instructed me to order no more, sir,\" said the man, a faint protest in his voice. \" Yes.\" Ragan nodded, pensively sur- veying the solitary Havana that remained in the box. \" Belton, the loneliest, most stranded, down-and-out-looking thing in the whole world is the last cigar of the box. Make a note of that for your book.\" \" My book, sir ? \" Belton looked puzzled. \" Yes. Aren't you writing a book ? \" \" Book, sir ? Certainly not, sir.\" remon- strated the valet, apparently shocked. \" Oh, I thought perhaps you were. You ought to—I could provide you with some material.\" Ragan looked again at the cigar and shook his head. \" I won't smoke it—that poor little, lonely survivor, Belton. I'll have a cigarette. So you are not writing a book ? Do you do an}' journalism ? \" \" Journalism, sir ? No, never, sir \"—very emphatically, as though resenting the accusa- tion. \" Ah, that's a pity. How about the market ? Ever do anything with stock— shares, you know ? \" Belton shook his head, a puzzled look in his eyes. \" No, sir—of course not, sir.\" Ragan sighed. \" Well, you are going to lose an oppor- tunity of making a haul to-day.\" Belton looked sorry. He was not the only man in the world, by some thousands, who believed what Ragan said when Ragan spoke about money. \" The fact is, Belton,\" said Ragan, slowly, as though relishing every word—\" the fact is, I'm ruined.\" Vol. xlv.-10. Belton deftly concealed a sudden smile. \" Indeed, sir ! \" he said, politely, mani- festly believing that his master was joking. Ragan looked at him curiously. \" You don't believe it, Belton ? \" he asked. The valet hesitated for a second only. \" Well, sir,\" he said, \" it does seem a little bit far-fetched, sir.\" His smile refused to be concealed—it became almost a grin. The idea of Ragan being ruined was really amusing. Ragan, the multi-millionaire, the Petrol Potentate ! No wonder Belton grinned. \" Far-fetched, hey ? \" said Ragan, a new, grim reflection in his voice. '' You'll see. If I pay twenty shillings in the pound when

(jo THE STRAND MAGAZINE. head suddenly, cand looked his master squarely in the eyes. \" You ask me a plain question and give me leave to give a plain- answer, sir. Well, then, I don't believe that out of the hundreds of money-grabbing time- servers and spongers and lying flatterers that have lived on you for years you'll find six- real friends now that you need 'em. That's my opinion, sir. And, Mr. Charles, I know what I'm talking about.\" Ragan's face was very serious. \" I say, Belton, aren't you exaggerating a bit ? There are plenty of people who have come to this flat and cried—cried like chil- dren—about money, and have begged for a chance to do something to show their grati- tude when I've helped them. Why, man, you've seen a lot of it for yourself. You've grown cynical, that's what's wrong.\" Belton stood up. \" Very good, Mr. Charles,\" he said. \" I hope you're right.\" He began mechanically to clear up the breakfast-table, then stopped suddenly. \" Mr. Charles,\" he said, flushing, \" if things have gone kind of rocky in the City, I know you well enough to know that you'll soon master 'em again, without much help from any friends. If—what I mean to say—well, sir—it sounds ridiculous—I've \" He stopped. Ragan looked at him almost hungrily. \" Come on, Belton,\" he said. \" Out with it.\" \" Well, sir, I've managed to put by a few quid—pounds, sir. About seven If you'd like to take that as a I would be proud. I—I—believe sir,\" stammered the man. It was hundred hundred, loan, sir, in you, the first time Ragan had ever seen Belton perturbed. \" I know what you can do, sir— and I've had a good deal from you above my wages.\" Ragan smiled. There was relief in his eyes-—relief and something very friendly. He held out his hand. \" Shake hands, Belton,\" he said. \" I've got one friend, anyhow. Leave that money where it is for a time, though. There are a lot of people in this town who owe me more than you do. I'll give them a chance first. But you're a white man, and I'm hoping to find some more of the same colour. Are the newspapers here ? \" Belton brought them in, and Ragan opened one—a morning paper with a mighty circu- lation. \" Ah ! They are on to it ! \" he snapped, sharply, and pointed to a flaring headline. FAILURE OF MR. CHARLES RAGAN, THE PETROL PRINCE. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER'S

RAG AN IN RUINS. And now that, too, was done. And nobody but his lawyer and himself knew the colossal ingenuity the doing had involved. That he had been successful the headlines of the morning newspapers screamed at him. He stood there, staring absently at the heavy type, wondering if he had been wise. The sound of Belton at issue with many callers fell upon his ears, and he smiled doubt- fully. He wondered at the sudden loss of confidence. He had not felt like this when Griffiths had laughed and dryly told him that no man but a bankrupt was really quali- fied to be a judge of gratitude. He had thought that over. One man, even, he had asked—a man whom he had \" ' AH ! THEY ARE OX TO IT,' HE SNAPPED, SHARPLY, AND POINTED TO A FLARING HEADLINE.\" the idea had first come to him a year ago. Then it had seemed to him that there was no doubt at all that many people were his friends because they liked him, and not merely because the cords of simple, unselfish friend- ship were, in so many cases, supplemented —or should be—by the chains of gratitude. He had said so to Griffiths, his lawyer, and just lifted out of the slough of ruin and put in train to fight his way to prosperity. \" You say you are grateful. What would you do if I went right to the other end—smashed— and came to you for help ? \" Folding his cheque, the man had said :— \" You would see, Mr. Ragan,\" and his voice had trembled. \" I'm not one of the

THE STRA.\\D MAGAZINE. talkers—but you would see. All I had would be yours, at least.\" And the man had believed he was speak- ing the truth. This was to be Ragan's holiday and voyage of discovery. He had had enough of money- making, anyway—he wanted to retire—and so he had arranged it. He intended to retire, not as a raider retiring full-flushed with spoil from some stronghold of Mammon, but as a failure—a seeker for help, a searcher for material gratitude. Griffiths, when the plan was explained, had said : \" All you will discover is that the world is governed by self-interest. Don't do it, Ragan. You stand to lose more than you can gain. You think you have hosts of friends. Keep on thinking it. But, for Heaven's sake, don't test them.\" Well—now Ragan would see for himself. First, however, he must call at the Lee- Knightons. There, at any rate, he was sure of his reception. It would put him in good heart for the disappointments that—accord- ing to Griffiths and Eelton—awaited him. Sir John—another who owed all his present prosperity to Ragan—he knew, would help him. Lady Lee-Knighton's liking for him, he believed, was proof against adversity, and Clare—was Clare ? The only reason Clare and he were not yet formally betrothed, it was tacitly understood, was because she was a month or so too young. In two months she would be nineteen, when, her mother had encouraged Ragan to believe, everything could be formally arranged. Yes, Ragan was sure of his friends in that house. So he went there—not in his big limousine, nor his electric runabout, nor his silver-grey Rolls-Royce touring-car, for all these were now held up by the liquidators, acting for yesterday's first flurried meeting of creditors. He went on foot. At the end of the street he came face to face with Fitzlough—Major Fitzlough. The Major was hurrying but at sight of Ragan he stopped abruptly, his fat, red face becoming radiant and a curious glitter flash- ing into his pale, quick, rather cruel-looking eyes. . \" Charles Ragan on foot ! \" he said, play- fully, in his metallic voice. \" The man of many motors ! Wonderful! \" He laughed a jolly laugh. \" I was hurrying to catch you before you went to the City, Charlie, my boy.\" The Major was one of those bluff, breezy, \" old uncle \" men who \" my boy'd \" every- body. An adventurer, if ever there was one, whose happy hunting-ground was the fringe of good society. A bear—or rather cub— leader, a tuft-hunter. \" I like a lord, and I'm not ashamed of it, my boy—why should I be, hey ? \" An extraordinarily fine bridge- player, equally good at billiards, habitui of all the best paddocks and grand stands, he knew more than a little of the City. But, apparently, he had not read his paper yet that morning.

RAGAN IN RUINS. Ragan shrugged and resumed his walk. He had known what the Major was long enough ago; he had never expected the money back. The man was little more than a jackal with a careful air of bluff breeziness. London is stiff with them. Ragan had not even paid him the compli- ment of marking him off as one of those whom he should \" test.\" He had merely pitied him before ; now he just despised him. \" What can you expect from a wolf but a bite ? \" said Ragan, gaily, and continued his way to the Lee-Knightons. A motor-car was standing outside the house when he arrived—a long, low, yellow car, which he recognized at once. It belonged to young Hugo Wallhurst, son of Wallhurst, the coal baron. Something stirred slowly in his heart as he recognized the car. Nine o'clock in the morning is a very unusual hour at which to call upon anyone. But Ragan had a reason for calling. What reason had young Wallhurst ? He knew that the boy was a worshipper of Clare Lee-Knighton. Then he laughed again. It was too fanciful to imagine that Wallhurst had called for any reason connected with him. And yet he was too quick to fail to see that if Wallhurst were desperate for Clare, and if the newspapers were right, now was his chance, if ever. But it was a slender chance, for it was Ragan's intention to explain to the Lee- Knightons his real position and his scheme of \" exploration \" tor the next few months. That was why he was calling so early—to allay the effect of the newspapers. It was due to them, at least. He had decided that on the previous evening. With a certain uneasiness it had occurred to him that perhaps it would have been in better taste to have taken them into his confidence before. That the news had spread throughout the house he saw in the first glance at the man who opened the door in response to his ring. But he had little opportunity of observing the manservant, for as the door closed Lady Lee-Knighton came into the hall. She started at sight of Ragan, and it seemed to him her rather florid face paled a little. For a fraction of time—so minute as to be barely perceptible—she hesitated. Then she came to him smiling. But her eyes were strange. They were cold and hard and wary. So changed were they from the ordinary that it seemed to Ragan almost as though she were some other woman—a stranger. Then she shook hands, and began to talk swiftly. \" Good morning,\" she said. \" You are our second early caller. Mr. Wallhurst came a little while ago. There must be something in the air this morning ; no one wants to go to the City. Sir John refused point-blank to go ; it was too fine for work. We are going motoring. I haven't even had energy enough to look at the papers this morning. It is too hot to read, or even pretend to.\" Ragan was turning cold. The insincerity

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \"THERE WAS FEAR 1\\ HER EYES—BOTH FEAR AND RELIEF.\" I will tell you that I did see the papers very early this morning, and I saw that you were ruined. Well, was I to throw my daughter into the morass with you ? You expect a great deal too much if you expect that. What reason was there ? Perhaps you think that because you helped my husband when he needed help you are entitled to claim Clare. You are wrong, Mr. Ragan. Financial matters are for the City. See my husband there, and adjust your claims on his gratitude there. Clare's future is in my province. I will deal with it according to my own judg- ment. You affect contempt because I try to arrange that people should understand Clare and Hugo were affianced before we knew of your failure, but I do not agree that it iscontemptible. And you will find few people who will.\" She half turned away. \"And Clare? Is she content ?\" inquired Ragan. \" Perfect- ly. Clare is very sen- sible!\" \" Then — being —er— ruined, and there fore ineligible — I am dis- missed ?\" demanded Ragan, very quietly. A stare of hatred and disdain was his only reply for a moment. Then:— \" You are u nreason- able and unjust,\" she said. \"I will not dis- cuss it.\" \"You do not deny that solely by my help your husband has climbed from the verge of ruin to compara- tive wealth? \" he asked. \" Why do you hate me so ? \" She shook her head, like one suddenly spent. \" I will tell you. You hate me now because you are treating me badly.\"

RAGAN IN RUINS. 95 and the butler let him out. He walked back slowly to his flat, thinking desperately. He saw now, with extraordinary clearness, that either he was completely out of touch with the ordinary, everyday outlook of the world, or that the Lee-Knightons were unusually worthless people. Why, they had acted as he had read of people acting with a leper—they fled at sight. He was still thinking vaguely when he arrived at his flat. On the stairs Griffiths, the lawyer, pale and worried, was standing. He was a young man and faithful to Ragan. They went in together. \" What is it ? \" asked Ragan. The eyes of the other man looked keenly at the millionaire. \" Why, they've started on you already ! \" he said, rather shrilly. \".Heavens! isn't there any decency left in the world ? \" He recovered himself, sat down close to Ragan, and began to speak very earnestly. \" I hope they have hit you hard,\" he said, and his tone was bitter. \" Hard enough for you to see the folly of this thing—and to stop it. Man, you must. They've been at me, too—vultures ! Ragan, I've heard men —small men, little men—say things this morning that would make you ill. For the sake of the mone>—quite small sums, some of them—you owe them. You don't know— can't guess. Some of them are like wolves- fighting, almost, over priority of claims. Afraid, too. I've seen things before—queer, shady things—but I've never seen such abso- lute frank greediness—inconsideration—in my life as some ' friends ' of yours have shown this morning. You see, they all thought you were as safe as the Bank of England. They relied on your accounts—and the idea of any chance of losing them simply scares them cold—sets them on edge. They were too nervous to believe me when I told 'em you'd pay twenty shillings in the pound.\" He paused a moment. Then he continued, flatly : \" Ragan, you'll have to give up your idea. It stirs things up too much—horrible things. The world is—what we've made it. Call it a pool with clear water on top, and the poisonous bad things sunk to the bottom. Agitate the pool, and all those bad things come to the top. See what I mean ? The driving force is Self-interest—all the rest is the nickel and the shiny part of the life machine. It's all right—good enough for people who haven't been intelligent enough to build a better machine—all right as long as you don't touch the source of the power— the driving force. That disturbs the machine. Heavens, what a world we've made of it!\" The phrase seemed wrung out of him. He pointed to Ragan with a shaking forefinger. \" And you—what do you stand to get out of it all ? Let me tell you. A broken heart, a shattered faith, a soured outlook. You want to go out to discover sincerity, gratitude. But you will only discover greed ! \" He shook

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \"SHE CAME STRAIGHT TO RAGAN, ARMS OUT, EYES WIDE, UNFALTERING.\" she had conquered the world—the world as her parents focused it for her. Ragan's problem was solved. It was youth—fearless, careless, uncon- strained—that kept the world sweet; youth and love, the key of youth. He had wondered what was wrong with the world. Now he knew. Nothing was wrong except that men and women grow old—old and hard and bitter. Over the bowed head of the girl Ragan nodded to Griffiths. \" End it,\" he said. Griffiths smiled and went. The great experiment was over before it had well begun. Ragan lifted the girl's face. \" Listen, dear,\" he said. \" You have done nothing wrong. You have done everything right for you and for me, and nothing wrong for your people.\" And he told her of the millions he had kept, and they went together to tell the mother and the father, who, at middle age, nevertheless were grown so old. so old. that they thought the millions were all that mattered.