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Title: The Harmsworth Magazine, Vol. 1, 1898-1899, No. 6

Author: Various

Release date: September 8, 2012 [eBook #40711]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines,
        Jonathan Ingram, Nick Wall, Diane Monico, and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARMSWORTH MAGAZINE, VOL. 1, 1898-1899, NO. 6 ***




Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines,
Jonathan Ingram, Nick Wall, Diane Monico, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









THE HARMSWORTH MAGAZINE
Vol. 1--No. 6




TABLE OF CONTENTS


"CHRYSANTHEMUMS CURLED HERE."                                   579

"OFF TO KLONDYKE."                                              583

LITTLE ROYALTIES.                                               590

LONDON'S LATEST LION.                                           595

THE HOME OF FOUR O'CLOCK TEA.                                   605

STATISTICS GONE MAD.                                            609

"A PRINCESS IN GREEN AND TAN."                                  611

3,000 MILES ON RAILWAY SLEEPERS.                                619

THE CURSE OF THE CATSEYE.                                       623

MICE WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD.                                631

A CROWDED HOUR                                                  634

STRANGE KINDS OF MONEY.                                         639

CLEVER MRS. BLADON.                                             645

AN ENGINE MATCH BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.                    651

NATURE'S DANGER-SIGNALS.                                        656

IN PRAISE OF BABY                                               661

"MAN OVERBOARD!"                                                662

OUR MONTHLY GALLERY OF BEAUTIFUL AND INTERESTING PICTURES.      665


[Illustration: GREEK GIRLS PLAYING AT BALL.
_From the Painting by the late Lord Leighton, P.R.A._
_By Permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., Bond Street. IV_]




"CHRYSANTHEMUMS CURLED HERE."

A CHAT WITH A FLORAL BARBER.

BY ALFRED ARKAS.


The chrysanthemum is the spoiled and petted darling of the floral
world. She is as vain as any society beauty, and quite as much time is
spent on her toilet and personal appearance. Though beautiful by
nature, she scorns to show herself to her circle of admirers until the
arts of the hairdresser and masseur have enhanced her loveliness.

Toilet goes a long way in this world, and many a social star owes half
her triumphs to it. Particularly is this true of My Lady Chrysanthemum;
for she well repays for any trouble that may be spent upon her.

You cannot paint the lily with any prospect of success, but the number
of curls and frills and furbelows you may add to the dainty
chrysanthemum bloom, and still leave room for the touch of a titivating
hand, is endless.

There are tricks in every trade, and the same is true of most hobbies.
Chrysanthemum showing and growing form no exception to the rule. You
may have mastered the many little secrets of growing these glorious
flowers to the best advantage, and yet be as far from inclusion in the
coveted show prize list as though you were but a mere tyro.

[Illustration: LADY CHRYSANTHEMUM AT HER TOILET.
1. The flower is cut.
2. A part of the seedy eye is taken out.
3. Deformed and misshapen petals are removed.
4. The petals are then curled.
5. The bloom is finally brushed up.]

As a matter of fact the best bloom that ever grew is one thing on the
stalk and altogether another in the show box. If you saw some of the
magnificent prize-winning and highly commended blossoms which are the
feature of the great annual shows before they had been through the deft
hands of the floral barber you would fail to recognise them. Glorious
they are in their natural state; but, like a beautiful woman, their
beauty is only set off the more by a fitting toilet.

How art may assist nature is admirably shown in the accompanying
photographs illustrating My Lady Chrysanthemum in her natural state,
and the same bloom dressed and cupped for show purposes. It will
probably never have occurred to the majority of people that such
dressing is a most important matter in preparing blossoms for
exhibition, and it will be news to them that the preparation of this
toilet is a matter requiring the greatest skill, and is only to be
undertaken with complete success by the horticulturist who has made a
special study of chrysanthemum growing and showing.

Such a one is Mr. Southard, who is at present growing prize blooms of
all kinds for Mr. Kenyon, of Sutton, Surrey. Mr. Southard is one of the
most successful growers in this country of the Japanese national
flower. He is an exhibitor whose triumphs in the past are represented
by innumerable first, second, and special prizes. And he is generally
recognised as one of the most expert chrysanthemum dressers to be found
in a long day's march.

To him we are indebted for our knowledge of the secrets of floral
barbering.

What a science this is may be more readily realised by a glance at our
photograph of a set of instruments used for the purpose. These are
specially made, and each has a special part to play in dressing the
perfect specimen bloom.

[Illustration: A "RAGGED AND UNKEMPT CHRYSANTHEMUM"--WHICH BECAME NEAT
AND CHARMING UNDER CAREFUL TREATMENT.]

There are twenty-four varieties of chrysanthemums, but two in
particular, the reflex and the incurved, are the subjects of artificial
treatment. The accompanying series of photographs show the making of an
incurved bloom's toilet from first to last. The first picture
illustrates the cutting. To the uninitiated there would not appear to
be anything particular about this; but mark one thing. The bloom is cut
with a long stalk. This is an important matter: the reason will appear
later on. The second photograph of the series illustrates the taking
out of a portion of the seedy eye. This is a particularly telling part
of the toilet, and goes a long way towards making the bloom show its
best.

In the exhibition specimen the petals uniformly cover the flower, but
as it appears on the plant it will probably show a considerable amount
of centre; unless this is removed it causes an untidy hollow in the
middle of the bloom. Portions of the seedy eye are generally removed
while the flower is yet on the plant, and the petals then grow
naturally towards the centre, and cover the cavity. However, in
dressing the bloom it is usual to extract further portions, an
operation performed by means of the special instrument shown in the
photograph.

The next process is the removing of deformed and misshapen petals.
Although not, perhaps, visible to the eye, there are sure to be a few
of these lurking beneath the more perfect specimens. They must come
out. If visible, they are an eyesore; if invisible, they prevent the
others from falling into their natural positions, and so upset the
harmony of the whole.

There is a steel forceps provided for this operation. However, the
skill is not in using the instrument. Anyone can despoil the plumage of
a fine bloom. The art lies in extracting the right petals, so as to
give the exterior the best possible shape when finally dressed.

These various processes have taken a great deal of time, yet the bloom
looks, if anything, less like a show specimen than it did when on the
plant.

However, they are but a means to an end, and their use is soon apparent
now that we come to the principal operation of dressing. In this,
order is evolved out of chaos, and in the hands of an expert the bloom
immediately begins to assume an altogether different appearance.

[Illustration: THREE SPECIMEN BLOOMS.]

[Illustration: THIS "EDWARD MOLYNEUX" WAS NINE INCHES ACROSS.]

[Illustration: THE BLOOM HERE PHOTOGRAPHED--"MUTUAL FRIEND"--WAS TEN
INCHES IN DIAMETER.]

First it undergoes the operation of cupping. The cups are made of zinc,
and vary in design according to the shape of the flower. The upper part
closely resembles the socket of a candlestick. The outside is threaded,
and screws into a cylindrical case containing water.

Now the reason of the long stalk is apparent. It is passed through the
hollow till the lower petals of the bloom are pressed firmly on the
plate, then the outer case is screwed on, and the flower is held as
rigidly as though in a vice. The screw cup performs three functions: It
waters the bloom, keeps it in position, and by pressing the under
petals upwards accentuates its shape and size. The operation of
dressing brings another instrument into use. It seems a simple matter
to take hold of a ragged bloom and pat and stroke it into shape,
curling a petal here, twisting another there. In reality it is a matter
of great delicacy, and some years of experience are required before one
may hope to obtain the best possible results, and even then some three
hours may easily be spent in dressing a bloom.

[Illustration: MY LADY CHRYSANTHEMUM'S TOILET TABLE.]

The imperfect petals underneath having gone, those outside readily
respond to the touch of the instrument and spring into regular
formation, while those at the top of the bloom are carefully curled to
a common centre and effectively conceal all that was left of the seedy
eye.

Under the deft touches of the master hand, the ragged bloom rapidly
develops into a thing of greatest beauty. Each curl marks a great
improvement, and when it is finished one readily realises how much
there is in this as in other things for the amateur to learn.

A final brush up is now all that is necessary. A specially made
camel-hair brush accompanies the set of instruments; with this the
grower gently brushes the leaves till no speck dims their fair
loveliness.

[Illustration: SOME USEFUL ARTICLES ON HER DRESSING-TABLE.]

My lady's toilet is now completed, and she is forthwith placed in the
show box, which is designed to hold six cupped blooms. This box
consists of a slanting platform containing six holes, in which the cups
are placed. The two at the top are partially unscrewed, the middle pair
not quite so much so, while those at the bottom are screwed in tightly.
This is called setting-up, and is an art of itself. It arranges the
flowers in tiers, so that those in front do not hide the blooms behind.

Skilled setting-up is worth several points, as it enables the blooms to
show themselves off to the best possible effect, and at the same time
favourably impresses the judge's eye.

The blooms are shown in specified numbers; generally, thirty-six,
twenty-four, or twelve are required from each exhibitor. Nowadays,
chrysanthemum blooms attain enormous sizes. We show two specimen
blossoms. That known as "Mutual Friend," shown on the previous page, is
ten inches in diameter; the other, "Edward Molyneux," at the left hand
foot of the same page, is nine inches across. This is about the
diameter of an ordinary plate.

Notable sizes are also attained in the plants themselves, and in
preparing these for show there are divers little secrets.

In the illustration below Mr. Southard is standing between two specimen
plants. Notice the difference in the general appearance of the twain.
That on the left is ragged and unkempt, though it is in every way a
show specimen. Compare it with the neat, charming effect of the plant
to the right of the picture. Here is an instance of what a little show
preparation will do for the plant itself. In the latter case, each
bloom and stalk is trained up to a stick, and as a consequence perfect
harmony is gained, and the plant shows at its best. In many cases these
stalks have to be trained round corners, and describe wonderful curves
in order to take up the places assigned to them. The space under the
blooms and foliage is a forest of sticks, all engaged in carrying the
long, pliable stalks to their rightful places.

[Illustration: THE FLORAL BARBER AT HIS WORK. CONTRAST THE TWO PLANTS.]

The untied plant on the left is a wonderful specimen. It measures over
four feet across the top, grows from one stalk, and yet only occupies a
twelve-inch pot.


Blooms from some of the choice plants are worth from three to five
shillings apiece, while even cuttings will fetch the latter figure.

One of the great fascinations of show-chrysanthemum growing is the
possibility of producing new blooms. Out of twelve exhibited flowers
shown me at a recent show, nine were entirely new specimens. Like the
orchid grower, the chrysanthemum lover is ever seeking floral
novelties. In the ordinary way it takes some years to produce and fix a
new flower. Endless patience, experiment, and knowledge are necessary
to success; but here, as in most branches of floriculture, there is a
strong element of luck, and the raw amateur sometimes purchases a
cutting which turns out to be an extraordinarily fine specimen of a new
variety.

This element of uncertainty undoubtedly constitutes one of the great
charms of horticulture.




"OFF TO KLONDYKE."

A STORY TO BE READ TO CHILDREN.

BY GEO. A. BEST.

_Illustrated with novel Photographs from life by Arthur Ullyett,
Ilford._


"Wake up, Lessels!" said Stanley, in a hoarse whisper, shaking his
younger brother as he spoke. "I've got a grand idea!"

[Illustration: "'WAKE UP, LESSELS! I'VE GOT A GRAND IDEA!'"]

[Illustration: "'I'M OFF TO KLONDYKE, AND YOU'VE GOT TO BE MY PARD.'"]

"Gimme a little bit then," answered Lessels, drowsily. "You had some of
my chocolate cweam last night."

"You goose! Don't you know what an idea is?" retorted the elder boy,
disdainfully. "It isn't anything to eat. It's a notion."

"Then you can have it all yourself," remarked Lessels, indifferently.

"Would you like a thousand pounds to spend on caramels and chocolate?"
asked Stanley. "And a golden guinea to put in the bank till you are a
man?"

"I'd like the chocolate," answered Lessels, with some show on interest.
"An' I'd like a boxful of caramels; an' a barley-sugar lion; an' a real
engine which would go by itself an' wun into things. An' I'd like a toy
fire-engine, so that I could set fire to Madge's dolls' house an' put
it out; an' a bucketful of ice cream, an'----"

"Don't speak so loud, you little duffer, or you'll get nothing at all!"
interrupted the elder boy. "Just get out of bed at once, and dress
yourself without dropping anything. We're off to Klondyke!"

"Off to what?"

"Klondyke--a place where you dig money out of the ground like coals.
Big lumps of solid gold, what'll buy a whole shopful of toys, and tons
of best London mixture and marzipan. See?"

"What about washin' our faces an' bweakfast?"

"Miners never wash themselves, silly; and they don't have proper
breakfasts till they've made their pile."

"What's a miner, an' who's a pile?" asked Lessels, chasing himself
across the room backwards to attach his braces to a rear button which
was apparently running away.

"A miner's a man who digs gold up and washes it in a cinder-sifter,"
explained Stanley. "And he shoots everybody who comes near him except
his pard. I'm off to Klondyke to be a miner before dada awakes, and
you've got to be my pard."

"Who'll I shoot?" asked Lessels, with a defiant glare.

"Everybody but me," answered Stanley, condescendingly. "We'll want my
best sixpence-ha'penny gun; several sticks of lead pencil to shoot; two
spades; a cinder-sifter; an umberrellar to sleep under; our
nightshirts; a loaf of bread, and a big knife."

"Shall we take Desmond in the mail cart?" asked the four-year-old
"pard," innocently. "Desmond, an' a packet of sherbet, an' my toy
engine, an' a chair to sit on, an' the kitchen lamp, an' our bed, an'
a few other fings to eat?"

"Babies and toys must be left at home," snapped the miner. "And how do
you think we can carry a bed along? We must hunt for crabs to eat with
our bread, and shoot birds and catch fish. Our Klondyke is really the
beach, for I heard dada say last night that Southend was a regular
Klondyke, as gold had been found on the sands. What a good job we live
close to Southend, isn't it?"

"Hadn't we better tell dad we're going, an' get a penny to spend?"
suggested the long-headed Lessels, ignoring his brother's question.

"A penny to spend!" echoed the elder boy, scornfully. "We'll have fifty
thousand golden sovereigns to spend before this day week; and dad will
forget to whack us when we buy him a new house, and a carriage with two
horses and a footman, and an ounce of tobacco. And mamma shall have
four splendid servants, and a sealskin jacket, and a bottle of scent,
and a bicycle, and a new box of hairpins! I'm quite ready now, are
you?"

Lessels answered with a somewhat doubtful nod, and the children crept
silently downstairs. The kitchen door was successfully unbolted after a
table and chair had been mounted by the intrepid Stanley, and the
necessary materials for the outfit were rapidly collected from the
neighbourhood of the washhouse.

[Illustration: STANLEY AND LESSELS START FOR KLONDYKE.]

"I'll carry the umberellar, gun, and knife," whispered Stanley. "You
can fetch along the cinder-sifter and the other things."

"I don't like to touch the shinder-sifter: it's got nasty worms and
snails on," protested Lessels, whimpering. "An' if I can't carry the
gun I shan't go, so there!"

"I've a great mind to put a lead pencil through you, you great baby!"
hissed the miner, furiously. "You're a nice pard for a man to have, to
be sure! Don't forget that my gun is loaded, and I'm not going to stand
any nonsense, so just do as you're told. If you're afraid of a worm,
what are you going to do when conger eels, sea serpents, and octopussys
attack us?"

"Fight 'em to deaf!" answered the "pard," growing suddenly cheerful at
the prospect of encountering large game. "Is the octopussy like other
cats?"

[Illustration: THEY MARCH THROUGH A DENSE JUNGLE.]

"It isn't a cat at all; it's a fish like a large spring onion with eyes
in, and hundreds of roots which are all alive," explained Stanley, as
the expedition moved slowly across the first field.

After a long and painful march over a plain covered with thistles and
long grass, succeeded by a dense jungle, the heavily laden
"prospectors" reached the beach at a lonely spot some miles to the
westward of Southend pier. Here the umbrella tent was erected, the gun
reloaded, and the mining utensils carefully unpacked. The loaf was
thoughtfully wrapped up in a nightshirt to preserve it from the effect
of sun and salt water.

"We must stake out our claim at once," said Stanley, producing four
clothes pegs from his pocket, and sticking one at each corner of a
four-sided diagram hastily scratched on the sand with a spade. "All
miners have to do this before they've been in Klondyke five minutes.
And we must put up a notice that this claim belongs to us, so as to
keep other gold hunters off. See?"

"Then we shan't have nobody to shoot," protested Lessels, in a
disappointed tone.

"Dig up some sand, pard, and fling it into the cinder-sifter while I
write out the caution in blue pencil," said Stanley. "And when all the
sand has run through call me to pick out the gold."

And after seeing the first spadeful of sand fall into the sieve, the
elder miner rapidly produced a notice worded as follows:--

"This is our clame. Tresspasers will be persecuted and shot. Vissitors
are requested not to tuch the nugets."

"Anybody reading that warning won't dare to come within a mile of us,"
remarked the author, proudly, as he attached the notice to the ferrule
of his "tent." "Any luck, pard?"

"Any what, Stan?"

"Luck--I mean have you found anything?"

"I've got a kwab, an' a cockle shell, an' an old shoe, an' a
ginger-beer bottle," replied Lessels, with a yawn. "The bottle's got
some beer left in, an' I'm very thirsty. Shall we have a dwop?"

"That isn't ginger-beer, it's sea water!" cried Stanley, warningly. "If
you drink ever so little you'll go mad, and smash things and shoot
yourself! Then I shall have to bury you in the sand, and put a wooden
cross over your head, so that I can show dada where I left you."

"My head aches, an' I'm getting thirsty," protested the hard-working
pard.

[Illustration: THEY DIG FOR GOLD, AND FLING THE SAND INTO THE
CINDER-SIFTER.]

[Illustration: A BIG NUGGET IS DISCOVERED.]

"You 'ave got gold fever, that's all!" said Stanley, impatiently. "All
miners suffer from gold fever, but it doesn't often kill 'em. If we
both work hard for a few minutes p'r'aps we'll find a tiny nugget that
we can change for real ginger-beer and buns at the store. We'll have a
splendid evening at the store after our day's work is done. All the
boys will be there, and we'll drink more than is good for us, and fight
and play poker."

"We haven't got any pokers to play with," argued the matter-of-fact
Lessels. "An' there isn't any boys but us about; an' there's no store
where we can spend our nuggets, an' fight in. If you tell stories like
that, Stan, you'll never get to----"

"The worst of you is you're so silly!" interrupted the elder boy,
shaking the cinder-sifter vigorously as he spoke. "You never think
anything's real that you can't see. When people get to know that
there's millions of pounds under these sands there'll be cheap
two-and-sixpenny excursion trains, full of wild miners, arriving here
every few minutes."

"Will there be anything to eat an' dwink?" demanded the hot and thirsty
pard, anxiously.

"Tons of it!" answered the senior digger, enthusiastically. "We shall
use sweets an' sugar sticks for bullets, an' wash ourselves in real
ginger beer. Miners always spend their money like that. They waste what
they can't eat, and wash their faces in drink when they've had more
than is good for them. It's a splendid life, isn't it, Lessels?"

"Which?" asked the pard, doubtfully.

"What's the use of explaining things to a fellow like you?" snapped
Stanley. "Haven't I told you all about it?"

Lessels retired to the shelter of the tent without attempting to reply
to either of these questions, and slowly divested himself of his shoes
and socks.

"_Now_ what are you going to do?" demanded the miner, angrily.

"Paggle," replied Lessels, pointing to the incoming tide, which was
rapidly approaching the camp.

"Paddle!" echoed Stanley. "What sense is there in paddling before we've
found a single ha'porth of gold? Hallo! Come here, quick!" he
continued, excitedly, as something large and hard rolled from side to
side of the sieve. "Oh, Lessels! I've found a monster nugget! Come and
help me lift it out. Hurrah!"

[Illustration: "'KEEP THE GUN LOADED; WE'LL HAVE ROBBERS ALONG
PRESENTLY.'"]

"Wait till I get my sock off," replied Lessels, indifferently. "Is it
weal gold?"

"Of course it is, you little duffer! Never mind your sock!" roared the
excited miner. "It's a large, square nugget--yellow, and broken in two.
I wonder who's stole the other half."

"Looks like a bwick," remarked the pard, suspiciously, after carefully
surveying the find. "An' it isn't clean an' bwight like weal money."

"I tell you it's a nugget," replied the lucky miner, in a tone which
was intended to put an end to all argument on the subject. "Keep the
gun loaded; I guess we'll have some robbers along presently."

"Where can we spend it?" asked Lessels, anxiously.

"There's a stall where they sell ginger-beer and ice-cream, about half
a mile along the beach," replied Stanley; "you can just see it in the
distance. If you like, you can walk over there and bring back half a
dozen of beer, three gipsy cakes, and about twenty sovereigns' worth of
change. But don't let the storekeeper cheat you."

"I'll go!" declared Lessels, delighted by the prospect of obtaining
some very necessary refreshment. "I'll go, Stan, and you can dig out
plenty big nuggets, an' save 'em up till I come back. I'd better take
the gun, so's I can shoot the man if he tries to cheat me."

"Don't forget the change!" cried Stanley, as he watched his little
brother run rapidly away in the direction of the stall.

In ten minutes' time, a flushed and weary-looking little miner, hugging
a piece of wave-worn brick, presented himself to the storekeeper, who
was just in the act of taking down the shutters of his timber-built
shop.

"Well, my little man, what can I do for you?" asked the shopkeeper,
cheerily.

"Half a dozen of ginger-beer, three gipsy cakes, and twenty sovereigns
in change!" demanded the miner, breathlessly.

[Illustration: LESSELS TRIES TO CASH HIS NUGGET.]

"Twenty sovereigns change!" echoed the man. "What do you mean, little
one? Where's your money?"

"Here it is!" replied Lessels, boldly, laying the precious "nugget" on
a plate of puff pastry, and assuming an attitude of defence. "Half a
dozen of ginger cakes, three bottles of gipsy----"

"I can't give you all that for a brick," interrupted the shopkeeper,
shaking his head. "You'd better run away and play."

"It isn't a bwick--it's a weal nugget," said the miner, with a scowl.
"An' if you try to cheat me, Stanley said I must shoot you dead!"

"Here's a bottle of pop and your nugget for nothing," said the
kind-hearted shopkeeper, with a laugh. "But don't bring any more brick
ends or rubbish over here. Where are you going to take it to?"

"The camp."

"Where's the camp?"

"In Klondyke."

"Where's Klondyke?"

"On the beach, wight over there where Stanley is."

"Who's Stanley?"

"Stan's a miner, an' I'm his pard. We're diggin' up nuggets to spend in
sweets, an' carriages, an' other fings for dada and mamma."

       *       *       *       *       *

The tide had nearly reached the camp when Lessels returned.

"I haven't found any more nuggets, Lessels," said Stanley,
despondingly. "Did you get the change all right?"

"No: I brought the gold back with me, 'cos the man said it was only a
bwick!"

"Only a brick!" echoed Stan, with a dry sob. "I'm so thirsty and tired,
Les."

"You've got gold fever, like I had," said Lessels, sympathetically.
"Lie down an' west a bit while I dwink up the ginger-beer which the man
gave me for nothing."

"All right, greedy!"

"I'm not gweedy, Stan, only thirsty. You can have a little dwop when
I've cut the string an' shot the cork off. Then we'll go home to
bweakfast, won't we?"

"It's nearly dinner time now, Lessels," said Stanley, sadly. "And we
can't go home without a single nugget to buy presents with, or dada'll
be sure to whack us."

[Illustration: "'I DON'T LIKE KLONDYKE.'"]

"I don't like Klondyke! I don't like Klondyke!" sobbed poor Lessels, a
moment afterwards when the ginger-beer cork flew skywards with a loud
report, causing the bold miner to drop the bottle in dismay.

"You're a pretty pard to send on an errand!" cried the disappointed
Stanley, as the greedy sand quickly absorbed the contents of the
bottle. "Frightened of a ginger-beer cork! I wouldn't be such a cowardy
custard! Here I am nearly dying of gold fever, and there's nothing to
drink or eat but sea-water and dry bread."

"Poor old Stan!" said Lessels, with genuine concern. "Don't die an'
leave me to find my way home all by myself. Let's lie down an' go to
sleep a bit. Then we'll forget how hungwy an' thirsty we are, an' how
dada'll whack us when we get home!"

"Dear old pard!" said Stanley, sleepily. "It was my fault bringing you
here, and I ought to have all dada's smacks."

"Not all; nearly all," answered the loyal pard, with sublime
condescension. "You can have all the biggest ones. I'm not gweedy!
S'pose the tide comes up an' drownds us, what'll mamma say?"

"It serves us right," was the drowsy reply.

"An' dada?"

"Dada'll say he'll teach us to get drownded again!"

"An' baby Desmond?"

"Desmond'll say 'cuckoo'--he doesn't know any other words."

"An' the dog?"

The last question remained unanswered.

"Poor old Stanny's asleep," soliloquised Lessels. "I'll just cover him
over with the nightshirts, an' the nugget bag what hasn't any nuggets
in, so's he won't catch a cough an' keep me awake at nights. Then I'll
lie down close to him, as I do in bed, an' have a west. I wish mamma
was here to kiss me, an' I hope dad won't beat me harder than he can
help!"

And in another moment absolute silence reigned in the camp, while the
tide crept noiselessly and stealthily around the higher bank of sand
which formed the children's Klondyke. The summer sun shone lovingly on
a pair of still forms; and the warning to trespassers fluttered gently
in the warm breeze.

[Illustration: THE MINERS' DREAM OF HOME.]

When a wave, bolder than the rest, broke against the bare feet of the
younger miner, he awoke with a cry of alarm.

"Wake up, Stan! We're both drownded!"

"What's the matter?" demanded Stanley, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"We're in the miggle of the sea!" was the startling answer. "Our camp's
all wet an' miserable, an' we can't shwim home, an' it's no use
shoutin', cos there's nobody on the beach!"

"Lessels, we shall have to leave dada's umberellar, and the gold, and
everything else, and fly for our lives," said Stanley, impressively,
glancing anxiously towards the distant beach as he spoke.

"I can't fly," whimpered Lessels. "Let's call dada."

"He wouldn't hear us!"

"Dad heard me shout when I fell in a bucket of water at home," argued
Lessels.

"This isn't a bucket of water, and we're not home now," replied the
elder boy, irritably. "I believe I could swim all the distance to the
beach--with one foot on the bottom. Then I could walk to the village
and get a boat to bring you off; or run home and get dada and the
clothes line; or fetch one of the life-buoys from the end of Southend
pier."

"I'll come and get a live boy, too!" exclaimed Lessels, clinging
frantically to his brother, as a wave broke over his knees. "Don't
leave me, Stanny; I'se so frightened!"

"I can't swim if you hold me like that!" said Stanley, rolling up his
shirt sleeves with sudden determination. "You'll have to let me tow you
to land by the hair of your head. Drowning people have to stun each
other sometimes to keep one another quiet while they are rescued," he
added, darkly.

[Illustration: THE RESCUE OF THE MINERS.]

At this distressing moment a well-known form appeared on the beach, and
the terrified miners shouted and waved their caps simultaneously.

"It's dada!" shrieked Lessels; "I knew he'd come. Look! he's walking in
the sea, with all his clothes on; an' he's laughing; an' he hasn't got
a shtick after all."

"What is all this about, boys?" asked the welcome visitor, pointing, as
he spoke, to the fast disappearing camp.

"It's Klondyke, dada, that's all!" answered Lessels. "We digged for
gold all day to buy you a lot of horses and tobacco, but we haven't
found anything at all 'cept a bad nugget!"

"You're not the first miner who has done that, Lessels," was the
comforting reply.

"I had a horrid dream about you, dad, when I was tired and fell asleep
on the sand," said Stanley. "Guess what it was."

"Perhaps I was injured by one of the fine horses you were going to
buy?"

"No, dad, it was much worse than that," was the earnest reply. "In my
dream you were looking for us _with a great stick in your hand_."

"Dear old dad!" whispered Stanley, as he was being carried into safety,
upside down, a few minutes later. "Dear old dad! You aren't very cross
because we have lost your umberellar, and haven't got any nuggets, are
you? And you won't turn nasty and spank us after we've made you laugh
so?"

[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE CAMP.]

"Please don't, dada!" added Lessels, brokenly.

And dada only kissed the weary little faces of the supplicants, and
laughed again until the tears ran down his cheeks.

"I believe dad's crying," said Lessels, in a stage whisper--"cryin'
inside, an' laughin' outside!"

"Keep quiet, you little muff!" whispered Stanley, hoarsely. "Father
looked like that when the doctor told him that I wasn't likely to die
of fever after all. It's a laugh that stops crying."

"And one which is worth more than all the ordinary laughs of a
lifetime, my boys," added the listener, quietly.




LITTLE ROYALTIES.

[Illustration: OUR FUTURE KING.]

[Illustration: HIS BROTHER ALBERT.]

_Illustrated with Special Photographs taken by F. & R. Speaight._


Even in the days when the Queen's children formed a charming group of
young people, high-spirited, intelligent, and enjoying, according to
many passages in the late Princess Alice's letters, an ideally happy
childhood, British Royal Nurseries were not better filled than they are
at present, for in the immediate Court circle there are many young
people, not one of whom can be considered in any sense grown up.

[Illustration: PRINCESS VICTORIA OF YORK, HIS SISTER.]

Prince Arthur of Connaught and his two sisters form the eldest group,
being severally fifteen, sixteen, and twelve. The three children of the
Duke of Connaught, though they are half German, for their mother was
the daughter of the Red Prince, have received an entirely English form
of education, Prince Arthur having been the first British Prince sent
to Eton, and the two Princesses, Margaret and Louise, being educated at
home, partly under their parents and partly under the Queen's
supervision, for during the Duke and Duchess' stay in India their
children remained in England, and so their short lives have been
divided between Aldershot, Bagshot Park, and Windsor Castle.

To the same group of the Queen's British grandchildren may be said to
belong the children of the late Duke of Albany and of Princess Henry of
Battenberg. In each case they are much younger than Her Majesty's other
grandchildren.

There is something very pathetic in the position of the Duchess of
Albany: left a widow within two years of her marriage, and obliged, by
the circumstances of her position, to remain in a foreign country,
finding her only solace and interest in her two children, to whom she
has proved a model mother. Till last year, when the Prince entered Mr.
Benson's popular house at Eton, Princess Alice and her young brother
had never been separated for a single day. In this connection it may be
stated that the Royal Princes when at school lead exactly the same
lives as do other Eton boys. They are addressed by their masters and by
their school-fellows as "Connaught" and "Albany," and though, as is
natural, they generally spend any half-holidays at Windsor Castle, the
Queen is most particular never to ask them out of hours, or to treat
them in a way calculated to make them feel themselves favoured above
the other boys.

[Illustration:

PRINCESS MARGARET OF CONNAUGHT.       PRINCESS LOUISE OF CONNAUGHT.
PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT.           PRINCESS ALICE OF ALBANY.
LADIES ALEXANDRA AND MAUD DUFF.       THE DUKE OF ALBANY.]

     _The portraits of the Prince and Princesses of Connaught
     were specially taken by Mr. R. Speaight for this article,
     and most of the others taken by the same photographer are
     published by special permission of the Royal parents._

Princess Alice of Albany's great friend is her first cousin, the young
Queen of Holland, and this in spite of the fact that she is three years
younger than the girl-monarch. The Duchess of Albany has remained on
very intimate terms with her sister, the Queen-mother of the
Netherlands, and there has always been a constant interchange of visits
between Claremont and the Dutch Court; indeed, the Duke and Princess
Alice of Albany are the only members of the British Royal Family who
can speak Dutch fluently, that language having been taught them by
their Queen-cousin.

The four children of Princess Henry of Battenberg have had their
childhood sadly shadowed by the death of their father, to whom they
were all devotedly attached. In one matter their position differs very
much from that of the other Royal children: that is, they have been
thrown into peculiarly close relations with their venerable
grandmother, and it is perhaps owing to this fact that the only girl
among them, Princess Victoria Eugénie, is, although only eleven years
old, said to be exceptionally intelligent and grown-up for her age.

Of Princess Beatrice's three sons, the eldest, Prince Alexander Albert,
who is just twelve years old, is at school at Lyndhurst, but next year
he will join the _Britannia_, for, like his uncle Prince Louis of
Battenberg, he is very fond of the sea and wishes to enter the British
Navy. Prince Leopold and Prince Maurice are too young for it to have
been yet decided what career they will follow, but they will each enter
a profession, for their position is a somewhat peculiar one. Unlike the
young Duke of Albany, who was a peer from the moment of his birth, the
children of Princess Beatrice have no legal rank, and their father, the
late Prince Henry, was even desirous that they should not be habitually
given the title of "Prince" or "Princess."

[Illustration: PRINCE GEORGE OF TECK.]

In this matter, however, the Queen overruled his objection, though,
curiously enough, Her Majesty did not seem desirous of doing so in the
case of the children of the Duke and Duchess of Fife, notwithstanding
the fact that when the elder, Lady Alexandra, was born she was
considerably nearer the throne than had been Queen Victoria herself at
the moment of her birth. The question of whether the eldest grandchild
of the Prince and Princess of Wales should or should not be given the
title of "Royal Highness" was actually discussed at some length, but as
both the Duke and Duchess of Fife were very anxious that their child
should only bear the title and have the precedence accorded to a Duke's
daughter, the matter was arranged that way. Subsequent events--that is,
the birth of the Duke and Duchess of York's three children--have proved
how wisely the parents of Lady Alexandra Duff acted in this matter. As
it is, the Ladies Alexandra and Maud Duff are in the happy position of
having all the privileges and none of the responsibility of Royal
birth. They are so far the only younger members of the Royal Family who
have never been out of the United Kingdom, their lives having been
spent between London, Norfolk, and Scotland. They are being brought up
in the very simplest fashion compatible with their rank; indeed, the
only public appearance, since her birth, made by Lady Alexandra was
when she acted as bridesmaid to her aunt Princess Maud of Wales.

Of course, from many points of view, by far the most important group of
Royal children is that composed of the two little sons and of the baby
daughter of the heir-presumptive. Owing to the sad death of the Duke
of Clarence there are only three lives between little Prince Edward of
York and the throne, and far more care has been bestowed upon his
education and general upbringing than is generally the case even with
Royal children of so tender an age, for our King to be will not be five
years old until the 23rd of next June.

[Illustration: THE BATTENBERGS.
PRINCESS VICTORIA.
PRINCE ALEXANDER.
PRINCE LEOPOLD.
PRINCE MAURICE.]

As his names, Edward, Andrew, Patrick, and David, indicate, his
grandparents and parents were anxious that the Prince should, from his
birth, belong rather to the nation than to his family. It was
seriously proposed that he should share the Queen's carriage on
Diamond Jubilee Day, but the idea was given up when it was realised
that the long slow drive through the streets of London would be a
terrible ordeal for a three-year-old baby; thus, although little Prince
Edward's Jubilee clothes were actually prepared, he only wore them at
home, to the disappointment of his young mother, who would have liked
her son to have gone down in history as having taken part in so great
and noteworthy a pageant.

The Duke of York's second son, Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George,
was born on the anniversary of the deaths of the Prince Consort and of
Princess Alice, and so was three years old on the 14th of last
December. Two years younger is Princess Victoria Alexandra Alice Mary,
the youngest but not the least of Her Majesty's British
great-grandchildren.

The child of Prince Adolphus of Teck--whose wife, it will be
remembered, was Lady Margaret Grosvenor, a daughter of the Duke of
Westminster--is Royal in the same sense as are the Ladies Alexandra and
Maud Duff, and it is rather interesting to note that the three children
all stand in the same intimate relationship to the future King of
England, though even Prince Edward of York was not legally entitled to
the name of "Royal Highness" until a special decree was passed in
favour of all the children of the Duke of York.

A word on Royal children from the photographer's point of view.

Mr. Richard Speaight of Regent Street, who took all our photographs
except those of the Duke of Albany and his sister Princess Alice of
Albany, which were taken by Messrs. Gunn and Stuart of Richmond, speaks
enthusiastically of them--and he is now quite a connoisseur of
children.

He says he is always struck by the natural and careful way in which the
children are brought up. The younger ones are always most obedient to
their nurses, and they, on the other hand, are very jealous in guarding
their Royal charges. They do not even allow them to sit to be
photographed without hiding behind to hold them in case they should
fall.

The photographs of the Duke of York's children were taken at
Sandringham. They took great delight in the musical and clockwork toys
which Mr. Speaight took with him; and when the operation was finished,
Prince Edward, shaking hands with his photographer, thanked him for the
trouble he had taken.




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[Illustration: THIS IS A SKETCH OF THE PRETTY COVER FOR BINDING OUR
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they make a most delightful, attractive, and interesting volume.




LONDON'S LATEST LION.

AN EMPIRE MAKER'S LOVE STORY.

BY GILBERT DAYLE.

_Illustrated by Fred Pegram._


It was dusk on a summer evening, as a tall broad-shouldered man made
his way down a path that led through the Vicarage garden at Winchmere.

Reaching the roadway, he turned and, with one arm resting on the gate,
gazed at the rambling house with its clustering ivy and old-fashioned
windows.

"To all appearances just the same," he said, musingly, "yet how
different it is--strange faces, strange voices! A short eight years,
and I return to find my old friend dead, almost forgotten, and She
vanished--swallowed up by the world!"

He sighed heavily, then turned and set out down the country road in the
direction of the railway station.

"It's the bitterest disappointment I could have met with!" he went on;
"but--I shall find her. Yes, I shall find her!" And as he spoke the
step of the tall bronzed man quickened into a resolute stride.

       *       *       *       *       *

Halton Towers, the country residence of Earl Kenwell, was a magnificent
place, situated in the heart of Berkshire. On a certain morning in
July, a governess and her two charges were sitting at a table in the
schoolroom. The governess, a pretty girl of about twenty-four, was
attempting to instil some elementary ideas of geography into the head
of her eldest pupil, a boy some six years old.

Presently the door opened, and a party of people trooped into the room.
Their leader, Lady Dorothy Kenwell, looked smilingly at the governess.
She was young, and considered to be one of the most beautiful women in
the country.

"You don't mind us coming in just for a minute, Miss Grahame?" she
asked. "These absurd people declared that nothing would satisfy them
but seeing the children."

Lord Scaife (to his intimates he was known as "Bobbie") stepped forward
and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, whilst his cousin, Miss Julia
Crofton, put her arm round the little girl's neck and kissed her
impulsively. A few feet away in the background stood the remaining
member of the party, Count Morlot. He was a slimly built man of foreign
appearance. A slight smile hovered round his lips as he watched the
scene.

[Illustration: "'NOTHING WOULD SATISFY THESE ABSURD PEOPLE BUT SEEING
THE CHILDREN,' SAID LADY DOROTHY."]

"Well, Jim, my lad," began Lord Bobbie, cheerfully, "what has Miss
Grahame been driving into your precious young head this morning?"

"Jogruffy," replied Master Jim.

Lord Bobbie bent down over the atlas that was open on the table.

"Africa, eh? Well, it's a great country, particularly the southern part
of it. It's where the millionaires come from."

Lady Dorothy took hold of Jim's hand and guided it to a certain part of
the map.

"Look, Jim, dear, this map is not up to date, and this piece I'm
showing you should be coloured red--British, you know. The country is
now----"

"British Kafangaland!" put in little Jim, eagerly.

"Bravo, youngster! Who told you that?" asked Bobbie.

"Miss Grahame," answered Jim, "and she said that it had nearly all been
done by one man--a very good man."

Lady Dorothy shot a smile at Miss Grahame, then bent over her little
cousin again.

"Yes, Jim, and he is coming here, this very morning. What do you think
of that?"

Jim turned open-mouthed in his chair.

"Shall I see him," he gasped, "the man who has turned this big patch
red?"

"Yes, my boy," laughed Lord Bobbie, "you'll see him, our most modern
Empire-maker, the uncrowned King of British Kafangaland--London's
latest lion----" He paused.

"Anything more, Bobbie?" queried Julia Crofton.

"No, I don't think so. I was wondering what qualities he possessed to
have put him so far ahead of the other pioneers out there."

Count Morlot drew a little nearer to the group.

"In buccaneering circles," he remarked, with a smile, "the man who is
most unscrupulous is the man who wins. Probably this fact accounts for
Mr. Winn's marvellous successes."

Lady Dorothy drew herself up, and, swinging round, faced the Count.
There was a touch of crimson on her cheeks.

"You have evidently never met Alan Winn, Count Morlot," she said, with
flashing eyes. "He is the soul of honesty--and a true man!"

Without waiting for any reply, she moved quickly towards the door, and
swept out of the room. There was a dead silence. All eyes were fixed on
the Count. He gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders, as he
glanced at the door through which Lady Dorothy had made her retreat.

Julia Crofton was the first to speak.

"Come along, Bobbie," she said, "you promised to take me to see the
fruit-garden."

"Certainly," replied Lord Bobbie, with alacrity. He crossed the room
and opened the door.

"See you presently, Count," he said. "Good morning, Miss Grahame;
ta-ta, Jim, don't be too much of a nuisance."

The Count waited a few seconds after the couple had disappeared, then
bowed to the governess and took his departure.

Olive Grahame did not immediately return to the children. She stood
staring absently into the middle of the room. There was still a picture
before her, of a woman supremely beautiful, standing with lifted head,
her glorious eyes flashing indignantly, as she defended the character
of Alan Winn. She sighed softly.

"He cannot help loving her!" she whispered to herself. "It is better
for him not to see me!"

She was roused from her reflections by a touch on the hand. Master Jim
had slipped down from his seat and crossed to her.

"Miss Grahame," he said, pleadingly, "may I get my paint-box and put in
that piece of red on the map. I shouldn't like the man who did it all
to see my atlas, and then find it not there. May I?"

Olive Grahame bent down and kissed the eager young face.

"Yes, dear," she said, softly.

Meanwhile Julia Crofton and Lord Bobbie had found a pleasant seat in
the garden. They were two young people who found enjoyment in
discussing together the affairs of others, and incidentally their own.
They did not love one another, and had not the slightest intention of
doing so. They were simply, as Julia put it, "good pals." Lord Bobbie
described his cousin, who was sportively inclined, not at all pretty,
and addicted to the occasional use of slang, as a "brick"; and Julia
returned the compliment by declaring that Bobbie was an "awfully good
sort, with no nonsense to speak of about him."

Lord Bobbie lighted a cigarette.

"I'm hanged if I like that Frenchman!" he exclaimed. "Who is he, and
how on earth did he get into Kenwell's house?"

"He is a _protégé_ of old Lady Steele, and she had him invited here.
She says that he has such charming manners, and she trots him about
everywhere with her."

"Wouldn't mind betting he's an adventurer," growled Bobbie. "He has got
the cut of a Monte Carlo sharp. Didn't Dolly look fine as she snubbed
him? If ever there was a case of a woman openly showing her admiration
for a man, this is one. She positively adores Winn. Confound him!" he
added, with an air of disgust.

"Poor old Bobbie!" said Julia, sympathetically. "It's a bit rough on
you."

"And I was getting on so well with her," he continued, with a sigh. "I
believe that in another week I should have won her. And then this Winn
must needs turn up. I ought to hate him as a rival; I should like to,
but, 'pon my word, I can't. He's such a good sort.

"Jove! how these fellows get on! Here we have a man, I don't believe
he's touched thirty yet, been working like a nigger in some place or
other, starts a new country, becomes the right-hand man of the company
formed to run it, and in a few years he returns to his native land,
pleasantly near to being a millionaire. I don't know how they do it!"
he finished, despairingly.

[Illustration: "'WOULDN'T GERMANY GIVE SOMETHING FOR THE CONTENTS OF
THAT WALLET!'"]

Miss Crofton glanced at her cousin's good-natured though somewhat
indolent-looking face.

"I believe," she said, calmly, "the possession of a quality termed
'grit' frequently explains the mystery."

"And now," went on Bobbie, concernedly, "the beggar has the chance of
marrying the loveliest girl in society. Anyone can see that Dolly
idolises him, and that he has but to say the word, and she is his. Oh!
it's disgusting!"

"Perhaps he won't say it," said Miss Crofton.

"Of course he will," replied Bobbie, warmly. "There is no man on earth
who could possibly be such a fool as to refuse the chance. Why, Kenwell
is Chairman of the Chartered Company of Kafangaland, and is dead set on
the match himself. Oh! he couldn't be such a fool!" he added, shaking
his head with an air of conviction.

Miss Crofton rose to her feet.

"Have you noticed, Bobbie, that a man never prizes that which he can
have for the asking?" She paused. "I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll bet
you a hundred cigarettes that Winn doesn't make this easy conquest."

"You're throwing your money away," said Bobbie, warningly.

"Are you taking it?" asked Miss Crofton, coolly.

"Oh," said Bobbie, with a shrug, "if you're set on it, certainly."

She glanced at the watch on her wrist.

"The Lion will be here by now. We had better be going in to see him. By
the way, old man, you remember my preference for Turkish?"

"Oh, yes," replied Bobbie, smiling grimly; "but there will be no
occasion to tax my memory, I assure you. It's a 'cert' for me, worse
luck!" he added, mournfully.

He rose from the seat, and together they strolled towards the house.

Alan Winn had arrived half an hour ago, and was now strolling on the
terrace with Earl Kenwell, engaged in talking over business matters. A
casual observer would have taken the pair for father and son. The Earl,
although approaching his fifty-third year, was still erect, his
complexion fresh, his eyes keen. Winn was perhaps a trifle the taller
of the two; he had well-cut features, a determined-looking chin, and a
pair of grey eyes that gazed steadily from their depths. From the other
end of the terrace, Lady Dorothy, who was reading a newspaper to old
Lady Steele, paused now and again to shoot a glance at the
broad-shouldered man walking by her father's side.

"My dear," she heard Lady Steele's voice say, "I am deeply interested
in what you are reading, but might I suggest that we proceed to the
next paragraph? You have read that one three times."

Lady Dorothy blushed, and hurriedly turned her attention to the paper.

"I beg your pardon," she said, with an air of confusion, "I was----"

"In a day dream, I fancy, in which admiration for another person
figured prominently," retorted the old lady. "I think I shall have to
get the dear Count to read to me; he has such a charming voice. By the
way, where can he be? I haven't seen him since breakfast time."

At the present moment, the Count was comfortably ensconced in a chair
behind the library windows, and intent on perusing a recently arrived
copy of the _Figaro_.

The library faced the terrace, and as the Earl passed with Winn he
glanced casually into the long dark room. It appeared to be empty, for
the window curtains effectually concealed the Count from view. The Earl
caught hold of two chairs, and placed them in the shade.

"So you really think the scheme has a good chance?" he asked,
anxiously.

Winn puffed a cloud of smoke from his cigar, as he dropped into a
chair.

"Yes," he said at length, "I am confident that we shall succeed. I do
not think it possible that anyone can have the least suspicion of my
discoveries in the Vaarg Valley, or of what we contemplate doing there.
We shall be first in the field."

Behind the curtains, the _Figaro_ dropped slowly in the Count's hands.
An alert look came into his eyes, and he moved his head nearer to the
window.

"It's going to be the biggest coup ever effected in South Africa,"
continued the calm, confident voice. "I believe that in the Vaarg
Valley we have another Kafangaland, although, of course, on a smaller
scale."

"As good as that!" exclaimed the Earl.

"Yes, I believe so. I spent the whole of yesterday at the Colonial
Office; the railway concessions have been granted, and practically
everything is settled. Not one of our rivals dreams that we are making
any move. Like myself, they are now all holiday-making. Even old
Vorenbeck is in London staying at the Victoria."

"And what have you arranged?"

"Forster will leave on Saturday in the _Tantallon Castle_, with full
authority to act on our behalf. In this wallet are all the plans,
complete to the minutest detail, and also his instructions as to how to
proceed."

"By Jove!" put in the Earl, "wouldn't old Vorenbeck, or rather Germany,
give something for the contents of that wallet!"

"Vorenbeck, the old scoundrel," replied Winn, with a laugh, "would give
anything up to twenty thousand pounds for the contents of that wallet,
provided they were in his hands by to-morrow evening. But that
contingency need not be entertained, for it will not leave my person
until I hand it myself to Forster on Saturday."

Inside the library, the _Figaro_ had slipped quietly to the ground, and
the Count was staring hard in front of him, a curious expression in his
eyes, as he pulled thoughtfully with one hand at his moustache.

There was a clatter of feet on the terrace, and the children ran up to
their uncle. They were followed by Lady Dorothy, who shot a playfully
reproachful glance at Winn. She had been dismissed by old Lady Steele
as an incompetent reader.

"Kafanga, _toujours_ Kafanga!" she said, with a smile.

"But it was really necessary," he replied; "there shall be no more of
it to-day, on my word of honour."

She stooped and laid a hand on Jim's curly head.

"This is my little cousin, Jim," she said.

Master Jim was staring open-mouthed at Winn. Under his arm he held a
book of some kind.

"Jim," continued Lady Dorothy, "this gentleman is----"

"I know," blurted out Jim, without waiting for the introduction to be
finished. He hastily opened the book and turned over the leaves with
feverish impatience. Finally he selected a page and held it out for
Winn's inspection.

"I know," he went on, his finger pointing to a red daub at the bottom,
"you're the man who did this."

Winn looked, and saw that a map of South Africa was before his eyes. He
laughed as he grasped the compliment.

"Yes, it's British now, right enough," he said.

Jim nodded. His gaze was fixed wonderingly on the bronzed face of the
tall man. Then a sudden eager look spread over his face.

"Well," asked Winn, with a smile, as he noticed the pleading glance,
"what is it?"

Jim hesitated shyly for a moment, then burst out in his childish
treble--

"I want to know how you did it?"

Winn laughed again, and caught the boy up and placed him on his
shoulder.

"Come, that's not a fair question," he said; "it's a State secret."

"And, like most State secrets, everyone knows it, and is proud of it,"
put in Lady Dorothy, with a smile at Winn.

Her glance drifted up to Master Jim, who looked supremely happy in his
lofty position.

"You'll understand one day, Jim," she added, "how these things are
done, when you're grown up."

"When I'm grown up," retorted Master Jim, confidently, "I'm going to do
the same myself."

"If we go on at our present rate, there won't be any of South Africa
left for him by that time," said the Earl. "We shall have to discover a
new field for him to operate upon. But there is no immediate hurry.
What do you say to our visiting the kennels in the meantime?"

"Delighted," said Winn, and the whole party moved off slowly down the
terrace.

[Illustration: "MISS GRAHAME BURIED HER FACE IN HER HANDS--SHE WAS
CRYING."]

As soon as they were out of earshot, the Count got up leisurely from
his seat. Producing his case, he lighted a cigarette. He puffed at it
reflectively.

"Twenty thousand pounds," he said, softly; "yes, Vorenbeck would
certainly give that for the Vaarg Valley plans--" he paused--"and it
happens that I am a poor man."

He moved across the room towards a heavily-curtained doorway.

"But how," he muttered, "how is it to be done?"

He pulled the drapery aside, then started back in surprise. Miss
Grahame was standing in the space between the curtains and the door. In
one hand she was holding a book.

He looked at her suspiciously. He noticed that the door was closed
behind her. How long had she been there? What had she heard?

She returned his gaze almost defiantly.

"I came to replace this book," she said, simply, then stepped forward.

He bowed to her in silence, and passed out of the room. She stood for a
moment with her eyes fixed on the door through which he had
disappeared.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "if I could only warn him!"

She stood for some minutes staring absently out of the window. Suddenly
the sound of voices caught her ear, and she turned her head. She drew
back quickly behind the curtain, as round the corner of the terrace
Lady Dorothy appeared with Winn. He was smiling, and she was laughing
happily into his face. It would have been difficult to picture a more
perfect pair.

Olive Grahame stood for a few moments immovable, her eyes fixed on
Winn. Then, as they came to within a few feet of the library window,
she turned with a quick movement and hurried away. She made her way
upstairs, and, gaining her room, shut the door. On the opposite side by
the window stood a table, on which was an old-fashioned leather-covered
desk. She crossed to this, and, unlocking it, began to turn over some
papers. Presently she came upon a photograph. She held this before her
and gazed at it steadily for some seconds. Suddenly it dropped from her
grasp, and, sinking into a chair by the table, she leant forward and
buried her face between her hands. Miss Grahame was crying.

       *       *       *       *       *

The day passed pleasantly enough for Earl Kenwell's guests. They
lunched, played tennis, drove, and after dinner there had been some
music. Lady Dorothy sang, and Julia Crofton whistled--she was an
accomplished amateur _siffleuse_. The ladies having retired, Lord
Bobbie volunteered to play billiards with the Count. After one game,
however, Bobbie, who had been yawning a good deal, remarked that he was
extremely tired, and suggested that they should go to bed. The Count
assented, and together they made their way upstairs.

Winn and the Earl had repaired to the latter's study with the intention
of talking business. For an hour they discussed the Vaarg Valley scheme
in all its bearings.

"Well, we have done everything we can," said the Earl, as a concluding
remark, "the rest we must leave to Providence."

There was silence for a few moments. Winn puffed at his cigar, his eyes
idly following the rings of smoke. From the other side of the room the
Earl was subjecting him to a close and critical observation. He had no
son of his own; as he noted Winn's splendid proportions, the look of
indomitable resolution in his face, he felt that had he been blessed
with one, he would have wished him to be like this man.

Then he thought of his daughter, Dorothy. He was not blind, and had
been quick to observe the state of her feelings. He loved his daughter,
he liked Winn. He had given the matter his close consideration, and had
arrived at a decision. It was this decision which prompted him to speak
now. He intended to hint to Winn that his engagement with Lady Dorothy
would be entirely to his satisfaction.

"You say you will be returning to Kafanga in September?" he began.

Winn roused himself from his reverie.

"That was my intention," he replied; "but I have something to
accomplish first, something----" He paused.

The Earl had his keen eyes fixed on him.

"Forgive me, Winn," he said, quietly, "I am not asking out of sheer
curiosity, but the 'something'--is it a question of marriage?"

Winn looked straight across at the Earl.

"Yes," he said, simply.

The Earl rose from his seat and stood with his back to the mantelpiece.

"My dear Winn," he said, "I think I am right in saying that there is no
one who wishes more to see you happily married than myself." The Earl
paused. "And surely," he added, "with your reputation there should be
no difficulty in achieving this end."

Winn shook his head slowly. The Earl glanced across at him, and for a
moment their eyes met.

"Why not tell me?" said the Earl, gently.

Winn appeared to hesitate for a moment.

"You are very kind," he said at length. "It began when we were boy and
girl----" He stopped, for the Earl's cigar dropped through his fingers
to the ground, and he stooped to pick it up.

"Yes?" said the Earl, in a low tone. He was thinking of the
disappointment in store for his daughter.

"She was the daughter of a country vicar under whose care I had been
placed," continued Winn. "Then, I was suddenly thrown on my own
resources, and there came the chance of my going to South Africa. We
parted, and I vowed that I would come back to claim her.

"The day after I returned," he went on, speaking slowly, "I made my way
down to the old place. I found the vicar dead--and she gone. I have
searched everywhere, but can find no trace of her."

He rose to his feet.

"But I shall find her, I shall find her!" he said, and his voice had
the same confident ring as when he uttered the words that night at
Winchmere.

The Earl did not speak for a moment or so; then he stepped forward and
held out his hand.

"I sincerely hope you will," he said; "if ever a man deserved a good
wife, you are he."

[Illustration: THE COUNT HELD A HEAVY STICK IN HIS HAND, BUT THE WALLET
SLIPPED TO THE GROUND.]

Winn grasped the proffered hand.

"Thank you," he replied, simply.

"By Jove," continued the Earl, with a glance at the clock, "I didn't
notice that it was so late! Shall we be going to bed?"

Winn had turned to the window and drawn aside the curtains. He passed a
hand restlessly over his forehead.

"I think, if you don't mind, I will smoke a last cigar on the terrace.
I don't feel sleepy, and the air will do me good. But please go on
yourself. I know my way about perfectly."

The Earl demurred.

"I insist," said Winn, smilingly. "If you do not go, I shall have to
give up my stroll."

"Well, if you're determined, that settles it," said the Earl, with a
good-humoured laugh. "I have my recollections of the firmness of your
decisions. Good-night."

Left alone, Winn lighted another cigar, then unfastened the French
windows and stepped on to the terrace. He walked to the end, and stood
at the top of the steps leading to the front entrance. He descended
these, and started to stroll down the avenue of trees that stretched
for half a mile to the park gates.

He did not know that from a window he was being watched by a pair of
eyes--eyes that were shining with the eagerness that proclaims but one
feeling in a woman. Olive Grahame, fully dressed--she had not the
slightest inclination for sleep--was sitting at an open window, her
gaze riveted on the tall figure that was fast disappearing from her
view. Suddenly she gave a slight start, then strained eagerly forward.
There was a brilliant moon, and across a small piece of turf she had
seen a dark shadow move quickly. She looked intently. There was no
mistake. She saw the shadow move again, then finally vanish into the
blackness of the trees.

She got up quickly, her hand trembling with excitement. Someone was
following Winn, hiding from him behind the trees! She stood for a
moment in the middle of the room, thinking. One fact was clear before
her: Alan Winn was in danger, and she was the only person who knew of
it. Without a second's hesitation, she crossed her room, opened the
door, and crept along the passage until she reached a staircase. She
was well acquainted with the house, and knew a way by which she could
gain the terrace. She reached the library, and found the window half
open. Someone else had evidently used this means of exit. She guessed
who.

In another minute, she had crossed the terrace, run down the steps, and
was speeding quickly down the avenue. She had gone barely a dozen paces
when her eye caught sight of a tiny patch of white ahead of her. It
grew bigger, and she realised that it was coming towards her. A few
yards more and she almost ran into the arms of the Count. He was in
evening dress, and in one hand held a short, heavy-looking stick. With
the other he was attempting to slip something into his pocket as he
ran. As he met Olive, he drew back with a nervous start, and it slipped
through his fingers to the ground. She pounced on it; it was a leather
wallet.

Recovering from his surprise, he caught hold of her wrist. His face
grew livid with rage.

"Give that to me, you little fool," he said, breathing heavily.

"What have you done to Mr. Winn?" she panted; "tell me, else I'll
scream for help."

He glared at her savagely. Then, letting go her wrist, he drew back a
step and raised the stick, as if about to strike her.

"Will you give that----?" he began, threateningly, then broke off with
an oath.

Olive had seen her opportunity, and darted off down the avenue. He did
not dare to follow her. She ran on for some fifty yards, then caught
sight of a dark heap lying on the ground. In a moment she was kneeling
by his side, peering eagerly into his face.

Winn uttered a groan, then slowly opened his eyes. His head was tough,
and it took a heavier blow than the one which the Count had dealt him
to effectually lay him low.

"Where am I?" he said, in a dazed tone, raising himself on one elbow.
His hand flew to his pocket. "The wallet?" he cried.

She pressed it into his hand. He clasped it, and his eyes travelled up
to her face. For a moment he stared at her in absolute wonderment.

"Olive!" he gasped, "is it really you, my darling?"

She was trembling, but looked into his face with smiling eyes.

"Really me," she said.

Slowly and unsteadily he rose to his feet.

"It is bewildering," he said. "I am knocked on the head in some
mysterious fashion, and the plans are stolen. I regain consciousness,
and find you by my side with the wallet. What does it all mean?"

She told him what had happened.

"Wonderful!" he cried at the conclusion, catching hold of her hand, "to
think that you, of all people, should come to my aid in this fashion!
Do you know, Olive, I have thought of you every day during the last
eight years; and now----" He paused and looked into her face.

"Ah! now," she said, falteringly, "our positions are so different.
Remember, I am only a gov----"

"You are the woman I love," he interrupted; "and do you think I can let
you go--after this? Olive, you cannot--you must not ask it of me! My
dearest, you----?"

He stopped and looked into her eyes for the answer. Then, satisfied by
what he saw there, he drew her gently to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the breakfast table the next morning there was one absentee. The
Count had been suddenly called away and had left by the early train.

"Extraordinary!" remarked Bobbie Scaife. "I wonder what was the
reason?" he added, looking across at Winn.

Winn gave no reply. His thoughts at that moment were centred on a young
person who, in the schoolroom, was continuing her lesson with Master
Jim.

Jim had found something wanting in his lesson that morning. He looked
up at his governess with a troubled expression.

"You don't seem to be thinking about my jogruffy at all, Miss Grahame,"
he said, at last, in rather an aggrieved tone.

Jim was a keen observer. Her thoughts had been far away from the
consideration of the natural products of Canada. She turned to him now
with a smile.

"We'll have to make up for it to-morrow, dear," she said. "See, it is
your time for going out."

[Illustration: AN AWKWARD MOMENT--WINN TELLS LADY DOROTHY THAT OLIVE IS
TO BE HIS WIFE.]

A few moments afterwards a servant appeared and took charge of the
children.

As the door closed behind them, Olive Grahame strolled to the window
and looked out across the park. The sun was shining and everything was
tinged with its gold.

"It's wonderful," she murmured, "after all these years!"

There was a tap at the door. She turned and saw Earl Kenwell entering
the room; with him was Winn.

The Earl crossed to the window and held out his hand.

"Miss Grahame," he said, with a smile, "will you please accept my
congratulations? My friend Winn has been telling me how he has been
hunting the country for you, and found you at last under my roof. He
has also told me how you pluckily saved the Vaarg Valley plans from our
rivals; and after hearing the story, I took the liberty of telling
_him_ that he is an exceptionally lucky man to have gained such a woman
for his wife."

"You are very kind," murmured Olive, with a blush.

The Earl pushed open the French windows and led the way on to the
terrace. Winn linked his arm within Olive's and followed.

"If ever I meet that scoundrel Morlot," remarked the Earl, "I'll----"

There was a rustle of a dress on the terrace, and a second afterwards
Lady Dorothy appeared in view. The Earl shot a half-nervous glance at
Winn, then turned to meet his daughter.

"Dolly," he said, and his voice was more affectionate than usual, "we
have some surprising news for you."

Lady Dorothy had come to a sudden stop, and her eyes were fixed on
Olive and Winn, whose arms were still linked.

"It appears," continued the Earl, and his voice grew even softer, "that
Miss Grahame and Mr. Winn are old friends--very old friends--" he
paused awkwardly, "that is, they knew one another before he went to
Africa." Again the Earl paused.

Lady Dorothy was still standing with her gaze riveted on the pair. She
saw the whole affair at a glance, and her heart seemed to grow cold
within her.

"Yes, Lady Dorothy," said Winn, coming to the Earl's rescue, "Olive and
I have loved one another for ten years, although separated most of the
time. We have met again, and she has promised to be my wife."

There was a moment's dead silence. Olive glanced up timidly, and her
gaze met that of Lady Dorothy. Both women knew that the other loved
Alan Winn; but one counted her love by years, the other by days. One
had dreamed, hoped, counted on being his wife, and she had lost. The
other knew all this, and her heart went out in sympathy to her rival.

Lady Dorothy looked at the pretty flushed face; the grey eyes seemed
almost pleading in their wistfulness. She felt she could not hate this
girl. With a sudden movement she stepped forward and held out her
hands. Olive grasped them eagerly.

"I hope," said Lady Dorothy, and her voice had a slight tremor in
it--"I hope you'll be very, very happy."

Then she released her hold of Olive, and, without another word, hurried
away. The Earl turned his head and watched his daughter disappear.
There was a suspicious moisture about his eyes as he faced Winn again.

"You two would perhaps like to be alone," he said, forcing a smile, "so
I'll wish you _au revoir_ for the present," and he too hastened away.

The pair stood silent for a moment. Then she touched him lightly on the
arm. He bent his head and looked at her inquiringly.

"What is it, dearest?" he asked.

"I hope," she said, softly, "that some day she will marry someone
worthy of her--someone whom she will love as much--" she paused, and
looked into his face--"as much as I love you."

He pressed her gently to him and kissed her lips.

"I hope so, too," he said; "she is a good woman."

Events happened as they wished; for, a year later, the engagement of
Lady Dorothy to Lord Scaife was announced.

"Awfully glad, old chap," remarked Julia Crofton, as she tendered her
congratulations; "you didn't go particularly strong at the start, but
you picked up splendidly at the finish. I didn't think you had it in
you," she added, candidly.

"Oh," replied Bobbie, with a happy laugh, "as with those successful
fellows from South Africa, it's the 'grit' that tells."




[Illustration: PACKING TEA FOR EXPORT.
_Bourne & Shepherd Photo, India_]

THE HOME OF FOUR O'CLOCK TEA.

SOME GOSSIP NOT OFTEN HEARD.


Of the millions of people who drink tea, very few seem to know how it
is grown or manufactured.

They would hardly believe that there are just on 800,000 acres of land
planted under tea in India and Ceylon, employing over one million
people--all British subjects. Just imagine employing a fifth of the
population of London for the production of one article! Then, again,
look at the thousands of people who are employed in the tea trade at
home--merchants, dealers, brokers--all dependent on this one article of
consumption for their bread-and-butter!

And yet hardly ten per cent. of these know anything about tea
manufacture, or have ever given a thought to the one million of people
employed in its production.

The duty paid to the Customs during the past twelve months on Indian
and Ceylon tea amounted to £3,805,935, to say nothing of the revenue
accruing to the Indian and Ceylon Governments in taxes and a hundred
and one little charges, all helping to swell the coffers of State, and
enabling hundreds of thousands of people to maintain a living.

[Illustration: TURNING THE LEAVES FOR FERMENTATION.
_Bourne & Shepherd,_
_Photo, India_]

Surely all these things should induce the patriotic British public to
drink only British-grown tea, grown as it were by their own people--for
are not India and Ceylon British? and are not the people of Great
Britain and India and Ceylon one, under one Sovereign?

The plucking of the tea plant generally commences about the middle of
March, and goes on till the end of November, except in Ceylon, where it
goes on more or less throughout the twelve months, there being no cold
weather to check the "flush" and allow the bushes to lie dormant.

A tea bush is not considered fully ripe for plucking until about five
years of age, though a little "tipping" is done on low-lying gardens
during the third and fourth years. It is generally carried on by the
coolie women and children; the former are rapid and expert workers, and
are paid so much for every pound of green leaf plucked. As the leaves
are plucked they are thrown into baskets, the contents of which are
taken to the factory twice a day for weighing.

There are many ideas as to how plucking should be carried out, and how
many leaves should be taken off, but the most general system is to
pluck two leaves and a bud, not separately but together.

[Illustration: PICKERS HAVING THEIR TEA LEAVES WEIGHED.
_Bourne & Shepherd Photo, India_]

Some planters, who prefer quantity to quality, pluck the half or whole
of the third leaf as well.

It must be thoroughly understood that all the leaves are not "ripped"
off the bushes, but only the young shoots. It is a very delicate
operation, requiring great care and skill, and is usually carried out
under the eye of the assistant manager.

It is usual to get round a plantation once in six to eight days, and
woe be to him who cannot cope with the leaf, or lets it run away from
him, as it will show the result both in the dry leaf and liquor.

The leaf, when plucked, is brought into the factory, weighed, and put
through the following process of manufacture. The first process is
called withering. The leaf is thinly spread on wire meshing, stretched
from end to end of the loft or withering-house, the object being to
allow a certain percentage of moisture to evaporate, and to get the
leaf into a pliable condition for rolling, so that it will not break
during this process. Properly withered leaf should be as flexible as a
soft kid glove.

Then comes the rolling, the object of which is to break the cells of
the leaf one into the other, so as to free the juice and to give a
"twist" or "roll" to the leaf. Care has to be taken that too much juice
is not expressed, which would be detrimental to the liquor when in the
household pot.

The old and dirty method of rolling by hand, which is still carried out
by our Chinese friends, is quite extinct in India and Ceylon, where
rolling machines or tables are used.

The religion of the natives of India compels them to be cleaner in
their habits than the Chinese, so it would not matter how much they
handled the leaf.

[Illustration: HOW THE LEAVES ARE WITHERED.
_Bourne & Shepherd Photo, India_]

The next process through which the unfortunate tea leaf has to go, and
which is considered by many planters as the most critical in the whole
manufacture, is fermentation, as good leaf can easily be spoiled.

After coming out of the rollers, the leaf is taken into a separate
room, generally built off the factory, away from the heat, as it is
essential to keep the fermenting leaf cool and moist. It is then spread
in little heaps on the floor or trays, having to be constantly turned
over to keep cool. It soon begins to oxidise, and change from a bright
green to a bright coppery colour, the young leaves being as bright as a
new penny.

[Illustration: PLUCKING THE TEA LEAVES.
_Bourne & Shepherd_
_Photo, India_]

Some planters sift these young leaves from the coarse directly after
the rolling, so as to try and get a more even colour, but it is a most
difficult task, as the leaves are sticky and cling together. It is
usual, as soon as the desired copper colour is obtained, to give the
leaves another roll just before firing.

The object to be obtained in the next process--firing--is to remove all
the moisture, without losing any of the constituents which add to the
commercial value of the tea. Most factories are equipped with modern
firing machines, and these are of many kinds. Heated air drawn over the
leaf by revolving fans is the method of most machines. The temperature
used is different on nearly every estate, according to the ideas of the
planters. Some men give two firings. First the leaf is fired 70% dry at
a certain temperature, and then taken to another machine, where the
final firing takes place.

Then comes the sorting of the dry leaf into the various grades, the
names of which are pretty well known to most people, _i.e._ Pekoe, P.
Souchong, etc. This is done, as the photograph shows, by revolving flat
sieves of varying sizes, after which it is refired, weighed, and packed
ready for despatch to market. It will be seen that the manufacture of
tea is somewhat of an art, requiring all the skill of the planter. He
sometimes has to turn out two or three times a night to see that
nothing is overlooked. Climatic influence plays an important part both
in the quality of leaf and during manufacture. Sometimes it is
impossible to get your leaf to wither and ferment, flirt with it as you
will; at others the change is so rapid that it is almost impossible to
cope with it. Nothing is so disappointing as the manufacture of tea,
for, having done all in your power, and watched each process carefully
with untiring energy, under most unfavourable circumstances, you
possibly receive a broker's report on the samples, with a polite letter
from your agent telling you that the tea is unsatisfactory.

[Illustration: SORTING THE LEAVES ACCORDING TO QUALITY.]

Our photographs are by Bourne and Shepherd, Calcutta.

[Illustration: A VERY CLOSE FINISH.
_Photo by C. M. Ward, Edinburgh_]




STATISTICS GONE MAD.

WITH APOLOGIES TO THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY AND MR. HOLT SCHOOLING.

BY J. G. GRANT.

_Illustrated by the Author's diagrams._


Of late years our magazines have been overrun by the statistical fiend,
and I propose to show how the thing is done.

I shall have the honour of laying before the reader a few startling
statistics of facts and phenomena discovered by myself. These
discoveries might have been made by anybody who would take the trouble,
and the great point about them is what Mr. Jerome terms their hopeless
veracity.

But let me plunge at once _in medias res_; and let me mention, before
we proceed further, that my statistics will be illustrated by
scientific diagrams, invented by myself without the assistance of any
man, woman, or child whatsoever.

Any ordinary intelligent person must have observed that human beings
differ in many things, and especially in personal appearance. This is
an absolute fact. And here is a terrible field for the fiend
aforementioned. I begin at once, and I herewith give a diagram, which I
am able to produce after years of observation. The number of dots
inside the circle in Fig. 1 represents, with great accuracy, the number
of men--and women, for that matter--in every hundred, who are born
bald. In order to spare the reader the trouble of counting the dots, I
have counted them myself, and find there are one hundred. The reader
can count them in Fig. 2 for himself, without any undue strain. This
figure represents the percentage of men with green whiskers.

[Illustration: FIG. 1. THESE 100 DOTS SHOW HOW MANY PEOPLE PER CENT.
ARE BORN BALD.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2. PERCENTAGE OF MEN WITH GREEN WHISKERS.]

Talking of hair reminds me, and so in Fig. 3 I give another diagram,
which shows at a glance the number per cent, of red-headed men who are
thoroughly convinced that their hair--if any--is any colour under the
sun _except_ red. I have counted the crosses in the hundred squares,
and find there are ninety-eight; the ninety-ninth man is colour-blind
as a rule, and the hundredth hasn't got any hair; so neither cares a
rap.

[Illustration: FIG. 3 SHOWS THE NUMBER PER CENT. OF RED-HEADED MEN WHO
DENY THE RIGHT COLOUR OF THEIR HAIR.]

From hair we pass, by an easy transition, to the average monthly
magazine. Let us put down its average composition diagramatically. Let
us represent by the first cube the size of the paper, the whole paper,
and nothing but the paper. The other three cubes explain themselves and
that, by the way, is what scientific diagrams are sometimes not very
guilty of.

[Illustration: FIG 4. THE AVERAGE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

The size
of its paper.

The comparative bulk
of its advertisements.

The amount
of its fiction.

Its
maximum
of
truth.
]

Do any of you ever go to smoking concerts? Yes? Very well, you will
appreciate the next scientific diagram for its mathematical exactness.
I have a friend called Smith--he spells it Smythe, but that's
nothing--and the diagram refers to certain events which (as the
descriptive reporter would say) sometimes transpire.

Fig. 5 A shows the number of keyholes observed in the door by Smith
(or Smythe) as he is about to operate with his latch-key on returning
home from business at 5 p.m. Fig. 5 B shows the number he sometimes
sees when he returns from his club about 11.30 p.m. As a rule he
attempts, on this occasion, with great perseverance to put the right
key in the wrong hole, or _vice versá_. Fig. 5 C shows the number he
doesn't see when he returns home even later than 11.30 p.m.

[Illustration: THE TRAGEDY OF A KEYHOLE.

Fig. 5 represents the number of keyholes seen by Smythe in the same
door at different times of the day and night.]

Let us change the subject, my friends, as it must be very painful to
you to read such things about my poor friend Smith (or Smythe). I can
easily change it--it is all the same to me. I will now give you an
"easy one"--so easy that it can be comprehended by a person of the
meanest intelligence. Fig. 6 merely shows in a simple and unobtrusive
manner how many beans make five. There is no answer to this.

We may now attempt something more difficult and elaborate. In point of
fact, let us proceed to "trace a curve," as we say in the differential
and integral trigonometry. The curve explains itself, and to those who
are not acquainted with the Higher Mathematics the diagram may seem a
bit mixed; but the same may be said of most things in this wicked
world.

It is evident that diagrams such as Fig. 7 might be manufactured _ad
infinitum_, also _ad nauseam_.

At this stage of the proceedings I may say that I challenge and defy
the whole world to controvert, deny, or disprove any one of my
statistics.

But, really, if anyone has any faculty for statistic-mongering, and
wishes to exercise that faculty, let me cordially recommend him to try
his hand on statistics taken from astronomy, and, if he emerges
scatheless from the fray, he may thank his stars (no pun intended).

He might, for example, calculate how long a London Chatham and Dover
train would take to travel from Capella to the Great Bear, supposing it
ran(!) day and night. Or again, he might reckon how long it would take
an average bargee to circumnavigate the canals of Mars.

[Illustration: FIG. 6 ACCURATELY TELLS HOW MANY BEANS MAKE FIVE.]

Or yet again he might work out how many threepenny pieces it would
require piled one above the other to reach from Whitechapel to the
Moon.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.]

                                          0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
Number of hams in Tottenham Court Road       X
George Washington's "Record"              X
Number of Graces                                   X
Number of "Macs"                                X
Number of fingers on the human hand                      X
Total number in a half-dozen                                X
Number of lives possessed by a cat                                   X
Number in an octave                                               X
Number of wet days in a week                                   X
Number of sides to a square                            X


Scientific diagrams of such things as these would be extremely
interesting, and nearly as useful as those of the present article.




[Illustration: "IT WAS ALL I COULD DO TO GUARD MYSELF FROM THE FURIOUS
LUNGES OF THE COUNT."]

"A PRINCESS IN GREEN AND TAN."

THE STORY OF A BLOOMSBURY SENSATION.

BY ARTHUR PRESTON.

_Illustrated by A. Rackham._


Never did my prospects seem worse or more gloomy than in the winter of
188-.

I had returned to England from a five years' sojourn in the more
unsettled parts of British Columbia, after an unsuccessful pursuit of
fortune in that land of gold, mountains, and timber. It was at
Felixstowe--that charming watering-place, where my people then had a
house--that I first came into relation with those who were afterwards
to exercise such influences for good or evil on my life.

I was walking round the place renewing my acquaintance with the English
life, when I was confronted with the most beautiful face I have ever
seen. It belonged to a young girl of eighteen or nineteen, quietly
dressed in a green walking-skirt and tan jacket, while her blue eyes
looked out from under a mass of golden hair, in turn surmounted by a
sailor hat.

As her eyes for a moment met mine, I was conscious of that magnetic
thrill which I was told afterwards my mistress exercised on all those
with whom she came in contact. She was accompanied by a lady somewhat
older than herself, and whom, from her likeness, I mentally set down as
being, if not her sister, at any rate her near relative. As soon as I
conveniently could, I turned round and followed them, and noticed them
enter a house which--as a perusal of the Felixstowe visitors' list,
hastily bought and perused, informed me--was at present occupied by Mr.
and Mrs. Delaine.

I was both astonished and delighted at this, as this Mrs. Delaine was a
person upon whom my mother had by mutual friends been asked to call.

That very afternoon, I determined, should obtain for me at least a
bowing acquaintance with her. Alas for my dreams! Our ring at the bell
produced a man-servant, who stated that Mrs. Delaine was away from
home, and he did not know when she would return. From then on I haunted
the walks about Felixstowe, meeting my divinity over and over again,
but never once could I see that she betrayed the least knowledge that
these frequent momentary meetings were anything but the results of
accident.

At last a day came when I no longer saw her. In vain I walked up and
down the promenade and through the town. Felixstowe was full indeed,
but to me it was empty, for the golden hair, the blue eyes, the tan
jacket, and the green skirt no longer greeted my longing and expectant
gaze.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was in Piccadilly--that world in miniature, and the scene of so many
strange occurrences--that the first act of the drama took place, of
which the foregoing was merely the prelude.

I was strolling down the thoroughfare, nearly a month after the
disappearance of my lady (for so I called her to myself), and thinking,
as indeed I always was, of her, when my own immediate affairs and
embarrassments did not fill my mind, when I met her face to face. The
thing was at once so natural and at the same time so coincident with my
own thoughts, that I could do little more than stare blankly after her.

It was nearly noon, and the well-dressed crowd jostled and pushed me as
I stood there. Mechanically I turned to follow after her, when she was
joined by the lady who had been with her at Felixstowe, and the two,
hailing a hansom, were driven away rapidly, leaving me staring stupidly
after the fast disappearing vehicle.

As I was retracing my steps I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning, I
perceived a tall man of about thirty-five or forty years of age, his
keen grey eyes surmounted by heavy black eyebrows and lashes, while a
big moustache almost hid his firm mouth, and drooped down to his heavy
square chin.

"You know that lady?" he queried, more with the air of stating a fact
than of asking a question.

"I know that I am not in the habit of answering lunatics, or
impertinent strangers," I answered, hotly--for my temper is hasty, and
the man's manner was abrupt.

"Nevertheless, you do know her," he answered, doggedly.

[Illustration: A PRINCESS IN GREEN AND TAN.]

I turned, leaving the man there, and walked into Sackville Street. I
had not gone twenty yards, when I heard his hurrying step behind me.

"She is in danger, Mr. Darcy," he hissed into my ear.

This time I turned round, amazed at the man's knowledge of my name.

"And she needs help," he said, looking me full in the face.

"You know my name," was all I could say, stupidly.

"It is my business to know things," he said, impatiently; "but will you
help her?" he added.

"Help whom, man?" I replied, testily.

"The lady who was at Felixstowe, and ten minutes ago got into a cab,"
he answered.

"But there were two," I said.

"Only one needs help," he replied, grimly; "the other----" He broke off
abruptly. "But come to my rooms where we can talk without
interruption," he added.

I was so amazed that I followed the man unquestioningly to a quiet
turning off Burlington Street.

"Now," he said, when he had waved me to a chair and seated
himself--"now we can talk freely."

"You ask for my help," I said, "and on behalf of some lady who is in
danger. You talk in riddles, man; I----"

"Is it possible you do not know who she is?" he interrupted.

"No," I said, "I do not, nor do I know you either. All I know of the
lady I can tell you in a few words," and then and there I told him of
my meeting her at Felixstowe, my call at the house, her disappearance,
and my recognition of her again in Piccadilly, which he himself had
witnessed. "But I have never spoken to her," I concluded.

"But of the lady with her?" he interrupted eagerly, "the lady who met
her in the street, and accompanied her in the hansom--was she there
all the time?"

"The lady with her?" I repeated, slowly. "I hardly noticed her." And in
very truth I had indeed hardly done so, having no eyes for anyone but
my lady, and beyond the fact that she was pretty (as indeed she must
needs be to so closely resemble my lady) I had not paid any attention
to her. "There was a lady closely resembling her with her all the
time," I continued, "and at one time another woman, and once a man."

"Dark, and with a scar on one cheek?" interposed my companion.

"Yes," I answered, slowly, for now he mentioned it I clearly recalled
noticing a scar on the fellow's cheek.

My companion mused for a few seconds, then--

"I had better give you the whole story," he said, and commenced as
follows:--

"My name is Von Bieberstein, at one time equerry to Her Serene Highness
the Princess Elsa, Hereditary Princess of Schwannenwald, but I was
dismissed from her service through the machinations and false
representations of her enemies and mine, though God knows Her Highness
has no truer servant than I.

"She is the younger of the two ladies you have seen; the elder is Her
Highness's first cousin, the Grand Duchess Hedwig, also of
Schwannenwald, and heir after her cousin in the direct line to the
throne of Schwannenwald. She is an ambitious woman, and a fiend
incarnate, and as wicked as she is beautiful. The man with the scar was
her equerry, Von Zahn, and the two combined are as unscrupulous and as
dangerous a couple as you could find."

[Illustration: "'SHE IS IN DANGER,' HE HISSED."]

"But, man," I broke in, "we are in London, and in the nineteenth
century. You cannot imagine Her Highness's life to be in danger."

"No, I don't," he answered, grimly, "I _know_ it. Do you suppose crowns
are less valuable now than in the seventeenth century, or that when a
throne is at stake our boasted civilisation does not peel off as easily
as an old glove? It was a glimmering of this plot that cost me my
place, and almost my life."

As he spoke he bared his chest, and showed me the small round white
scar of a bullet wound. "Fired, if not by the Grand Duchess's finger,
at least by her direction," he said, with a grim smile. "But the
question is, will you help me?"

"I am a total stranger to you," I commenced, "and----"

"The affair at Eagle's Nest is not unknown even in Schwannenwald," he
said, with a smile.

I started. The affair to which he alluded had happened during my third
year in British Columbia, when a party of three white men (of which I
was one) and a lady had been surrounded in a log cabin by hostile
Indians. I was lucky enough at some little risk to escort the lady to a
place of safety.

Von Bieberstein rang, and ordered his man to bring up a bottle of
champagne and glasses.

"I have a health to give you," he said; "you can wait, John," he added
to the man. When the glasses were filled, Von Bieberstein rose to his
feet.

"To the health of Her Serene Highness the Princess Elsa," said he.

"And confusion to her enemies. May she never lack a plain English
gentleman to do her bidding for the sake of his lady and her own bonny
face!" I added, ecstatically.

Von Bieberstein looked at me for a moment, then--

"Spoken like the man of Eagle's Nest. Can you use a sword?" he said.

"I studied under Andretti at Milan in '84," I said, "but----"

"Let us try," he said, briefly, reaching a couple of foils from a
corner.

We fought for some few minutes, when with a quick movement he disarmed
me with a wrench.

"You are well enough," he said. "Nay, do not look so downfallen, man."
He smiled, noticing my foolish look. "It was but a trick of the wrist,
and better men than you have deemed it no shame for Von Bieberstein to
disarm them. Now, listen," he continued, laying aside his foil.
"To-night the Duchess Hedwig holds a council of the chief of her
supporters in the house she and her sister the Princess have taken in
Great Coram Square, Bloomsbury. The council will be held after the
Princess Elsa has retired to her own apartments in a different wing of
the house. It is there I must see her, and lay such proof of the plot
before her as will persuade her to fly. You, for your part, will be an
unobserved observer of the Duchess's council, for the double purpose of
identifying the persons present, and of guarding me against possible
interruption."

"But of the danger to the Princess," I began. "Is she not----"

"The fact of her being at liberty to-day is an indication that no
immediate villainy is contemplated," broke in my companion.

"But how in the world can she be harmed here in London?" I exclaimed.
"She cannot be poisoned or shot, without investigation exposing the
whole dastardly plot."

"A very different medium will be employed," he replied. "I have good
reason for believing that dynamite----"

"Dynamite!" I exclaimed, incredulously.

"Ay, dynamite, man!" he replied, grimly. "You have already told me we
are not in the seventeenth century, and in a modern crime the
perpetrators will undoubtedly use modern weapons."

"But how, man?" I commenced, by no means convinced.

"There are always the Anarchists," said my companion, "and London,
thanks to the British Government, is known to be a hot-bed of them. Her
Highness has several times received threatening letters, and for the
rest the thing is easy. Come," he said, smiling, "you are on her side
now, and she sorely needs help. Meet me in Great Coram Square to-night
at ten, and bring a sword. A long cloak and a hansom will hide the
incongruity of the weapon in modern London. There may be use for it,
and for obvious reasons they will not use firearms."

"But----" I began, and paused, for I had a natural reluctance to
confess to this comparative stranger that the state of my purse
precluded the purchasing of swords and the taking of hansoms.

"Ah!" he said, smiling, and as usual divining my thoughts with great
perspicacity. "Is that how it is? Well, thank God, Schwannenwald can
always be sure that those that rally to her banner can at any rate go
properly equipped to the fight. And a brave man is none the worse when
he looks on his last florin, or takes the gold which he has earned," he
said, pressing a roll of notes on me.

"But I have not earned it," I objected.

"At any rate I think I can promise that before to-morrow morning you
will have done so." He smiled, and with a hearty grip of the hand he
waved me to the door. "To-night at ten," he said.

After a light meal I went out to make my preparations. A light rain was
falling as my hansom made its way through the crowded streets to the
quieter parts of Bloomsbury. About a hundred yards from my destination
I dismissed my cab, and walked to the square, which, owing to the rain
and the hour, was completely deserted. It was a gloomy spot, and Von
Bieberstein was nowhere to be seen. As I strolled up and down I
wondered which house was our destination. A light touch on the arm
recalled me, and turning I saw Von Bieberstein.

"I have a carriage at the corner waiting," he said, "and an hour, if
all goes well, should see the Princess on her way to safety. That is
the house yonder," he said, pointing to a gloomy-looking house on the
opposite side of the square, standing between two others whose boards
proclaimed them to be let. The house might have been as deserted as its
fellows had it not been for a faint light which gleamed through the
glass at the top of the front door. The rest of the house was in
darkness.

"The apartments in use are at the back of the house," said Von
Bieberstein at my elbow.

"How are we to get in?" I whispered.

"I have arranged all that," he said, softly. "One of Her Highness's
women has left a basement window open. We shall make our way down the
area, enter the window, and ascend the back stairs till we stand inside
that front door. You will then make your way up the main staircase till
you come to a passage; proceeding along this, you will come to a door
on the right-hand side. Enter this, and you will see what you have to
do.

"If in an hour you hear no alarm, make your way out as you came; but if
you are attacked, guard the door you entered by until I can come to you
or send assistance. There," he said, with a sigh, for he was no great
lover of long speeches, "that is all, and should anything happen to
us--well, good-bye, and remember Eagle's Nest"--this with a smile. He
gave me a hearty grip of the hand, and we made our way towards the
house.

Every thing came about as Von Bieberstein had said. Leaving our cloaks
in the area, and with naked swords in our hands, we entered the window,
and in a few minutes stood inside the door, the exterior of which I had
seen from the square. A confused murmur came from above us, and a dim
light hung from a chain above our heads. Von Bieberstein pointed with
his sword to the staircase before us, and with a nod I made my way
towards it, holding my sword tightly in my hand. It was thickly
carpeted, and my ascent was made without noise, and I soon found myself
in the passage mentioned.

The voices grew more distinct as I proceeded, until at last, when I
reached the door on the right, I could hear a word here and there. The
door itself was ajar, but no glimmer of light made its way out, so with
my heart in my mouth I quietly pushed it open and entered. I found
myself in a long narrow room with one window heavily curtained at one
end, but my attention was riveted to what I saw immediately before me.
Two heavy curtains, closely drawn together with here and there a bright
chink of light penetrating where they met, divided the room I was in
from a larger one.

Cautiously advancing towards these, I managed by applying my eye to one
of the chinks to see into the room. Round a table, brilliantly lighted
by a cluster of electric lights immediately above it, were seated half
a dozen men in court dress and wearing swords; at the head of the table
and on a seat slightly higher than the others was seated a lady, whom I
at once recognised as the companion of my lady of Felixstowe. She was
in evening dress, and a coronet of diamonds surrounded her head. She
wore several sparkling orders, prominent among which I recognised the
White Eagle of the reigning house of Schwannenwald. I looked through my
chink long and curiously at her.

[Illustration: "'TO THE HEALTH OF HER SERENE HIGHNESS,' SAID HE."]

Standing beside her chair was the equerry Von Zahn, who at that moment
was speaking.

"I think we are all agreed, gentlemen," he was saying, "that in the
troublous times that must succeed the lamented demise of His present
Majesty, the throne of Schwannenwald will have need of a clear head and
a firm ruler. Beauty is of course to be respected, but the two do not
always go together. When they are united"--and here he bowed with
respect to the Duchess--"I for my part see no reason to look further."

His words seemed to have the assent of the men at the table, with the
exception of one man who seemed about to speak. But the equerry,
evidently divining this, went on quickly.

"Her Serene Highness," he said, "who has already deigned to give us
many tokens that our humble counsels are not altogether unappreciated
by her, has chosen to-night for a final attestation of this, and
proposes to confer on the gentlemen here present the Royal Order of the
Garter of Schwannenwald. Allow me, gentlemen, to be the first to
congratulate you on this honour."

With this, he stepped to a side table and returned with a jeweller's
box and a small velvet cushion, the former of which he handed to the
Duchess. The Duchess placed her hand in the box and laid one of the
glittering orders on the cushion, which the equerry immediately bore
round to the first recipient, who, rising, fell on his knee at the
Duchess's chair, murmuring his thanks and devotion as he kissed her
hand. The same thing happened until it came to the turn of the man who
had been inclined to speak at the first. Then I noticed a shade cross
the Duchess's face, and--

"How is this, sir?" she cried angrily to the equerry. "Is Count
Heindrich to receive no order, or is this some ill-timed pleasantry on
your part?" and she held up the empty box.

"Your Highness misjudges me," answered the equerry; "the mistake is
evidently a stupid one of the jeweller's, and if I have your Highness's
permission, and that of Count Heindrich,"--and he glanced towards that
gentleman, who was now scowling freely--"I will to-morrow----"

"Nay, if that be all," broke in the Duchess, gaily, "I think I can
rectify it, at any rate for the time," and she rose from her seat and
disappeared behind a large screen. A moment later she reappeared,
holding something in her hand.

"After all, it is the giver, not the gift," she said, advancing with a
blush to Count Heindrich, "and 'twas how the order originated," and she
handed the pretty bauble to him. It was a dainty notion, cleverly
conceived and cleverly carried out, and I could see from the flush that
mantled the heavy face of the man that he was her slave from that time.

This incident had hardly terminated, when there was a knock on a door
of the room situated beyond the council table and immediately opposite
where I stood, and the equerry hastily went out, closing the door
behind him. He re-entered almost immediately, bearing a small scrap of
paper, twisted in the form of a note, which he handed to the Duchess,
who opened and read it.

"Gentlemen," she said, "I am compelled to break up the meeting, and to
ask you to retire at once, and by the usual exit."

As soon as their footsteps had died away, the Duchess rose to her feet,
and went slowly towards the wall. As she did so, the electric light in
her room was suddenly extinguished, while mine became a blaze of light,
and at the same time the heavy curtains dividing the rooms rolled wide
apart.

The Duchess regarded me for a minute with a quiet smile, then--

"Good evening, Mr. Darcy," she said; "our poor houses seem to have an
attraction for you; but may I venture to point out that private houses
in Bloomsbury are not such public property as the walks at Felixstowe.
Or perhaps," she went on, before I could open my mouth, "another trusty
sword has come to range itself under my banner," and she pointed at my
weapon.

I shook my head impatiently. "Your Highness knows well enough why I am
here," I said, sternly.

"But that is just what Her Highness does not know," she said,
petulantly. "Can it be possible you are on the other side--on
Baby-face's side?"

"I am on the side where an English gentleman ought to be," I answered,
"on the side of justice against injustice, of trust against black
deceit, and of innocence against infamy."

"For one who does not know her, you sum up my pretty cousin's virtues
very well indeed," she cried. "That is just what she is: trustful and
innocent. Ten thousand curses on her doll's face! Fancy that baby on
the throne of Schwannenwald in such times as are coming. But she shall
never have it."

At that instant the clash of steel upon steel rang through the house.
The Duchess sprang away from me as though I had pricked her with my
sword.

"Heindrich! Von Zahn!" she called, shrilly, but only the Count rushed
into the room. "That man must not escape," she cried, as she ran
quickly past him, and out of the door beyond.

But I had no intention of attempting to escape. Now, if at all, was the
time arrived when I was to earn that roll of notes which Von
Bieberstein had forced on me that morning. I had taken up my position
at the door by which I had entered, and waited sword in hand. Nor had I
long to wait. With an oath the Count sprang towards me, and as our
swords touched I knew I had to deal with an ugly customer.

[Illustration: THE DUCHESS HELD A SECRET MEETING TO SECURE THE THRONE
FOR HERSELF.]

For some few minutes we fought in silence, and indeed it was all I
could do to guard myself from the furious lunges of the Count, and
before we had been five minutes at the game I knew the man was my
master in fence, and that if I could withstand him for as long again it
would be as much as I could do. At the same instant that I recognised
this fact, I heard Von Bieberstein's voice below.

"Darcy! Darcy!" it cried, "come on, man."

But whether he called for aid or to warn me I had no means of telling,
nor did I dare take my eyes off the Count for a second.

"I am here!" I shouted, as loud as I could, but indeed it was a poor
shout at best, as I was well-nigh winded.

At that moment, and by the same trick of fence that Von Bieberstein had
used that morning, the Count disarmed me, and my weapon flew jangling
against the wall of the room. I heard a hurrying step, a revolver was
fired, so close to my ear that it well-nigh deafened me, and the Count,
his arm drawn back for the lunge that was to finish me, fell headlong
towards me.

"Run, man, for your life," I heard Von Bieberstein's voice say, "we are
safer on a volcano than here," and he started off down the passage. I
raced after him: down the staircase I tore, and through the open door.
I heard a low roar behind me, a sheet of red flame appeared before my
eyes, and I remembered no more.

It seems that, after I had left him in the house in Great Coram Square,
he had made his way to the Princess Elsa's apartments, and after some
difficulty had persuaded her to listen to him. She was on the point of
accompanying him from the house, when Von Zahn, who may or may not have
suspected something, had come upon and immediately attacked him. He
was, however, no match for his antagonist, and Von Bieberstein had,
after two minutes, passed his sword through his body. It was the clash
of their swords that had alarmed the Duchess when she was with me.

Von Bieberstein, after hastily conducting the Princess to the awaiting
carriage, had rushed back to the house for me, arriving in the nick of
time. As he had smelt burning on his second entry into the house, and
guessed that the fuse connected with the dynamite had been lighted, his
bravery in coming to my assistance can better be imagined than
described. It was a small portion of falling masonry from the front of
the house that had knocked me senseless, and indeed nearly killed me.

The Princess returned safely to Schwannenwald, but when I had nearly
recovered my health and strength, Von Bieberstein announced she was on
her way back to London again, her father having died, and had taken a
suite of apartments at L----'s Hotel, and there we also took up our
abode.

But it was not until the day following her arrival that Von Bieberstein
announced to me that Her Highness awaited my attendance on her.

She was standing by the open window when I went in (for it was late in
June), and she turned to me with a smile. "Your face is not altogether
unfamiliar to me, Mr. Darcy," she said, "but I never thought I should
be under such obligations to the owner."

[Illustration: "'I AM YOUR HIGHNESS'S MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,' I SAID."]

"I am always your Highness's most obedient servant," I said, sinking on
my knee.

"Nay," she returned, raising me, "if that were so, we should have to
put you in livery, and the most I could do would be to let you choose
your own."

"I should choose green and tan," I said, enthusiastically.

"That would be rather bizarre for a man, would it not?" she smiled.

"I venture to think otherwise, your Highness," I rejoined.

"Nevertheless, I should not like it," she said.

"Gold is a pretty colour," said I, looking at her hair, "or blue," I
added, looking at her eyes.

A blush, a frown, a smile, chased one another across her face, but the
smile remained.

"I am afraid you are as foolish as you are brave, Mr. Darcy," she said;
"but I shall need an extra equerry, and if you would care to enter my
service permanently, the place is at your disposal."

I fell again on my knee, mumbling my acknowledgments, for indeed I had
not dared to look for so much.

There was a knock at the door, and Von Bieberstein entered.

"I have offered Mr. Darcy the position of equerry in my service," began
the Princess, "and he has consented to fill it. Will you see that the
necessary uniforms----"

"Of green and tan," I said, softly.

"What?" ejaculated Von Bieberstein.

"I ought perhaps to have said blue and gold," I answered, as I bowed my
way from the room.

Von Bieberstein looked after me anxiously, but there was a smile on the
Princess's face.

Such was the way in which I became equerry to a PRINCESS IN GREEN AND
TAN.




3,000 MILES ON RAILWAY SLEEPERS.

ONE ASPECT OF MY BICYCLE RIDE ROUND THE WORLD.

BY EDWARD LUNN.

_Illustrated with Photos by F. H. Lowe._


[Illustration: MR. EDWARD LUNN AND THE BICYCLE HE RODE ROUND THE
WORLD.]

The question most frequently put to me since I returned with my two
companions, Mr. Lowe and Mr. Fraser, from my cycling tour round the
world has been, "What were the roads like?" and to answer this question
fully would require a volume rather than a magazine article.

There were the paved roads of Belgium, the excellent military roads of
Germany, the steep slopes of Austro-Hungary and Roumania, the
cart-tracks of Southern Russia, the Government highway over the
Caucasus, the post-road to Erivan, the camel-tracks of Persia, the
Grand Trunk road of India, the bouldered highways of China, and the
Tokaido of Japan, not to mention the alkali deserts of Nevada and the
old Colonial roads of the Eastern States--the only thoroughfares
deserving the name in the Land of the Stars and Stripes, excepting
always the excellent pavements in the great American cities.

[Illustration: WE HAD TO RIDE ON SLEEPERS THROUGH FORTY-THREE MILES OF
SNOW SHEDS--THIS SORT OF THING.]

But of all the roads we traversed, the most interesting to cyclists
will probably be the 2,900 miles and upwards on railway tracks that we
covered in our circuit of the globe. We were first driven to these
tracks in Russia, and this jolting and jarring method of progression
may safely be recommended as an even better specific for liver troubles
than a ride on the top of a London 'bus. We were crossing the Russian
steppes. For several days we had been battling against the icy wind
that blows from the Caucasus, dressed always in the light summer
clothes which we wore in the smiling valleys of Roumania. The road was
so sandy as to render riding impossible. We forced our way along,
pushing our machines, through a blinding sandstorm, till at last we had
to take to the railway track.

These tracks in Russia are better made than any we have come across
elsewhere, and they are laid out with much elaboration. First, an array
of stones, neatly planned in patterns like an ornamental flower bed;
then the footway; then another pattern of stones, and then the line.
Whenever possible, we rode on the path between the two rows of stones;
but we were frequently obliged to try the sleepers, the interstices
between which were to some extent filled up with "ballast," which
assisted our progress materially. The trains near the Caucasus are few
and far between, and did not interfere with us to any extent. On our
arrival at a station, everybody seemed to think it quite natural that
we should come along on the line, and we took our meals in the railway
buffets, and slept in the waiting-rooms. Our railway-track riding in
Russia amounted to about 150 miles.

[Illustration: HOW WE CARRIED OUR BICYCLES OVER THE RAILWAY BRIDGES.]

Arriving in India, we were accompanied out of Karachi by a dozen
Englishmen who were practically novices at cycling. We started on a
good road, which ended a little way out of the town in deep sand, as is
the way with roads in this part of India. We then suggested to our
companions that we should ride on the track--a proceeding which they
did not understand at all. However, they took to the idea very kindly
after a time, and went with us thirty or forty miles on our way,
returning by train.

We rode in this way for 800 miles, till we got within four miles of
Lahore, where we struck the Grand Trunk road. At one of the little
wayside stations we knocked up the native station-master and asked for
food. He told us we could get nothing but rice and chupatties--a bill
of fare which did not "smile upon us," as the French say.

"Are there no English people here?" we asked.

"Oh, no; no English people here--this jungle."

"But we saw some English ladies in white dresses," we persisted.

"Oh," said the official, scornfully, "those only missionary."

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE ON WHICH I RACED A TRAIN.]

We had to try the railway track again in Burmah, between Rangoon and
Mandalay. There was a road here once, but it has fallen into decay, and
in many places is returning to the primæval jungle. In the pelting rain
of a Burmese monsoon the so-called road soon became a mere quagmire.
Railway-track riding in Burmah is much the same as it is in India, only
that, as the climate is moister and more malarial, the adventure
involves greater danger to health. The line is banked up on either side
to a considerable height--a detail of which I was to have a practical
and painful impression. Riding along the footpath one day, my machine
stuck in the mud, and unfortunately overbalanced on the wrong side,
towards the cutting, so that I could not put my foot to the ground on
the other side to dismount. Down I went some ten feet--fortunately with
no serious consequences--while, from the bank, my two companions
greeted my achievement with loud applause.

My fall into the ditch was not the pleasanter for the probability of
disturbing centipedes a foot long, cobras, and scorpions.

[Illustration: RIDING ACROSS THE SALT DESERT OF PERSIA.]

What food we got was more highly flavoured than the chutney and curries
of India, but we appreciated the lavish supply of bananas and
pineapples. One day a native station-master asked us about Lenz, the
little American cyclist who went this way and was afterwards murdered
in Armenia. We described his sad end, and the jovial Burman was quite
overcome. "Very kind smiling face," he said, with tears in his eyes.

When we crossed the frontier into China we left railways behind, though
the newspapers have informed us since we came back that a concession
has been granted for a railway in Yunnan. I can only say that if that
railway is ever made, it will give points to any switchback that was
ever invented, so mountainous is the entire country.

When we reached America we little imagined what was before us. We had
fondly believed that the most progressive country in the world would at
least provide ridable roads for cyclists. But the fact is that while in
old countries the road comes before the rail, in newly developed
countries the rail comes before the road--and sometimes the road never
comes at all. Cyclists, however, are doing a great deal to help
themselves in this matter, through the medium of the League of American
Wheelmen, one of the most powerful organisations in the United States.

At the Olympic Club in San Francisco we had some hints of what was to
befall us. The cycling editor of Hearst's great paper, _The Examiner_,
interviewed us during our stay, and gave us the chart of the route
followed by the great Trans-Continental Relay race, which had taken
place not long before our arrival.

[Illustration: THE THREE WORLD CYCLISTS AND A CHINESE GIANT WHO DOES
NOT CYCLE.]

We struck the railway track at Newcastle in California, and on the
second day the most perilous part of our experiences in this sort of
riding commenced, with our entrance to the "Snow Sheds" crossing the
great Sierra Nevada range. These snow-sheds, with the exception of two
bridges (of which more hereafter), extend uninterruptedly for
forty-three miles, with innumerable twists and turns, and we were in
semi-darkness for the entire distance. We were obliged to ride between
the rails. The snow had begun to melt, and pools of water extended
along either side of the lines, while between the sleepers, which were
free of snow, the ice lay in great uneven hummocks. We moved on at the
modest pace of some seven miles an hour through the darkness, while the
noise of our three machines and the rattling of the baggage we carried
prevented us from hearing anything of approaching trains till they were
actually upon us. Then we had to leap from our cycles and crouch
against the icy walls of the snow-shed while the train thundered past.
We took our lives in our hands several times a day.

Our position was worse in this respect when we were going down the
other side of the Nevada range. As we ascended, the trains had come up
behind us "full steam ahead," so that we could more easily detect their
approach; but as we went down from the summit, those following us on
the down grade came with steam shut off, and were upon us before we
could hear them.

On a bridge near Cisco an incident occurred which might have been
serious for me. It is about two hundred yards long, and I was beginning
to cross it, when my companions who were on in front beckoned me to
stop. I thought that one of my friends wished to take a snap-shot, and
stopped accordingly. However, after waiting about five minutes, as
nothing happened, I went on. It was a skeleton bridge, with a framework
in the middle. I had just reached the framework, carrying my machine,
when I heard the shriek of an engine whistle in the shed ahead. I
managed to keep my head and my balance, as a false step would have
meant death. I reached the end of the bridge, and stepped on to the
siding just as the train rushed past.

[Illustration: TRAVELLING WITH EMIGRANTS IN THE WESTERN STATES.]

It was only then that I fully realised the narrow shave I had had.

We joyfully left the railway track shortly before entering Omaha, and
from thence to Chicago we had roads that might, in comparison with our
previous experiences, be called tolerable.

At Chicago we took to the railway track again for a short time in the
suburb of Pullman; but from that point to New York we had the rare and
delightful experience of riding on a "made road," with charming scenery
about us. And very glad we were not to add to our record of riding
3,000 miles on railway sleepers.

[Illustration: THRASHING A CHINESE THIEF WHO STOLE THE CAMERA WITH
WHICH THESE PHOTOS WERE TAKEN.]




[Illustration]

THE CURSE OF THE CATSEYE

A TALE OF SINGAPORE TOLD BY THE THIRD MATE.

BY ALFRED SLADE.

_Illustrated by Ernest Prater._


It isn't my yarn at all by rights; the Second Mate commenced it, and
pushed me in, in the middle. So I've annexed it; and the Second won't
mind--for he's dead.

The _Mother Carey_ was not a ship to be proud of. I never knew anyone
to blow about belonging to her, not even the donkeyman.

We had worked her round to Sydney all right. Then the Health
Authorities ordered us off: after which we went and lay off Thursday
Island till the firm who had chartered us could wire instructions.

In desperation, our people wired us to go to Singapore in ballast and
get any sort of cargo there we could.

I was sorry to leave Thursday Island; the telegraph stationmaster there
had a daughter. Her first name was Mary, and, if I can manage it, one
of these days her second will be the same as mine.

We got a move on us and were well in the Straits by eight bells that
afternoon, and it being the First Mate's watch, the Second Mate came to
my cabin to smoke a bit.

"Ever been to Singapore?" he asked.

"No," I said; "never went further than Calcutta that way. Have you?"

"Yes," he answered; "it'll be just about three years ago."

"Nice place?" I asked.

"Terrible hole," he answered. "See that stone? I got that there."

I took the ring off his finger and examined it; it was worth looking
at, too. Not for the mounting, which was ordinary enough, but for the
jewel it held. I had never seen a stone like it before, and never again
since--but I'll tell that part by-and-by.

It was something like a catseye, this jewel; but the outside was
perfectly white, the interior was peculiarly greenish, and right in the
centre was a spot of dazzling red like a speck of living blood. The
general effect was one of a baleful fascination, repellent and at the
same time invincibly attractive; and as I looked, I shuddered, yet
could not turn my eyes away.

"That's the way it serves me," said the Second, who was observing. "I
hate the thing, and yet I can't throw it away. And ever since I've had
it, it's brought nothing but bad luck.

"I was on the _Sardanapalus_ when I had the stone first; we were caught
in a monsoon in the Indian Ocean, and had to put in at Point de Galle
an absolute wreck. My next ship was the _Golden Horn_; the cargo caught
fire off Pernambuco, and we were taken off by one of the Brazilian
Royal Mails. This'll be third trip; and I shall not live to finish it.
I only hope you others'll get through all right."

"How did you come by it?" I asked, beginning, I confess, to feel a
little uneasy.

"It was a rum go," answered the Second, "and I don't much like talking
about it. But," he added after a moment's reflection, "I'll tell you,
in case anything happens to me _there_." And he nodded ahead, where lay
Singapore.

"The last time I was there," he went on, "I ran amuck. It was one of
Libby's liners I was in, and you know what they are. Rations according
to the Act, and as much rum as you can put on a mosquito's left eyelid.
So when I went ashore with a couple of dollars I'd subbed from the
skipper, I didn't want much to upset me. A bottle of Hamburg
square-face soon did the trick; and before I knew where I was I found
myself half-seas over.

"It was in one of those shanties back of the garrison barracks where
I'd got the stuff; in the daytime respectable merchants' depôts, at
night half grog-shop and half opium-den. The long, low, narrow room was
divided into two by strips of bamboo matting; I was in the front part
at a sort of rude table, alone with my square-face; the back was filled
with a crowd of Parsees, squatting in a circle, and gabbling. Between
us was a hole for the ladder that went to the cellar, whence came the
oppressing fumes of opium; and at the back of the inner room was a door
in the wooden wall, opening on a staircase that led to the apartments
above.

"I remember all that distinctly; but I don't remember much else. Alone
with the noise and smoke and the intoxicating smell of the East that
lay all around me, and stupefied by the atmosphere no less than by
drink, I must have rested long in a sort of dream.

"I seemed to wake and shiver, and, sitting up, saw the dawn rising in
flames of gold. On the floor were people sleeping. I tried to stand up,
but felt languid and oppressed, and I sank in my seat, and would have
gone to sleep again.

"Then the door from above opened, and a girl came down. And all at
once, in spite of myself, and in a manner I cannot explain, all my
languor left me and a fever filled my veins. I rose, and, walking
across the sleeping bodies, went near to her, threw aside her veil,
bent down, and kissed her on the mouth.

"She did not move or speak; only a shudder went through her, and it was
not of fear or aversion.

"I drew from her at last, and, the light creeping up through the
windows, could look at her.

"She was not a Malay; she was not, I thought, a Hindoo: something of a
Cingalese, a Cingalese of the hill-tops, nearly white, of features
almost classic, a nose finely Hebraic, and eyes of an Aryan gipsy.

"'I have been watching you,' she said, in perfect English; 'watching
and waiting. Did you not feel the incense in your nostrils--that was my
love-spell. And it has worked.'

"Again I stooped and kissed her.

"'I like that,' she said, with a little laugh. 'It is a good thing of
the white men's. See, I will try to act thus also,' and she in her turn
had reached up and kissed me.

"I leaned forward to seize her, but she slid through my grasp and had
flown up the stairs.

"'To-night,' she whispered, 'by the old pagoda, I will weave you
another love-spell.'

[Illustration: "I THREW ASIDE HER VEIL AND KISSED HER."]

"Then she came down a step. 'Look well to yourself here,' she
whispered again; 'there is danger. Take this--it is an amulet--it will
protect you,' and she had flown away out of sight, leaving in my hand a
tiny square of ivory hollowed through the centre.

"I stood for a minute as in a trance; between my feet I saw a body,
and, as I looked, one of its eyes, it seemed, was watching me.

"Had it been there all the while? I did not think so. Yet, looking
again, it was not watching me at all; its eyes were firmly closed, and
it was sleeping. Yet a fear crept into my heart, and instinctively I
felt in my belt for my revolver. It was not there; it was not on the
table; it was nowhere.

"And all my courage went from me, and I staggered across the sleeping
men and burst through the fragile door and fell out into the sun. And
without stopping I ran as hard as I could to the ship, sweating with a
terror I dare not think about.

[Illustration: "I BURST THROUGH THE DOOR AND RAN AS HARD AS I COULD."]

"The boatswain was washing down with the steam hose; I stripped and
stood in front of it and took a bath that way. It steadied my nerves,
and the bright sea and the bright sunshine did the rest.

"I was at the pagoda that night, sober, without even a cigar, but with
another pistol in my belt. It was a weird place.

"Not a soul was in sight. The pagoda was dark and empty. The only sound
I could hear was the ripple of the waves on the distant shore.

"All sorts of fancies crept into my brain; I tried in vain to put them
away. At last I tried to go. I could not; I was as if rooted to the
spot.

"I looked around and fancied I was going mad, and I laughed. And the
echoes came back from all around, so that the air seemed full of
mocking devils, and I turned round and round to see whence came the
sound.

"There was a figure bowing before me, and a voice said: 'Salaam,
Sahib,' and in front, by the light of the moon, I saw a man.

"'I have a token for my lord,' he said, 'from one he loves, who begs
him to accept it and so depart,' and he handed me the stone you have
seen.

"'Stop,' I cried, taking it. 'Are you her servant?'

"'The Flower of the Cinnamon was my daughter,' he answered, 'but
now--no longer.'

"'What do you mean?' I cried again.

"'The Flower of the Cinnamon _is not_,' he said; 'and in your hand you
hold the token.'

"The moonlight caught the glitter of his evil eye, and I saw then it
was the man who had lain between my feet. I sprang forward to seize
him, and he was gone; gone like the wind, with not a trace behind.

"In my hand I still clenched the pebble; I took it in my fingers to put
it in my pocket. There was the other token, my amulet of ivory. I took
it out to look at it, and its veins were red--red with the streaks of
blood.

"So I went back to the ship, walking warily and looking behind my
shoulder; but I saw nothing and felt nothing--nothing but the stone the
man had given me, that lay like a weight on my heart. It was there next
morning, but my ivory amulet I could not find; it was gone, and with
it, I knew, my salvation."

"That is all?" I asked the Second, as he stopped to wipe the sweat from
his forehead.

"All--at present," he answered, "for we sailed that same morning. And I
have never seen her since. And I never shall see her," he added, in a
tone that made me feel cold to hear.

"But you kept the stone?" I asked again.

"I could not get rid of it," he replied. "Once--you may believe me or
not, as you like--once, I took it from my waistcoat pocket and threw it
over the bulwarks. It did not touch the sea; next morning it was there
again in my pocket. So I made the best of what I knew was a bad job; I
got it mounted in London in a ring, and I wear it so in defiance."

There was more of fear than defiance in his eyes just then; he swung on
his heel and turned away; nor did any further allusions to the subject
pass between us.

We reached Singapore shortly afterwards; and I noticed the Second Mate
getting more and more nervous. He tried to hide it and to conquer it,
he worked harder than any man on the boat.

At last we had got our cargo in and had finished coaling; the next
morning we should (machinery permitting) clear out for home. The Second
seemed easier that evening, but he had scarcely been in my cabin half
an hour when a convulsive spasm seemed to shoot through him. He stood
up, as if in agony, and cried out in a thick guttural voice: "I've got
to go," and made towards the alley-way.

I tried to stop him; he dragged me along as easily as if I had been a
child. Then, nearing the gangway, he shook me off and cried: "You had
better keep out of it; I shall be enough," and passed over the gangway
to the quay.

I went after him, just speaking to the watchman; yet even this delay
put me far behind, and I had to run to overtake him, so quickly did he
walk.

At last we reached the house, and the room he had described: he ordered
liquor, which I took care not to drink; and in desperate defiance let
his hand lie on the table, stretching out the finger that held the
ring.

Strive as I might to keep my head clear, I felt the fumes of the place
suffocating me; yet, stupefied as I was, I had a consciousness that
myriad eyes were around and watching us.

Below, through the hole where the ladder went, I saw the opium smokers;
at the back where the staircase mounted, I saw the door open.

A woman entered, and at once the place seemed empty, save for her and
us.

The Second was looking too, and started suddenly. He got up and walked
towards her and threw her heavy veil aside. Then, in a voice so calm
that it astonished me, he said--

"You are not Flower of the Cinnamon?"

"No," she answered, "the Flower is not. But when she _was_, she was my
sister."

And she pressed forward towards me. "I am called," she said, to me, not
to him, "I am called the Sheen of Morning." And she made a low
obeisance towards me.

I did not speak, but looked towards her, looked passed her and saw into
the cellar. I saw a man, dark-skinned, yet no Hindoo, kindle a fire on
the ground; and as the flames leaped red, he sprinkled a powder on them
and the fire burnt green, and the smoke came through the opening.

The woman was still bowed before me and watching me with entreating
eyes; but now the lustre went out of her eyes and they had no more life
in them than a sleep-walker's. Then she rose stiffly and walked
backward to the staircase door and so passed through; and the door shut
of itself, for I saw no one to shut it.

And the man, or devil, in the cellar put more powder on his fire, and
the flames burnt red, red as a bullock's blood. And the Second turned
slowly round and walked from the room into the street; and, looking
neither to the right nor the left, took his way still further across
the marsh. And I followed, shivering in my heart.

Nothing before or around us but the darkness and the heat of the night
that brought up the fever-fog; and from the distance came the horrid
noise of a Chinese sing-song.

And we still walked on, till, in the darkness of the night, there
loomed another darkness, thicker and more compact: and I saw it was the
shadow of a pagoda.

The Second led the way right to the entrance; as we reached the
threshold, a light sprang up within.

The Second was mounting the steps; I seized his arm and with my whole
force tried to retain him; he did not even pause, but dragged me after
him as if my strength were nothing. And so we went into the temple.

The light shone from the other end: we drew closer to it and stood in
front. There, on a shrine, was an enormous figure of Buddha, sitting
cross-legged, with six arms extended. The light shone from his eyes;
and, glancing along his nostrils, on one side sparkled back. In his
nose was a jewel the duplicate of that the Second wore; on the other
side was a space for a second jewel, which was the Second's.

As I looked, I cried aloud and started back; my hand was still on the
Second's arm, and so great was my terror that I drew him back with me a
space. At that moment the pavement in front of us opened where but an
instant before we had both been standing; and in the void revealed, I
felt and smelt, rather than saw, the foetid moisture of a bottomless
water-pit. And the light in the idol's eyes burnt red.

A little finger touched my left hand: I turned. It was a woman, the
same woman of the hut; who whispered, so that none but I could hear--

"Come, my lord, and quickly. Leave _him_ to his fate, for he is doomed.
But thou, while there is yet time, come."

"Yes," I said to her; "but not alone. _He_ must come too."

"Does my lord command it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said again.

"Then I will try," she whispered; "yet it is Death we three look in the
face."

She raised her hand and rubbed my lips with something she held,
something that was cold like menthol, and bitter as gall. She did
likewise to the Second, who at that seemed to awake from sleep and
stare about him bewildered. And taking me by the hand, and I the
Second, she led us to the door; and the door was shut and barred, and
the light in the idol went out.

"There is another way," she said at last, and led us on; till behind a
pillar she stopped and stooped, and, groping for some time, found at
last a rude staple in the stonework.

"Pull," she said, "for you are strong." And I pulled, and the stone
came round on invisible hinges. In the opening there disclosed I felt
rough-hewn steps that went down, and pushing myself through I
descended. Three steps I counted, and then there were no more; and I
lost my hand-hold and fell. I threw out my hands wildly in search of
some support; my head swung forward and struck against a projection;
and, insensible, I still fell--down, down....

When I came to myself I was lying on the ground, my head in the woman's
lap; and her hair had torn loose and was swathing my temples; and as
she bent to kiss me, I felt that her eyes were wet.

[Illustration: "HE DRAGGED ME ALONG AS EASILY AS A CHILD."]

But between her and me came the memory of Mary, and the promise the
moon had seen at Rockhampton; and I did not kiss her back, but took her
hand, and said, "My sister, my sister." And so she understood, and
raised me up, and put something on my head that cured its aching; and
the Second came to my side and held me, and we went on down the
passage.

There was no light to guide us; but the walls shone with phosphorescent
drawings, and all the vile gods of Buddha's Pantheon served us as
horrid guides. We went on--the woman in tears, I in pain, and the
Second in terror and dismay--till there came some rough-hewn steps, and
these mounted, some stairs of wood; there the woman left us and bade us
wait.

Presently she returned and led us still upward, and lifted a flap and
let in a flood of light. And springing through, we were in the room of
the grog-shop--all alone, save for the invisible eyes that I knew were
watching us all around.

And we sat at the table; and I gave my hand to the woman, and said
again, "My sister," and she fell to weeping afresh.

I looked towards the Second, and his brow was wet with sweat, and on
his finger gleamed ominously the cursed stone.

I tried to get the ring off. It clung till with a wrench I had twisted
it and had it off, and left his finger free; and then, before the woman
could prevent me, had put it on my own. At that she shrank, shivering;
but I knocked the table loudly in summons.

[Illustration: "I PULLED, AND THE STONE CAME ROUND ON INVISIBLE
HINGES."]

A coolie came in, and I ordered two bottles of Bass; but in knocking
and ordering and talking I took care to show my ring. He saw, and
smiled maliciously; and coming back with the beer looked again. The
woman had disappeared, spirited away again by some invisible power.

So the Second and I drank--he hugely, I scarcely at all. And then I
told him my scheme: that he must go back to the ship alone, for without
the ring I felt he had nothing to fear. He was reluctant to do so, for
he was a brave man; yet his terror was so great that in the end he
departed.

So I was left alone with the ring; and waiting till I thought it time,
began to reproach myself for running in danger when my life belonged to
Mary. Then I thought again: and I knew at last that Mary herself would
have me to do this. So I kept up a stout heart, and ostentatiously
leaving a dollar on the table, passed out.

There was a shadow in front of me--it was the woman, who fell at my
feet beseechingly.

"Fool," she said, "and foolhardy. Throw it away lest it kill you. For
it is a vampire that drinks men's blood."

And she took hold of my finger and tried to wrench the ring away; but
the flesh was closed up tightly round it, and it would not budge.

"It is the spell already winding round you," she said. "Yet it was not
_you_ that my father cursed. What shall I do, my love, my love?

"Better throw away your finger than your soul," she said again; "cut
it off and so escape."

I searched for the knife in my belt, but my sheath was empty; and we
looked into each other's eyes in hollow despair.

"I would bite it," she cried, "but I cannot--I cannot; for I love you."

"You must not say that," I answered; "and you must not come with me."

"My lord commands?" she asked, in pained humility.

And I said "Yes." And she disappeared into the darkness.

I strode on quickly across the swamp towards the quay, and already I
saw the lights gleam in the harbour. Yet even now I could not feel at
ease, and would glance round furtively and yet see nothing--until
suddenly the moon shot out from behind a cloud, and in front of my eyes
was a gleam that was not of light, but a reflection of light. I quickly
put out my left hand, and jagged steel pierced it, and I shrieked
aloud.

With my right hand I seized my assailant, who was anointed with oil and
slipped through my fingers like an eel. Yet he did not run, but
remained at a little distance, waiting to attack me again, and there
were others with him. By their stiffened upright black hair I saw they
were Malays; but the one who seemed their leader was the devil of the
cellar. And my heart thumped and thumped, as I waited.

Then a soft hand again touched me, and a voice said, "It is I," and the
woman had taken my finger that held the ring, and saying, "Yet I must
do it, _because_ I love him," had bitten it clean through. And shouting
to the men in a tongue I knew not, she hurled it in their midst; and
their leader seized it, and yelled aloud in triumph, and showed it to
the others running round him.

[Illustration: "TAKING THE FINGER THAT HELD THE RING, SHE BIT IT CLEAN
THROUGH."]

And the woman spoke again, and to some purpose, for then the men
departed with the prize. And the moon went in again behind the clouds.

"Do not slay me, my lord," the woman was saying, "for your life is not
yet saved."

She tore the veiling from her face and bandaged the stump that had been
my finger; and then she took my other hand, and, withdrawing the
dagger, sucked softly at the poison of the wound. But the pain was too
much for me, and I just leaned over and fell fainting to the ground.

Next morning, I found myself in my bunk, and the Second was watching
over me, and the woman was crouching on the floor.

"That's right, old man," said the Second, "and now I'll fetch the
doctor."

The doctor was the chief engineer, who forthwith came aft with a hot
iron and seared the stump of my finger.

"And now, laddie, ye'll do," he said; "and I must awa, for there is
some leetle difficulty with the boilers."

"She carried you here," said the Second, answering my eyes, "though how
she managed it I can't say. And she had sucked the poison clean from
your wound, and Mac said there was no danger left. Though, mind you,
the kriss had enough on it to kill twenty men.

"Yes," he went on, "I'm all right, and you shall tell me how it
happened to you afterwards. Now you must swallow this sleeping draught
Mac's left for you."

And I swallowed the medicine he gave me.

But I did not sleep; I fell into a stupor. I could not move or speak;
yet I could hear and understand.

The sailors were clearing the decks above me; at intervals the steam
whistle sounded; we were preparing to get under way.

At last came the cry, "All strangers leave the ship," and there was a
bustle across the gangway.

The woman in the corner rose, came to my bunk and kissed me on the
lips, opened the door, went into the alley-way and on to the deck. She
mounted to the poop above my head, then a shadow passed for a moment
athwart my port-hole. I heard a splash--and she had done suttee for her
love of me.

The blade of the propeller began to revolve, and the ship to forge
slowly forward. My tongue was parched and my temples throbbing, and the
delirium of fever came over me.

My eyes still open looked far away forward, into the pagoda of
Singapore. And before the Buddha knelt the throng of worshippers, and
the idol looked down upon them in content and triumph, and in his
nostrils were now the catseyes, sparkling on either side. And a shadowy
form that I knew for the ghost of the woman came before the god and
fell prostrate, and lay there praying for me; and the idol did not
frown, but gazed still content; and I knew that the curse was lifted
from me.

Then my eyes could close, and the fire went from them, and the darkness
came and gentle sleep.

[ILLUSTRATION: "SHE MOUNTED THE POOP AND JUMPED INTO THE WATER."]

The next thing I knew was that Mac was pouring quinine down my throat,
and we were out at sea and the sun was shining. And at Aden, where we
coaled, was a letter from Mary; and I was well again.

The Second met the fate he feared. You know from the papers how the
voyage ended; no one knows, and only I can guess, how it came to end as
it did. It was off Ushant, almost in sight of home. The Second had the
watch. The moon was at its full; there was not a cloud to cast a
shadow. The man at the wheel saw a huge rock loom on the starboard bow.
He veered off a point to give it a wide berth; the Second came towards
him and took the wheel himself. And then, the man declares, he headed
straight for the rock, his eyes fixed intently in front of him, his
hands a-tremble with unavailing fear. The man thought he was mad, and
tried to tear the spokes away; the Second, with strength almost
supernatural, with one hand lifted him up, and hurled him to the lower
deck. Then the ship forged on, straight to the rock ahead.

The boats were lowered and quickly filled, and were casting off. I
sprang up to the bridge--I touched the Second's arm and took his hand
in mine.

As I hurried him down the gangway and across the forehold, a boom of
the winch pinned him to the deck and he could not move.

Then, as I live, I saw a woman--a black woman--holding him in her arms,
holding him down. There came a rush of water. The vessel slid back into
the trough of the sea. The woman kissed him--he shrieked aloud--and the
waves sucked them in together.

The curse of the catseye was completed.




[Illustration]

MICE WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD.

SOME EXTRAVAGANT PETS.

BY GAVIN MACDONALD.


Most of us kept mice in the days of our childhood. They were always
white with pink eyes, and our elders objected to them tooth and nail.

Without warning, the mouse fancy has sprung into general popularity,
and the craze for rearing and showing the tiny creatures has assumed
the proportions of an important and fashionable hobby.

There is a National Mouse Club, a National Mouse Show, and a hundred
others of less importance. Nor is there lack of prizes. The Mouse
Challenge Bowl is a trophy worthy of consideration by a Derby winner;
and there are pots and medals and specials galore for competition by
enthusiastic members of the fancy.

[Illustration: THIS MOUSE IS INVESTIGATING OUR PHOTOGRAPHER'S
FLASH-LIGHT APPARATUS.]

A first visit to a famous collection is likely to occasion considerable
surprise to those who are only familiar with the white and pink-eyed
variety and the common little grey-backed member of the household.

During the last two or three years various fanciers have been
industriously endeavouring to improve the breed, and they have
succeeded in producing the most beautiful specimens. The show mouse is
larger than the common household specimen. The eye is much larger and
fuller, and the coat would not disgrace a thoroughbred racer. But the
chief points are colour and marking. These are simply wonderful. The
self colours include not only black and white, but almost every shade
between. The black specimens have rich silky coats. The white to be at
all valuable must possess black eyes. The pink eye has been eliminated
altogether.

[Illustration: (1) MOUSE CHALLENGE CUP. (2) A MOUSE WITH TWO TAILS. (3)
HOW A LADY FANCIER FEEDS HER PETS, AND (4) HOW SHE PLAYS WITH THEM.]

Sables exist in every possible shade, and some of them are of the
richest and most beautiful quality. Silver grey is a fashionable colour
this year, and I have seen some very perfect specimens with bluish-grey
coats.

The marked mouse is a most popular fancy, and no wonder, for in this
department the most wonderful results have been obtained, as our
illustrations prove.

At the present moment a well-known lady fancier is striving to obtain a
Dalmatian mouse. She has already a most wonderfully spotted specimen,
and hopes before long to show a perfect example.

Apart from their great beauty, fancy mice pay, and pay well. At the
National Mouse Show I was shown several specimens worth £5 apiece, and
as much as £20 has been given for a champion. The two mice in our
picture of judging are both £5 animals.

Another thing about them is that they are practically all profit. The
bread and milk and occasional hemp seed upon which they live is used in
such small quantities that an expenditure of 6_d_. per week will
suffice to keep dozens.

Then there are many fanciers who make a lot of money out of their young
mice. A working man in the North of England, who is an ardent fancier,
makes no less than £15 per annum in this way, besides an occasional
pound or two for an extra-promising specimen.

Many fanciers have very large collections. The secretary of the
National Mouse Club possesses some 2,000 in his cages, and I know at
least half a dozen others whose collections range between two and five
hundred. At one day old the mice are little pink objects scarcely
longer than a wax vesta, minus sight and minus coat. I saw a litter of
this age in Staffordshire some time ago. A fortnight later they were in
full war paint, and were winning prizes at a big show in the "under
eight weeks" class. It is well that they develop so quickly, since at
two years they get ill and out of condition and are usually destroyed.

There are many collections in this country valued at £30, and I know of
one for which £100 has been offered and refused.

As with other fancy animals, the best specimens are selected from a
litter and the rest are drowned. The selected mice are reared with the
greatest care, and as soon as they are of the right size and age they
commence the round of the shows. At home they are kept in immense
tenement cages, divided into tiny compartments for two, but they travel
to the shows singly in special exhibition cages.

[Illustration: "MATCHLESS," THE CHAMPION MOUSE--SHOWING HOW THE JUDGING
IS DONE.]

These exhibition cages are packed together in a live-stock box, and on
their arrival at their destination are taken charge of by special
stewards, who see to the feeding arrangements and place them in their
right classes.

Great interest is taken in the judging of these tiny creatures, and the
judge is always surrounded by an eager crowd of spectators. Usually he
contents himself with a glance in the box, shaking it up if the
occupant is of a lazy disposition. When it comes to taking stock of a
particularly good exhibit the mouse is taken out of the cage and
examined.

They are always lifted and held by their tails during this examination.
In the case of it being necessary to compare two competitors, they are
held on the sleeve as illustrated in our photograph of judging.

In this picture, Mr. Richards of Dursley, Gloucestershire, is seen
judging two specially fine specimens, the mouse to the left being Mr.
Singleton's famous champion "Matchless," one of the most perfect show
mice living.

The border on the first page of this article is entirely composed of
photographs of show animals, and gives a very good idea of the
beautiful markings so much sought after by fanciers.

Miss Grimston owns a famous collection, which she keeps at her house in
Mayfair. Each mouse is named, and the idiosyncrasies of its character
are well known to its mistress. Two fine specimens are shown sitting on
her hands. The mouse on the ladder is also hers.

This lady possesses a unique playground, fitted with a tiny gymnasium.
The young mice are turned into this for exercise and play. It keeps
them in health and coat, two very necessary conditions for show
purposes.

Miss Grimston is a particularly successful exhibitor, having captured
some dozens of prizes, including cups and medals. Her collection at the
present time contains some forty show specimens. They are rarely home
for long together. As soon as they return from one show they are off to
another.

[Illustration: "WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY, THE MICE WILL PLAY."]

The exhibition cages shown in the illustration at the foot of this page
are a representative collection.

Although more or less of regulation size, shape and ornamentation are
left to the individual taste of the fancier.

As a result, many of them are extremely decorative, poker-work sketches
and other novel methods of adornment being commonly resorted to.

Many fanciers make their own cages and live-stock boxes, and combine
the mouse fancy with amateur carpentry. One fancier who is his own
carpenter has received so many applications for the address of the
maker of his exhibition cages, that he has taken up cage-making
professionally, and makes over £50 per annum in his spare time by the
sale of his handiwork.

It is needless to say that cats are unknown in the establishments of
show mouse owners, and show committees have to exercise the greatest
care in order to exclude cats from the exhibition rooms.

It is a capital hobby, full of interest and fascination.

[Illustration: SOME OF THE MICE CAGES AT THE NATIONAL SHOW.]




[Illustration]

A CROWDED HOUR

A COMEDY OF THE STREETS.

BY CLARENCE ROOK.

_Illustrated by B. E. Minns._


Very few people knew what really caused the crowd which collected so
suddenly one evening in front of a house in the neighbourhood of High
Street, Kensington--to be precise, in Lower Phillimore Place--and
practically blocked the traffic in that busy thoroughfare.

The crowd itself had no clear notion of the cause of its coming
together. For in order to produce a crowd it is by no means necessary
that the individuals who are to compose it should have any reason for
their assembling more definite than the fact that there is an assembly.

Primarily, however, it was Esther who was the cause of the crowd.

Esther, who you must know is my sister, had been growing quite
prosperous. After a year or so of hard and unremunerative work, Esther
had gained a position on the staff of a leading ladies' newspaper; and
thereafter, week by week, Esther produced pictures of attenuated ladies
with crooked forefingers, attired in the height of fashion, and
pretending that their waists did not hurt them the least bit.

So, finding herself with an assured income which, if not large, was
adequate to her modest needs, Esther determined to quit her dingy
lodgings in a Bloomsbury side-street and furnish a dwelling for
herself. In this project she was encouraged by her bosom friend Susie,
who, being a certificated nurse with a private practice, wanted a
comfortable home in the intervals between her cases, and was willing to
contribute some furniture and a share of the expenses.

After much search among the advertisements in the newspapers in the
Free Library, followed by hurried rushes on her bicycle to the
uttermost ends of London, Esther found a house in Lower Phillimore
Place of which two floors and the basement were to be let unfurnished.
It was precisely the sort of place the two girls wanted, and as the
rent was reasonable Esther at once arranged to take it. Esther was to
occupy the ground floor, the first floor would be reserved for Susie
whenever she required it; in the basement a respectable woman would
live, and cook, and sleep. Esther began to look about for the
respectable woman.

It was only then that Esther suddenly bethought herself of the extreme
danger of sleeping--a solitary and unprotected woman--upon the
ground-floor of a London house. For an hour or so the difficulty seemed
insurmountable, and it appeared to Esther that she must cancel the
agreement. I suggested a dog. But, as Esther at once pointed out, a
determined and unscrupulous murderer would not hesitate to poison a
dog.

Then I proposed that a respectable married couple should be engaged.
Probably, in consideration of living rent free, the woman would do the
housework during the day, and the husband would kill murderers at
night. Esther considered a moment. The idea appealed to her.

"Why not a policeman and his wife?" said Esther.

With Esther to decide is to act. Within an hour she had laid her scheme
before the Inspector in charge at the Police Station by St. Mary
Abbott's, and enjoined upon him to search his division for a married
constable of lofty character who would like to live rent free in a dry
and roomy basement. Within twenty-four hours the constable was found.

Esther viewed him with approval, for he was large and serious; he had
the highest of characters, and had married a cook from De Vere Gardens
who had received a plated teapot from her late mistress as a mark of
esteem. They both assured Esther that they would do their best by her
and the other young lady, and an appointment was made for a view of the
house in Phillimore Place.

And so it came about that, one evening, just as dusk was falling,
Esther and Susie met the constable and his wife outside the house, and,
after greeting each other on the pavement, entered together. At that
moment an errand-boy was slowly propelling a carrier tricycle along by
the kerb. His day's deliveries were accomplished, and, as he looked
this way and that way with a mind receptive of stray impressions, his
eye fell upon Esther and her companions. He was immediately conscious
of something unusual.

There is nothing remarkable about a policeman in Kensington High
Street; but a policeman being conducted into a house by a young lady,
and closely followed by two other women, one of whom wears a nurse's
uniform, affords matter for conjecture. The errand-boy applied the
brake to his cycle, and came slowly to a standstill just below the
house, at which he looked thoughtfully. Esther with the constable and
the nurse and the constable's wife had disappeared through the front
door, and for a minute or so nothing more happened.

The boy, disappointed of his expected sensation, was just bending
forward to start his cycle again when he caught sight of an
acquaintance who was carrying a basket containing a dozen of stout. A
shrill whistle brought him to the side of the cycle.

"Wotcher!" he said.

"There's a copper gone in there," said the boy on the cycle, nodding
towards the house. "And a 'orspital nurse."

[Illustration: "'THERE'S A COPPER GONE IN THERE, AND A 'ORSPITAL
NURSE,' SAID THE BOY ON THE CYCLE."]

The other boy regarded the house critically.

"Was there a accident?" he asked.

The boy on the cycle, having no more information to give, said nothing,
but nodded again towards the house. Someone within had struck a light,
and the constable could be plainly seen standing in the middle of the
empty ground-floor room.

A hansom driver, crawling from the westwards in the hope of picking up
a fare to the Strand, paused in the act of lighting his pipe and pulled
up just in front of the cycle. A servant girl who had been sent out to
post a letter noticed an errand boy set down his basket upon the ground
and balance himself upon the rim, whereby he was enabled to peer over
the top of the railings, and she stood still to watch him; while three
sandwich men mournfully advertising a concert at the Town Hall halted
in the roadway and looked with dull curiosity at the cabman, who had
hitched himself round on his seat, and with one leg swinging in mid-air
was wondering what he could charge for a really urgent case to St.
George's Hospital.

"What's matter?" asked a homeward-bound workman who was vaguely
conscious of an unusual obstruction, and found the railings a
convenient support.

"Ain't nothing the matter," said the boy on the basket, looking round.
"You tike that fice 'ome."

The workman, finding it easier to stand still by the railings than to
walk, remained where he was.

"I stops where I am," he murmured; "see what's matter. All kinds things
happen in mighty metrolo--metrolopus."

The old gentleman who takes the air every evening along a beat of a
hundred yards or so of pavement in Phillimore Place halted and looked
inquiringly at the boy on the basket, disgustedly at the workman
clinging to the railings. Then, over the shoulder of the workman the
old gentleman caught sight of the policeman, who was now standing in
full light back to the window; while Susie, bending down with
tape-measure to calculate the amount of carpet required, could be dimly
seen by those outside to be busied with something on the floor.

"Dear me!" said the old gentleman.

"There's--body in there," said the workman. "That's what 'tis. Body."

"Bless my soul!" said the old gentleman, looking round at the group of
people on the pavement. "Has there been a murder? Does anyone know?"

No one cared to admit that he did not know what he was looking at,
whereas any positive statement might be controverted by someone with
knowledge. So no one answered, but all stood watching.

By this time the pavement was pretty well blocked, and wayfarers had
either to take to the roadway or to join the knot of people collected
in front of the railings and waiting anxiously upon events.

[Illustration: "'HAS THERE BEEN A MURDER? DOES ANYONE KNOW?' SAID THE
OLD GENTLEMAN."]

Most of them chose the latter course, assuring each other that there
was really nothing to wait for.

"Oh, there's a 'orse down; let's go and look, Alf," said a young woman
to her husband, who was carrying something tasty for supper in a piece
of newspaper.

"Oh, _kem_ on," said Alf. "You're always wanting to 'ang about for
this, that, and the other."

"Well, I'm sure, Alf, it's little enough excitement _I_ get, day in,
day out, and--oh, wait a minute; I needn't _reely_ wash biby to-night."

"'Taint a 'orse," said a seedy-looking man, whose height gave him a
view over the heads of the crowd. "It's in that house, that's where it
is."

"_What_ is?" asked Alf, still incredulous.

"Oh, there's a pleeceman in there, Alf," said the young woman,
delightedly.

"Then there ain't much the matter," said Alf, his good temper restored
by the consciousness of a ready wit. "They're 'andy enough when they
ain't wanted to be, and when they _are_ wanted----" He sought vainly
for a means of elaborating his joke. "Now then, where yer shovin'?"

"Shovin' yerself," was the reply; "don't other people want to see same
as what you do?"

[Illustration: "THE CROWD STRETCHED NEARLY ACROSS THE ROADWAY, IMPEDING
THE TRAFFIC."]

For the crowd had already begun to press behind, and, stretching nearly
across the roadway, was impeding the traffic. One omnibus, indeed,
which had stopped to set down a passenger, remained standing, and the
inside passengers had crowded out upon the roof to see what was the
matter. From the shops opposite came the assistants, and they stood in
the doorways, asking in vain for explanations, which no one could give.
Conjecture, however, was frequent; and a butcher's bookkeeper, being a
man of action, went off to rouse the nearest fire station.

In a minute more, the nucleus formed by one errand boy on a carrier
cycle had collected about it a solid mass, which completely stopped the
omnibuses and cabs, and gathered volume and consistency from every
wayfarer who came within its influence. Even the errand boy himself,
impressed with the seriousness of the situation, was convinced of the
nearness of tragedy, and was busily setting forth to those around him
what he had seen.

"Stand back, can't you?" cried an officious man upon the outskirts of
the crowd on the opposite pavement. "How ridiculously people do act in
an emergency! What's the use of crowding round?"

His neighbours looked resentfully at him.

"Stand back, can't you; stand back and give her air."

"Give _'oo_ air? You keep your'n on," said an on-looker, elbowing him
back.

"Why, it's a girl, isn't it? At least, they told me so," said the
officious man. "Why _do_ people push so? There's absolutely nothing to
get excited about."

"Girl, I dessay. But she's in that house over there."

"Most extraordinary thing," said a tradesman, who was standing in his
doorway. "That house is unoccupied. Been empty for three weeks or
more."

"And they've only just found the poor girl inside," exclaimed the
officious man. "Well, of all the useless, incompetent people in the
world, I really do think the London police bear away the palm. And why
on earth don't they keep the crowd away? Where _are_ the police? Here,
someone go and call a constable."

No one showed any desire to resign his point of view; and the cabs
going town-wards in a hurry turned down a side street to save time.

"'Ear that, Emmer?" said a woman in a shawl, who was standing in a
group of dishevelled companions. "The poor gal's been lyin' in that
empty 'ouse for three weeks; ain't it a shime?"

"Ah, it's jest like 'em," said another, vaguely.

"Well, I ain't what yer might call soft-'earted," said the first, "but
think of me livin' 'andy all that time, and the pore girl----"

"Yes, you can lay and rot for all _they_ care," said the other. "I
might die in me bed time and time again, and no one any the wiser. Not
but what I've got any right to becall you, Mrs. Robins. Think she's
dead?"

"Dead? No. Can't you see the 'orspital nurse stoopin' down over 'er?
They wouldn't 'a 'ad a 'orspital nurse if she was dead."

Just then the door of the house opened, and the crowd swayed excitedly
as Susie appeared with the constable, and stood for a moment in
surprise on the top step.

[Illustration: "THE CROWD SWAYED EXCITEDLY AS SUSIE APPEARED WITH THE
CONSTABLE."]

"Where's the ambulance," cried the officious man. "Why don't they send
for the ambulance? What _is_ the good of the police if they can't----"

"Now then, what's all this? Pass along, please, pass along."

Five or six policemen appeared simultaneously from different
directions.

"Over there, in that house. That's where it is," cried several voices.

"Stand back there! let the police through!" cried others.

The constables pushed their way through the throng to the point where
Susie and the policeman were standing, and the crowd stood in intense
silence while a hurried consultation took place. A moment or two later
Esther and Susie entered the hansom, which was still waiting in the
hope of a case for St. George's, and drove off through the passage
cleared by the police.

"Now then, pass along 'ere, _pass_ along," said the police. "There
ain't nothing to look at 'ere."

"Well, but aren't you going to bring the girl out?" asked the officious
man of a constable.

"Pass along, if _you_ please."

"What _is_ the good of making such a mystery of it?" said the officious
man. "That's the way half the crimes go undetected. I daresay it's all
simple enough if the truth were known. I maintain the public has a
right to be taken into the confidence of the authorities."

"'Ushing of it up," said the woman in a shawl. "'Ushing of it up."

"And I dessay they're well paid to do it," said her companion.

"Well, that's another added to the unsolved mysteries of London," said
the respectable-looking working-man, addressing his neighbours, "but
it's another nail in the coffin of----"

"Now then, your supper's gettin' cold," said the constable.




[Illustration: ONE-QUARTER OF A 1/4_d._]

[Illustration: ONE-THIRD OF A 1/4_d._]

[Illustration: NEW SOUTH WALES 15 PENNY PIECE.]

STRANGE KINDS OF MONEY.

BY ROBERT MACHRAY.


There seems to be scarcely any nation or tribe, no matter how savage
and barbarous, but has a money, or some kind of currency equivalent to
money, with which it discharges its debts and pays for the articles it
requires or covets.

Many of the specimens shown in the illustrations accompanying this
article of moneys "current with the merchant" will seem strange enough,
but it must be remembered that it was from the use of just such objects
long ago that the highly developed monetary systems of the Western
world have come.

[Illustration: A HALF-DALER PIECE, WHICH MEASURES THREE INCHES SQUARE.]

Amongst the most civilised races gold and silver coin, or "bank-notes,"
secured by deposits of gold and silver or by Government guarantees, are
the recognised media of exchange. Modern coinages exhibit many
specimens of beautiful and artistic moneys, and the notes--bills, as
they are called in America--issued by the Bank of England, the French,
United States, and other Governments, are, if not exactly artistic,
wonderfully ingenious devices for baffling the skill of the forger. But
in savage countries the forger has no place, for the moneys there in
use could not possibly be counterfeited.

[Illustration: CHINAMAN BUYING EGGS, WITH THE "CASH" OVER HIS
SHOULDER.]

Amongst the commonest of all currencies is the shell, and at the
present time it is quite extensively used in various parts of the
world--in Africa, in the Pacific, and in parts of Asia. In Africa, the
Shell-Money is the cowry, and it is customary for the natives to adorn
their gods, fetiches, and other objects of veneration with ropes of
these shells. In British Columbia, Haikwa shells were used as money.

[Illustration: CHINESE SILVER WILLOW-LEAF-MONEY.]

One of our illustrations shows the form shell-money takes in the
Solomon Islands, the shells being strung in ropes a fathom long.
Another picture shows a satchel belonging to a native of New Caledonia
with a quantity of shell-money in it. Sometimes the shells used are of
quite a large size; at other times again they are exceedingly minute.
Their value appears to depend on their colour and shape, the most
valuable being those which were most suitable for the adornment of the
person.

[Illustration: ADZE-MONEY, THE PRICE OF A FAT MAN FOR CANNIBALS.]

The next group of currencies is of a somewhat different class. In this
case feathers take the place of shells, and three examples are given of
this Feather Currency. In one example we see a specimen of what is
known as the Red Feather Currency. Over a band of vegetable fibre is
woven a material composed of red parrot feathers, held in place by two
boards placed in the middle above and below the band; the whole was
carried in a bag.

[Illustration: FEATHER-BRUSH-MONEY FROM THE SANDWICH ISLES.]

In another instance, the feathers are arranged to form something like a
brush, the brush itself being made of the coloured tufts or portions of
birds' plumage, while the handle is composed of strands of plaited
grass. This sort of money was obtained in rather a cruel way, for the
birds who were despoiled of their brilliant feathers were not killed
before the operation; their bright plumage was plucked from their
living bodies, and then the birds were allowed to fly away again. No
doubt in the course of time the feathers grew again, when the birds
would be caught and the operation performed once more.

[Illustration: MONEY BY FATHOMS--A FATHOM OF SHELL-MONEY.]

The particular home of the feather currency was the Sandwich Islands,
the natives of which made gorgeous robes and helmets for their chiefs
and kings out of these much-prized feathers. A third example is of what
is known as Flying-Fox-Money. The fur of the flying-fox is made into
cords, as shown in the illustration, and is very good "money" indeed in
the Loyalty Islands.

[Illustration: COWRY-SHELL-MONEY | FISH-HOOK-MONEY.]

One of the most elementary forms of currency is Adze-Money, and the
specimen selected for presentation here comes from these same Loyalty
Islands. This adze blade is of jade, and I am told that it represents
"the price of a fat man for cannibal purposes."

How enormously valuable such adzes as these are is shown by a statement
that any native who becomes possessed of one is regarded by his fellows
as a millionaire, and in a certain tribe which possessed but one such
adze the coveted object was passed at the end of each week from one
native to another. Its lucky possessor for the time being was regarded
as the richest man in the world by all the others, who waited
impatiently to become in their turn millionaires "for one week only."

[Illustration: CORD MADE FROM FLYING-FOX USED AS CASH.]

Amongst other queer kinds of money in use in the South Seas may be
mentioned the "Tabua" or whale's tooth of Fiji; the Mat-Money--small
mats made of grass, curiously woven in quaint patterns, current in
various parts of Melanesia (a somewhat similar currency is to be found
amongst the Thlinket Indians of Alaska); and rings of quartzite, of
which an illustration, taken from a specimen from the New Hebrides, is
given above.

[Illustration: QUARTZITE RING AND MADAGASCAR BANGLE.]

It may be noticed that there is much of the artistic about these
Pacific Islands moneys; those current in Africa do not exhibit any
characteristic of the kind; they are simply barbaric. Here, for
instance, is a rough ingot of copper of cruciform shape, which was used
as money in East Central Africa, and represents what would be
equivalent to a very heavy balance at an English bank account.

[Illustration: SPADE-HEAD.]

[Illustration: SQUARE INGOT MONEY. WEIGHS 1-1/2 LBS.]

Implements of iron, such as iron spades and the heads of hoes, and so
on, were widely circulated as valuable consideration for the purchase
of ivory, and ivory itself was, and still is, one of the most valuable
of African currencies. From the spade to the spear is but a step, so we
need not be surprised to find that the shaped spear-head is equal to a
great many pounds sterling on the higher waters of the Congo.

[Illustration: INGOT OF COPPER FROM EAST CENTRAL AFRICA.]

Another form of African money is the armlet or bangle made of
metal--bronze most commonly, silver sometimes, gold very rarely; and
these are classed under the head of what is known as Ring-Money or
"Manillas." However, it must be said that the use of bracelets and
bangles as currency was quite common in ancient times before the
invention of stamped or coined money.

[Illustration: IRON SPADE.]

Everyone is probably aware that beads have played a large part as a
currency when Western merchants have been trading with savage tribes;
but few people, I imagine, can have any idea how Bead-Money was
systematised by Englishmen in their dealings with the natives of
Africa. What I am about to say seems beyond belief, but yet it is true.
There was one sort of beads used for the purchase of palm oil, a second
for ivory, a third for gold, and a fourth for slaves.

[Illustration: CHINESE BOAT MONEY]

Our illustrations on p. 644 show the different shapes and sizes of
these beads, which were made in London, but they do not exhibit the
colours, which were an important feature. These bright and shining
baubles tickled the savage fancy, and the same love of bright objects
has been already noticed with respect to shell-money.

[Illustration: FEATHERS AS MONEY--RED PARROT FEATHERS.]

One of the quaintest of all currencies is that known as the
Fishhook-Money, which can hardly be said to have even yet died out of
use along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It is supposed that these
Larins, as they are termed, originally came from Ceylon, and they
consist of thin pieces of silver bent into the shape of a hook about an
inch in length. In some cases copper is used instead of silver, but
each piece is stamped with its value.

[Illustration: A PAPER BILL FOR 4_d._]

[Illustration: CONGO SPEAR HEAD AS CASH. THE BARB IS JOINED TO THE
SPEAR.]

[Illustration: ENGLISH 2_d._ PIECE, WEIGHS 2 OZS.]

[Illustration: CHINESE CASH, CARRIED ON STRINGS. 1,000 = 3_s._]

The great merchants of the East are the Chinese, and the different
forms of money they have brought into use do not strike us as being
particularly convenient. The commonest of all Chinese moneys is the
_cash_--a round metal disc with a square hole in the middle, the value
of a thousand _cash_ not being much more than three shillings. These
_cash_ are carried about in long strings, and the hole in the middle
receives the string. This form of currency is developed from what is
generally termed "key-money" or "knife-money."

[Illustration: PAPER POSTAGE-MONEY FOR BUYING STAMPS.]

Silver is the great medium of exchange in China and elsewhere in the
East; and a regular feature of all cities and towns and even villages
in China is the money-changer, who in return for so much weight of
silver will hand out so many strings of _cash_. The silver used in
these exchanges is called Sycee silver, and is apparently of any shape
or size.

Sometimes the silver takes the bar or ingot shape, and is then termed
_Nen_. The specimen on page 643 is an unusually large one, and weighs
nearly a pound and a half. It was used as currency in Upper Cambodia,
and is stamped on one side with a Chinese inscription which specifies
the weight of the silver and also the name of the merchant who weighed
it and affirmed how much it was worth.

But besides the ingot shape, this Chinese silver currency is found in
many forms, not only in China, but in Singapore, in Ceylon, and
wherever the Chinese trader is found, such as Hat-Money, Shoe-Money,
Boat-Money, Snailshell-Money, Willow-leaf-Money--terms which are all
derived from the actual form the silver has taken after it has come out
of the mould and received the stamp of the particular Chinese merchant
who makes himself responsible for its quality and weight. Some of these
pieces are very small, and consequently are of little value.

[Illustration: THESE SHELLS WERE USED AS MONEY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.]

The oddest of them is certainly the Snailshell-Money, which is really a
bubble of silver solidified into the shape of a shell. It is
characteristic of this sort of money that the silver shows the marks of
the crucible in which it was melted on the side opposite to that which
has received the inscription. To the same class of currency belongs the
Bullet-Money of Siam--lumps of silver of various sizes stamped on one
side. This currency is generally about an ounce in weight, but there
are in existence specimens of it as small as fine shot.

[Illustration: BURMESE GAMBLERS' PORCELAIN-MONEY.]

[Illustration: BAR-MONEY USED IN CHINA.]

[Illustration: SILVER "SHOE-MONEY."]

One of our illustrations exhibits what is probably the least valuable
currency in the world--the porcelain currency used among the gamblers
of Burmah and Siam. Originally intended as nothing more than counters,
they have come to be regarded as money, but of very small value. They
are of various shapes and sizes, with a figure or emblem of some sort
on one side, and on the other an inscription in Chinese, stating how
much such and such a merchant will give for them. I fancy it takes
about a barrelful of them to make a "trade."

Probably the largest pieces of money that have ever been brought into
existence are those known as "Money of Necessity." During the Stuart
wars Charles I. and James II. both coined money of this sort out of
silver plate, gun metal, or anything else that came handy. You will
find such pieces in any museum, and they are of all shapes and sizes.

[Illustration: SIAMESE BULLET-MONEY--WEIGHING AN OUNCE DOWNWARDS.]

The most remarkable specimens which I have been able to find of Money
of Necessity are Swedish in their origin. The half-daler piece on page
639 is a mere baby, although it is three inches square. A four-daler
piece was rather more than a foot square, and weighed nearly seven
pounds. There is a specimen of an eight-daler piece in the British
Museum, which is nearly a yard long and a foot broad. Just fancy
carrying a few such pieces about in one's purse! Perhaps the largest
piece of money in circulation in this country in recent years was the
two-penny copper piece known as the "cartwheel," issued in 1797. It was
quite a chunk of metal, and weighed exactly two ounces. A few years ago
a gentleman collected a very large number of these two-penny pieces,
and paved the floor of his smoking-room with them. No doubt they made
better bricks than coins.

[Illustration: BEADS TO BUY PALMS.]

The smallest pieces of British money have been issued for Malta and
Ceylon, and are of such microscopic values as one-third and one-fourth
of a farthing. The illustrations show the full size of the coins.

[Illustration: BEADS TO BUY IVORY.]

The history of the fifteen-penny piece illustrated at the top of this
article is certainly curious. It was good money in New South Wales some
seventy years ago. In those days there was a great scarcity of "change"
in the colony, and the piece of money in general circulation was the
Spanish dollar. To make it go further, the centre of the dollar was
punched out, and the bit of silver thus obtained was christened
"fifteen pence," and put into circulation as of that value. The
mutilated dollar still retained its original value, and was known as
the "Holy Dollar"--from the round hole in it.

[Illustration: BEADS IN EXCHANGE FOR SLAVES.]

[Illustration: NEW CALEDONIA PURSE COVERED WITH SHELLS.]

Amongst other examples of small currencies I have selected the
Groat-Bill issued in the States before the Revolution, and also a
specimen of the small postage-currency in use in the States immediately
after the Civil War.

For the loan of all the Queer Cash which illustrate this article, we
are indebted jointly to Messrs. Spink, of Piccadilly, and to the
authorities of the British Museum.

[Illustration: BEADS TO GET GOLD.]

They are not a tithe of those which we might have published, but they
are among the most interesting, and show that the money instinct is
prevalent the world over. "Hard" cash it can scarcely be called, for
the feather currency at least is deliciously soft.




CLEVER MRS. BLADON.

AN ACCOUNT OF A BIT OF STRATEGY.

BY E. BURROWES.

_Illustrated by Sydney Cowell._


No one ever disputed the fact that Mrs. Bladon was a distinctly clever
woman. And it proved to be an equally undisputable fact that when Ted
Lumsden managed to outwit her he became the hero of the hour. It
happened on this wise:

Colonel and Mrs. Bladon had a daughter--and a pretty daughter.

Ted Lumsden was young, good-looking, sufficiently well possessed of
this world's goods to be able to regard matrimony as quite a necessary
and probably pleasant experiment. Given two young people with youth,
beauty, and power of attraction, and the solution of the problem is
quite simple.

Ted Lumsden loved Nancy Bladon, whilst Nancy--well, she just tolerated
him. That was what she said to him; what her real feelings on the
subject were is quite another question.

[Illustration: "'I HATE GOING ABROAD. MOTHER, YOU HAVE SOME OTHER
REASON.'"]

But there was Mrs. Bladon in the matter, and she, like the clever woman
she was, said nothing, but thought the more, until one day when for
ten minutes she opened her heart to her husband, and for those ten
minutes spoke concisely and to the point.

"You understand, Roger," she concluded, "it is not that I object to
Lumsden at all; far from it. But what I do object to is the fact that
for years--now don't laugh--years, I repeat, this has been going on,
and nothing definite has ever come of it. Either he is in no hurry, or
else he means nothing, after the fashion of young men of the present
day. _Enfin_, I do not intend Nancy to be kept in a kind of suspense
any longer. If she cares for the boy--well, I am sorry; but my mind is
quite made up on one point: I shall not encourage Ted to haunt our
house any longer. And I shall make it a good excuse to give Nancy three
months on the Continent."

"_Après cela--le déluge_," muttered Colonel Bladon, lazily. "Well, you
know best, my dear; only I don't see why Nancy should be exiled."

"Nonsense; it is no exile to travel for a bit and see a little of the
world. At any rate, it will simplify matters, and that is everything."

So it came to pass that a decree went forth which, like the laws of the
Medes and Persians, altered not. Miss Bladon, chaperoned by Lady
Forsyth, would spend the winter abroad.

"A slight delicacy of chest," murmured clever Mrs. Bladon in answer to
inquiries. "No, nothing serious; still, we think a winter abroad
advisable, under the circumstances."

And the world took its cue very adroitly, and immediately detected a
"transparency" about Nancy's pretty face and round, soft cheeks.

The first inkling of the plot reached Ted Lumsden one sunny afternoon
in December when he called at the big house in Berkeley Square in his
usual casual way.

"Not at home, sir," said the butler, with immovable countenance; and
there was nothing for it but to leave cards and depart. But to her
intimate friend, Lady Forsyth, Mrs. Bladon was rather more explicit.

"A little _affaire du coeur_, my dear Frances, for which there is
nothing like change of air and scene. And, I beg of you, let Nancy
flirt as much as she pleases. I am delighted you are really going by
the Orient to Naples; a delightful voyage, and then there are so many
facilities for harmless flirtation in mid-ocean."

Lady Forsyth laughed gaily.

"My good Theresa, no one could be better than I to chaperon Nancy on an
ocean voyage. Till we pass Gibraltar I shall be visible to no one but
my maid and the stewardess, such is the effect Neptune has upon me. And
as for flirtation, your pretty daughter may do that as much as she
likes. _I_ shall be none the wiser, and you know how vague and dreamy
George is."

The subject of all this commotion rebelled somewhat at this summary
measure. But Mrs. Bladon quelled the revolt gently.

"Travel, dearest, will do you a world of good, and you will enjoy the
complete change of scene. Besides--your health."

Nancy frowned.

"I am not ill. I hate going abroad. Mother, you have some other
reason."

Mrs. Bladon laughed.

"Only for your good, darling. By the way, remember we are dining out
to-night; wear your pink dress, dear."

There was no more said on either side, though more than once Miss
Bladon was much tempted to reopen the argument.

Curiously enough, she did not see Lumsden again. Fate seemed to be
against her, and when the day came on which she was to join Lady
Forsyth at Paddington _en route_ for Plymouth, from whence they were to
sail in the _Orotava_, it brought to Nancy a very heavy heart.

Five minutes after she had left the house Lumsden arrived at the hall
door.

"Just gone, sir. Miss Bladon's going abroad for her 'ealth, sir."

"Going abroad! What station?"

"Paddington, sir."

The man's grim face relaxed into a smile as Lumsden dashed down the
square and jumped into a passing hansom.

"Double fare if you reach Paddington in five minutes," he shouted,
thoroughly roused out of his normal state of lazy contentment by this
unexpected move on the enemy's part.

He understood Mrs. Bladon perhaps better than that astute lady
imagined.

At Paddington he espied the party--Sir George and Lady Forsyth, with
valet and maid and a mass of baggage; Mrs. Bladon calm and serene, with
Nancy lovelier than ever in her dark blue travelling costume with a
touch of vivid scarlet at the throat.

She was looking anxiously about her, and as her eyes lighted on
Lumsden's dark handsome face and tall lithe figure she smiled--a
little, quick, flashing smile, mingled with a tinge of pink colour in
her soft cheeks.

He made his way towards her as she was borne towards the Plymouth
express in a vortex of people and baggage.

There was only five minutes, and she was going abroad.

Perhaps he had never realised all she was to him till that moment, and
in the instant when Mrs. Bladon was saying last words to Lady Forsyth
he reached Nancy's side. Their hands met in a long and close clasp.

"I could not believe it--that you were going away," he said, in quick,
eager tones; "why did you not tell me?"

"I never saw you," she began, quickly. "You never came, and----"

"Good morning," broke in Mrs. Bladon, not one whit disconcerted at the
unwelcome arrival of Lumsden on the scene. "Yes, Nancy is going abroad.
Lucky girl, to escape cold, dreary England; and now, remember, dearest,
to wrap up on the voyage, and don't stay up on deck after dinner till
you get used to the chilly air. Good-bye, Frances; send me a line from
Gibraltar. How I envy you! Yes, the _Orotava_ is a fine boat. _Bon
voyage._ Good-bye, darling."

[Illustration: LUMSDEN COULD ONLY SAY, "WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME YOU
WERE GOING AWAY?" WHEN MRS. BLADON BROKE IN--]

The train began to glide out of the station, and only a last sweet
smile remained to Lumsden as Mrs. Bladon and he were left standing
together on the gloomy platform. Then, when the train had passed out of
sight, he swung round and faced Mrs. Bladon with a half-contemptuous
smile in his dark, keen eyes.

"Well?" he said, coolly.

She laughed.

"Is it well?" she said, lightly. "You were hardly in time, were you?
Nancy will have a delightful time with the Forsyths. Italy, perhaps
Algiers; a charming tour away from this fog."

He threw up his head with a sudden characteristic gesture.

"Yes--of course. It was sudden, though. Why was I not told of it?"

They were walking out of the station, and Mrs. Bladon fastened her furs
closely round her. It was bitterly cold.

"My dear Mr. Lumsden," she said, airily, as he opened the door of her
carriage, "am I answerable to you for my doings? And you know it is
best."

"Are you sure of that?" he said, coolly. "Perhaps there are two
opinions about it. I am a fatalist, Mrs. Bladon."

"Really? I envy you. Can I give you a lift? No? Then home, James."

Lumsden walked quickly away, his pulses beating fast.

Stay. He had an idea--a brilliant idea. He would not accept defeat so
easily. It was early in the day, and he was free for a month. In a
month one may do wonders.

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun was shining with dazzling brilliance as the _Orotava_ dropped
her anchor between the lightships in Gibraltar Harbour, in the shadow
of the great grey rock; and as Nancy Bladon looked over the side,
eagerly scanning the fascinating scene around her, something of the
witchery of that sunny Southern air stirred her young blood, and made
her pulses beat madly.

The Forsyths were going ashore, and, driving through the narrow
streets, Nancy, viewing everything in the light of her own joyous
youth, felt enchanted with the picturesque Moors.

As they returned to the ship, and ascended out of the heavy,
flat-bottomed boat, another came alongside with several passengers.
Lady Forsyth had gone into the saloon, leaving Nancy leaning against
the rail in the dancing sunshine. Presently she half turned round,
and--found herself face to face with Ted Lumsden!

[Illustration: "SHE HALF TURNED ROUND AND FOUND HERSELF FACE TO FACE
WITH TED LUMSDEN."]

He, cool, nonchalant as ever, took her hand, with a quick smile.

"Well, so you see I am also going abroad--for my health."

There was a significance in the words which made the warm blood leap to
Nancy's cheeks.

"But how did you come?" she said, in tones of the utmost astonishment.

"Overland--to Algeciras," he returned, coolly. "Caught the _Orotava_
nicely, and had a day to spare in Gibraltar. Now that I _am_ here, you
will not send me away?"

"Why should I?"

In that moment she understood her mother's tactics. Why should she run
away from Fate in the shape of Lumsden?

Lady Forsyth, returning to her charge as they steamed away into the
Mediterranean, found her engaged in what appeared to be a very
promising flirtation, such as would surely have delighted the heart of
clever Mrs. Bladon.

She was secretly charmed with Lumsden, whom she had not noticed at
Paddington, and to her letter to Mrs. Bladon, which she was writing to
post at Naples, she added a postscript which filled that lady with
unholy joy:

"Be quite easy about Nancy; I think all danger is over. A flirtation is
in grand progress, and, between ourselves, the man is charming."

She quite forgot to mention his name, which, perhaps, was quite as well
for that lady's peace of mind.

To Nancy and Lumsden there ensued a period of bliss. Steaming down the
Mediterranean, with very little motion to disturb the equanimity even
of Lady Forsyth, what halcyon days those were when, after dinner, in
secluded corners of the deck, under the brilliant Southern moon, they
walked up and down--silent very often, with the silence of a perfect
understanding--till one fateful evening when Lumsden resolved to know
his fate.

"Do you know, Nancy," he began (he had never called her Nancy before),
"before you came away I think your mother took a dislike to me?"

"Oh, no--how could she?" said Nancy. "She always said she liked you.
Besides----"

She paused abruptly, and Lumsden stole a glance at her half-averted
face, which in the moonlight looked strangely sweet.

"Well, I called to see you several times, and you were always 'not at
home.'"

[Illustration: "LUMSDEN NOTICED WITH INWARD MIRTH AN INCREASED
CORDIALITY IN MRS. BLADON'S MANNER."]

Nancy started.

"Then that day at the station--well, I began to see," he continued,
"and I resolved to wait no longer. Nancy, I followed you. I never knew
till then how much you were to me; and now can you trust me more and
love me a little? I have loved you--always--darling."

Then the inevitable question arose--what would Lady Forsyth say? and
further, what about Mrs. Bladon?

Nancy suggested, and her suggestion was accepted, that Lady Forsyth
should be confided in. So it came to pass that the following morning
Lumsden and Lady Forsyth sauntered up and down the deck for some time
together, and for ten minutes Lumsden spoke, in cool, level tones, at
the end of which time Lady Forsyth laughed and shook her head
reprovingly.

"Oh, you men!" she said. "Well, I suppose I can say and do nothing. It
only remains for you to have it out with Mrs. Bladon. I have my own
opinions."

Lumsden laughed.

Their eyes met with a look of mutual understanding.

"So have I," he said, drily. "Mrs. Bladon is a clever woman. If this
sudden voyage had not taken place, who knows but that we might still
have been in the throes of uncertainty?"

"Ah!"

It was very clear now to Frances Forsyth that Mrs. Bladon's manoeuvre
had been well timed.

For a few short happy days they lingered in Naples, revelling in its
beauty.

Then it was arranged that Lumsden should return to England alone, and
see Mrs. Bladon. He felt he could not spare so long a holiday abroad,
and now that his journey had not been in vain he found himself once
more in foggy London, light of heart, cheerful, and cool as ever.

The lamps were lit when he was shown into the drawing-room where Mrs.
Bladon was busy at her writing-table, and he noticed with some inward
mirth that there was a distinct increase of cordiality in Mrs. Bladon's
manner.

"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Lumsden," she began; "surely you've been
out of town. Wise man! If I could only leave these terrible fogs and
bitter winds!"

"Yes, Italy now is delightful."

Mrs. Bladon smiled unconsciously.

"Delicious, so Nancy says. Dear child, this trip is doing her a world
of good. She writes such bright, happy letters; and indeed--you are an
old friend of hers, Mr. Lumsden, and there is no harm in telling you--I
think, from what Lady Forsyth has told me, that our dear child has
found her fate. I know nothing definite, but one can read between the
lines."

"Quite so," said Lumsden, with praiseworthy gravity, "Miss Nancy is
looking very blooming, I assure you, and we have had a delightful trip.
I found that a short holiday was quite necessary for my health, and,
oddly enough, I just hit off the _Orotava_ at Gibraltar. That overland
service is very useful. So I thought I would come in and let you know
how Nancy was."

There was a moment's tense silence, during which they looked at each
other steadily, Lumsden with a touch of cold mirth twinkling in his
handsome eyes.

"Well?" she said, with a half-mocking smile, while a great triumph
swelled within her.

Lumsden laughed.

"Well, shall I tell you how Nancy found her fate--and I mine? But that
is a stale story. I found mine long ago, but somehow I never quite
realised it till----"

"Yes?"

"That day at Paddington."

"Ah! Well, Ted--I suppose I may call you Ted?--of course you must speak
to Colonel Bladon. For myself, Nancy must always please herself, and
her choice is mine. Now I can see how delightful the voyage must have
been to you both. You are very clever, Ted."

He laughed happily.

"Is all the credit mine, Mrs. Bladon? I fancy not. Perhaps I may see
Colonel Bladon and ask you for a cup of tea."

To Colonel Bladon the whole thing seemed inexplicable.

"You sent the child away from the fellow," he said, sleepily, after
Lumsden had left, "and now that they have fallen into each other's arms
you are delighted. The inconsistencies of woman! Their name is legion."

"How dense you are, Roger! Don't you see that things might have hung
fire if it hadn't been for that trip abroad?"

Colonel Bladon sat up and looked at his wife.

"By Jove! You're a clever woman."

And she was.




[Illustration: THE START--HOW THE AMERICAN ENGINE LOOKED AT 7 A.M.]

AN ENGINE MATCH BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

A WORLD'S RECORD FOR ENGLAND.

BY FREDERICK A. TALBOT.


That anomalous principle, friendly rivalry, which exists between the
various railway companies of the world, is responsible for many
extraordinary performances.

One of the most interesting, and certainly one of the most curious, of
these has been the attempt by three different companies--two on this
side of the water, and one on the other--to erect a locomotive in less
than twenty-four hours, and so far the palm has to be awarded to an
English company.

By building is simply meant the assembling of the thousand and one
intricacies that constitute the iron steed of to-day, and not the
manufacture of these innumerable parts, as it is perfectly obvious,
even to the most uninitiated, that such a feat is absolutely
impossible, under the present circumstances, in such a brief space of
time. The accomplishment of such brilliant performances, however,
speaks volumes for the skill, efficiency, and pride of the men engaged
in such herculean tasks; the organisations of the railroads; the good
feeling prevalent between the masters and the men; and lastly, but by
no means least, the splendid standard of perfection attained by the
gigantic machinery for the execution of the work with precision and
thorough regard to gauge, thus enabling the parts to fit as accurately,
and move as smoothly, as the cog-wheels of a watch.

The first record-breaking in this direction was attempted so far back
as February 1878, by J. Deans, the well-known engineer of the London
and North-Western Railway, and the engineering works of this company at
Crewe. The class of engine selected for the operations was one of their
standard coupled six-wheeled goods engines.

[Illustration: THE ENGINE AT 12 O'CLOCK, AFTER 5 HOURS' WORK.]

The engine was taken out of the erecting shop, complete in every
detail, having been erected in the extremely short time of 25 hours 30
minutes. It may be as well to mention that only the actual working
time devoted to the engines is considered, and although about two and a
half days elapsed before the engine was completed, only 25-1/2 hours
were really occupied in its erection. That same day the engine ran a
trial trip, and was afterwards sent back to the shops for a final coat
of paint.

[Illustration: RESULT OF 10 HOURS' WORK ON THE ENGINE.]

Some ten years elapsed after the establishment of this record before
another effort was made to erect an engine within twenty-four hours. On
this occasion it was the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, one of the
largest railroad companies in the United States, possessing over 8,000
miles of railway track, which is about equal in extent to almost three
of our leading railway systems combined. The engine selected on this
occasion was also a tank of the light passenger type, with cylinders 17
inches in diameter and a 24-inch stroke, driving wheels 62 inches in
diameter, and with a total weight when in complete working order of
96,300 lbs., or about 43 tons. It was erected under the supervision of
Mr. F. L. Sheppard, General Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company, at the company's works at Altoona, Pennsylvania.

[Illustration: FINISHED!--THIS ENGINE WAS BUILT IN 16 HOURS 50
MINUTES.]

Although in this instance the engine was a little more complicated than
that erected at Crewe, owing to the bogie-wheel provision in the fore
part of the engine, it cannot be said, on the whole, to have been such
a brilliant performance as that accomplished at Crewe; for whereas in
the London and North-Western sheds, when the commencement was made, the
frame plates were simply lying on the trestles without any attachments
of any description whatever, at the Altoona works, when operations were
commenced at 7 a.m. on Monday, June 18th, 1888, not only were the
frame plates in position, duly riveted or bolted, and complete with
cross bars, but the cylinders were also accurately placed.

[Illustration: GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY ENGINE AFTER 3 HOURS 52 MINUTES'
WORK.]

Now, considering that in the effort at Crewe these operations alone
occupied over six hours, it is absolutely impossible to place the
Altoona experiment on all fours with the London and North-Western
performance of 1878.

In the case of the American engine the foundations were practically
completed before it entered the erecting shed.

Under these circumstances the first thing that the workmen had to do
was to place the boiler in position upon the prepared frame, which had
the majority of the tubes and fittings in position before it was placed
in the hands of the engine-erectors. At twelve o'clock noon, however,
after five hours' work, it was safely fixed, and the hardest part of
the undertaking was thus successfully accomplished. Up to this stage,
as will be seen from the illustrations, the whole of the engine so far
erected was resting upon those little unpretentious, though
indispensable, mechanical contrivances--jacks. These had now to be
removed to make way for the wheels which were ready waiting to be
inserted. Part of the motion was also installed, as well as the
cow-catcher and cab.

[Illustration: GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY ENGINE BUILT IN 8 HOURS 22
MINUTES.]

While these operations were in progress, an army of painters had
entered upon the scene with their pots and brushes, and soon were
displaying the arts of their craft upon the barrel of the boiler. The
change of colour between the painted and unpainted portions is easily
distinguishable in our illustration on page 652.

[Illustration: A FOUR HOURS OLD TENDER.]

When the men arrived at their work at seven o'clock on the following
morning, they had only to put the finishing touches to the engine, such
as the funnel, dome, the remainder of the motion, and other minor
adjustments, while the painters gave the entire engine a complete coat
of paint. At ten minutes to three in the afternoon of the same day the
engine was completed, with steam up ready for trial, having been
erected in 16 hours 50 minutes, thus beating the London and
North-Western record by some eight and a half hours; and although it
cannot be contrasted with the accomplishment at Crewe, yet it is still
a wonderful performance.

The English locomotive builders, however, were determined to wrest the
laurels away from the American company, and thus retrieve their
paramount position. In December 1891, the Great Eastern Railway
Company, which has been the pioneer in many ramifications pertaining to
railway matters, entered the field of the competition, and succeeded in
establishing a record which completely eclipses the wonderful
performances at Crewe and Altoona. In this last instance an engine was
erected in the phenomenally short time of ten hours. The Great Eastern,
however, besides lowering one record, created another at the same time.
In the previous efforts, the engines erected had been only tanks, but
the latest competitors beat the record with an engine and tender!

[Illustration: THIS TENDER WAS BUILT IN NINE HOURS.]

The engine erected was one of the six-wheel coupled goods type, of
which there are between two and three hundred in existence already upon
the Great Eastern Railway system. The cylinders are 17-1/2 inches in
diameter, with a stroke of 24 inches, while the coupled wheels are 57
inches in diameter. When running in complete working order, the engine
itself weighs 37 tons 2 cwt., augmented to 67 tons 12 cwt. with the
tender. The latter has a capacity for 2,640 gallons of water, and three
tons of coal.

The engineering works of the company at Stratford was the scene of the
remarkable engineering feat conducted under the superintendence of Mr.
James Holden, the designer of the style of engine selected, and also
the chief engineer to the Great Eastern Railway.

The commencement was made at eight minutes past nine on the morning of
Thursday, December 10th. The start was similar to that at Crewe, with
the frame plates lying on the ground with nothing more attached to them
than the horn blocks and spring brackets. The number of men employed in
constructing the engine was 85, including 39 fitters, assisted by 3
boys, 2 smiths, and 44 boiler makers, riveters, etc.

At eleven minutes after the word was given to commence, the first rivet
was driven into the frames; nine minutes later, the foot-plate casting
was fixed, and at twenty-six minutes after the start the motion plate
was placed in position. The cylinders came next, and occupied another
fifty minutes for their insertion in the requisite place.

At twelve o'clock, when the men left off work for their dinner, they
had been four hours all but eight minutes upon the task.

It will be seen in our illustration that the fundamental parts of the
base of the engine are completed, while the wheels are standing on the
rails at the foremost end ready for adjustment. These were inserted
soon after the men resumed operations after dinner, the frame of the
engine being raised by means of the jacks to a height sufficient to
allow the wheels being rolled along to the necessary position. The axle
boxes, connecting-rod, and coupling-rod brasses were shortly afterwards
fixed.

Previous to the installation of the wheels, the boiler was brought into
the shed and mounted upon the frame. It was without the smoke-box, cab,
or copings, which had to be fixed subsequently. At 4.15 p.m. the men
were engaged in setting the valves, which task was still incomplete
when they ceased work for the day, after 8 hours 22 minutes had been
expended upon the engine. The engine at this stage is represented in
our illustration, being, as will be seen, almost complete.

The next morning, when work was recommenced at six o'clock, the valve
setting was continued, not being completed until seven o'clock. The
painters now appeared, the engineers placed the finishing touches, and
at ten minutes past nine, 9 hours 47 minutes from the start, the engine
was complete.

[Illustration: THE GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY BEAT THE WORLD'S RECORD BY
PUTTING THIS ENGINE AND TENDER TOGETHER IN 9 HOURS 47 MINUTES.]

While this hive of workmen were engaged upon the engine, another army
of workers were just as busily engaged upon the erection of the tender.

The men worked away with a will, and in four hours they had the tender
half completed, and succeeded in finishing their entire task
three-quarters of an hour before their fellow workmen engaged on the
engine. Fifty-two men were engaged upon the erection of the tender,
comprising sixteen fitters, the same number of boiler-makers, and
twenty labourers, riveters, etc.

As soon as the engine was finished it was connected with the tender and
taken out of the shops to be photographed. Meanwhile, steam had been
supplied, and later in the same day the trial trip was performed. This
being satisfactory in every particular, the engine was immediately
placed upon the regular goods service running between Peterborough and
London.




NATURE'S DANGER-SIGNALS.

A STUDY OF THE FACES OF MURDERERS.

BY J. HOLT SCHOOLING.

     [Member of Lord Egerton of Tatton's Committee on the Mental
     and Physical Condition of Children.]

[Illustration: 1. JAMES CANHAM READ, THE SOUTHEND MURDERER.]

[Illustration: 2. KATE WEBSTER, WHO KILLED HER MISTRESS.]


If you walk along the Strand from Charing Cross to Temple Bar, and back
to Charing Cross on the other side of the street, any day at an hour
when London hums with life, you probably meet at least one man who has
either done a murder or who will do murder before he dies. Perhaps his
shoulder rubs yours, or, in the jostle, you kick his heel; perhaps you
catch a passing glance from a pair of sinister eyes that somehow causes
you to feel a moment's vague uneasiness, or, as is more likely, you
walk unconscious of a possible contact with murder--but it's there.

[Illustration: 3. CHARLES PEACE AS "MR. THOMPSON" THE ENTERTAINER.]

I do not now refer to persons tricked into committing murder by the
perfidy of circumstances (such persons, for example, as the old man
Viney and the young woman Shoosmith, both lately respited), to many of
whom a fatal provocation has come at a moment of weakness or of
passion, and who, but for that unsought provocation, would have been
free from murder; but I do now refer to those men and women who are by
nature and inclination callous, scheming, unscrupulous, and insensitive
to any pain or injury inflicted by them upon their fellow-creatures,
and who are merely human beasts of prey.

[Illustration: 4. CHARLES PEACE, SIDE FACE--THE NOTORIOUS ASSASSIN AND
BURGLAR.]

The sense of self-preservation possessed by all animals, but not
possessed in such a high degree, perhaps, by human beings as it is
possessed by many of the lower animals, carries with it an instinctive
recognition of approaching danger from some other animal. Nature does
in many cases, perhaps in all, hold up to us certain danger-signals,
and if we were to let our natural instinct guide us--as dogs and young
children are instinctively guided--we might often avoid grave evils
that come to us from the human beasts of prey: cunning fraud, no less
than actual murder, is not allowed by Nature to walk through the world
without tell-tale evidences of its approach that ought to warn us. But,
as adults, we usually ignore the finer and more delicate suggestions of
our natural instinct, and we are guided much too often by what we think
is "reason," or by what we believe to be our "best interests"--and then
we are more or less mauled, in our pocket or in our person, by one of
the many human beasts of prey, when prompt obedience to our instinct
would have saved us.

Look at these faces. There is not one of them which cannot easily be
more or less closely matched as you walk about the streets of a big
city, or even, but naturally with less frequency, as you notice faces
in country districts. There is, of course, no typical murderer's face.
But all of these faces are bad faces; they warn you off. In some
instances (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, and 8, for example) the danger-signal is so
plain that not even the most casual observer can fail to see it; each
of these faces speaks for itself. In other instances, the warning is
not so plainly shown, especially as in these photographs you cannot see
the colour of the eye and its exact expression; but in no instance does
any one of these faces inspire you with sympathy, they all cause a
feeling of aversion or of distrust; and we, if we are wise, should not
put aside as fanciful that instinct in us which gives to us similar
warnings in everyday life.

[Illustration: 5. J. B. RUSH, THE NORFOLK FARMER AND MURDERER OF MR.
JERMY AND HIS SON.]

Look at No. 5. The points which constitute a danger-signal in this
callous villain's face, occurring as they do in _one face_, are the
massive lower jaw, the thick "blubber" mouth destitute of a shade of
sensitiveness, backed up by the massive and long upper lip, the great
width between the cheek-bones, the broad insensitive nostrils, the
angry forceful shape and angle of the eyebrows, and last, but not of
least importance, a pair of hard, cold, blue eyes without a spark of
feeling in them. All these things, coming as they do in one face, fit
in well with this cold-blooded and insensitive murderer, who, while in
prison on his trial, wrote an order for his dinner: "Pig to-day, and
plenty of plum sauce."

[Illustration: 6. MRS. DYER, THE READING BABY FARMER AND WHOLESALE
MURDERER OF INFANTS.]

[Illustration: 7. JAMES LEE, OF ROMFORD, WHO SHOT CHIEF-INSPECTOR
SIMMONDS, OF THE ESSEX POLICE.]

In No. 7, there are, amongst other bad signs, a coarse and cruel mouth,
great prominence of cheek-bones, and again those terrible hard blue
eyes, as cold as flint.

[Illustration: 8. HENRY FOWLER,]

[Illustration: 9. AND ALBERT MILSOM, THE MUSWELL HILL MURDERERS.]

No. 8 speaks for itself, and you see in No. 9 an abnormal animal
development of the lower jaw, very great width between the cheek-bones,
and the eyes are a cold, treacherous, hard blue.

No. 10 was a French peasant, who, with his wife (see No. 18), lived by
decoying young women, under the pretence of getting them situations,
into a wood near Lyons. When the victims came, Dumollard and his wife
killed them by garrotting, and after taking all valuables, these
wretches put the bodies of the young women into a new-made grave,
previously prepared. This man's face is a dreadful face, and the brow
reminds one of a gorilla. Look at the two faces (Nos. 10 and 18), and
imagine the degree of denseness of perception of approaching danger
that must have been present in the poor victims who would negotiate
with such wretches as these Dumollards.

[Illustration: 10. DUMOLLARD, WHO, WITH HIS WIFE, MURDERED NEARLY
TWENTY YOUNG WOMEN.]

The danger-signal is shown plainly enough in No. 11. This wretch
poisoned a large number of persons for the sake of petty gains with the
unconcern of a farm girl who wrings the necks of poultry. She had
thick-looking, dark brown eyes, muddy and hard.

[Illustration: 11. MARY ANN COTTON, THE POISONER.]

No. 12 is a shocking bad face. The lower jaw runs back a long way and
is then very pronounced--always a sign of animality, although in men of
intellect and feeling this same quality may often be innocuous, and
even useful as supplying energy; the mouth, especially when seen
full-face, is very coarse, and the lips thick and heavy; the nostrils
are very wide at their base, the ears are noticeably bad, and the eyes
are light blue and as hard as a flint.

By the way, and in order to avoid a possible misconception on the part
of my readers who may think I am bringing an indictment against blue
eyes generally, I ought to expressly state that this is not the case.
Many of the kindest and best people living have blue eyes, but their
eyes are not the same sort of blue eyes that nearly all deliberate
murderers have (of the twenty-two persons here included, fourteen have
blue eyes, six brown, and two have hazel eyes): the blue eyes I refer
to must have been noticed by everyone, and must have inspired aversion,
or at any rate a lack of sympathy, for, of all eyes, the hard, cold,
blue eye is perhaps the least human or humane. Some of the finest
soldiers and men of practical affairs have blue eyes, which, without
being in any way unpleasant, are yet those of men who, rightly enough,
never let an undue sensitiveness interfere with their actions. These
men may be honourable and excellent men, but they are essentially
practical, and are guided by their head rather than by their heart, and
they are often of immense service to the nation. Lord Kitchener has
splendidly resolute blue eyes of this sort, but they are entirely
different from the sinister blue eyes that are in nearly all the faces
now shown. The one sort inspires you with confidence, the other with
aversion.

[Illustration: 12. PERCY LEFROY MAPLETON, WHO KILLED MR. GOLD ON THE
BRIGHTON LINE.]

No. 13 is the face of one of the most cold-blooded poisoners that ever
lived. Under the guise of love or friendship he killed his many victims
for the sake of gold, coolly smiling at the torture he inflicted, and
nicely calculating the effect of each dose of poison. How could anyone
have trusted such a face as this? The immense development of the face
below the brow, its enormous width between the cheek-bones, the
absolute and sickening plausibility of the whole expression, the great
lower jaw, the cruel callous mouth (look at this mouth closely), and
the peculiarly uncanny light blue eyes, are a collection of
danger-signals that are rarely seen in one face. But his victims were
probably deceived by this wretch's fat, easy, and bland manner--_they
stifled their instinct_, and were duly poisoned.

[Illustration: 13. WM. PALMER, THE RUGELY POISONER.]

The lower jaw of No. 14 is quite Napoleonic in its strength and
unscrupulousness, and this face carries its warning with it. So also
does No. 15, which has a specially cruel and brutal mouth,
widely-placed cheek-bones, coarse wide nostrils, great width of head
between the ears, and cruel blue eyes.

[Illustration: 14. MANNING, WHO, WITH HIS WIFE, KILLED AND ROBBED A
FRIEND, WHOSE BODY THEY BURIED UNDER THE HEARTHSTONE IN THEIR KITCHEN.]

[Illustration: 15. WAINWRIGHT, THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERER OF HARRIET
LANE.]

No. 16 carries a warning in his eyes, and No. 17 shows several of the
danger-signals already pointed to; he also has those terrible hard blue
eyes. The woman's face in No. 18 speaks for itself, and the face in No.
19 is one that instinctively creates aversion, although this man was
perhaps the least atrocious of any of the persons here chosen on
account of their deliberate wickedness. As is mentioned at the
commencement of this article, I have picked out only deliberately
wicked faces, not those of persons who have become murderers through a
moment's passion, or through provocation.

[Illustration: 16. REGINALD BIRCHALL, THE CANADIAN DECOYER AND MURDERER
OF YOUNG BENWELL.]

[Illustration: 17. FISH, THE BRUTAL MURDERER OF EMILY HOLLAND.]

There is a particularly ruthless expression in the mouth of No. 20,
again the great lower jaw-bone going right back nearly square to the
ear, and again the wide cheek-bones, with hard blue eyes, destitute of
any flicker of softness or kindliness.

[Illustration: 18. MADAME DUMOLLARD, WHO, WITH HER HUSBAND, DECOYED,
ROBBED, AND MURDERED NEARLY TWENTY YOUNG WOMEN.]

No. 21 is another of the impassive, mask-like faces, but it has a most
sinister surface; the great bulging cheek-bones are very significant,
and the eyes are treacherous and menacing. This man was so callous that
he suggested that the place where he had buried his numerous victims
should be called "Troppmann Cemetery."

[Illustration: 19. ORROCK, WHO KILLED COLE, THE POLICEMAN, AT DALSTON.]

One of the worst faces of the lot is No. 22, although the tell-tale
mouth is hidden by hair. The eyes are very bad; they would by
themselves give sufficient warning to most of us. Here, again, you see
the development of cheek-bones and of the lower jaw at the back, which
so often goes with a brutal nature, and the eyebrows are very
threatening.

The last of these danger-signals is the face of Henry Benson, the
remarkable swindler and forger who was mixed up with the "Great Turf
Frauds" of some years ago (see No. 23). This man, who, after
conviction, gave evidence against the detectives Druscovitch,
Meiklejohn, and Palmer, was subsequently released on ticket-of-leave,
and later, being arrested for fresh frauds, committed suicide.

[Illustration: 20. JAMES MULLINS, WHO KILLED AN OLD WIDOW AT STEPNEY.]

Looking at this face, one can scarcely conceive how the man succeeded
as he did in deluding people--some of them of good social position. For
example, in 1870 Benson personated the Mayor of Châteaudun in France,
and nearly swindled the Lord Mayor of London out of charitable
contributions for the benefit of sufferers from the Franco-German war.
Benson was well educated, very clever, and inveterately wicked--he
looks it. Notice the great bulge at the "hinge" of the lower jaw, and
the cynically bad mouth; surely, this face plainly shows the absolute
unscrupulousness of the man, backed up by plenty of resolute energy to
make that unscrupulousness effectively dangerous.

[Illustration: 21. TROPPMANN, WHO DECOYED AND MURDERED A FAMILY OF
SIX.]

There are many men now going about whose entire want of scruple is as
plainly shown in their faces as it is in the face of Benson, but a
passable exterior, a plausible manner, seems in many cases to put
people quite off their guard. We are, I suppose, so accustomed to
regard as sufficient a due attention to social conventions, that we
have lost the more primitive sense of self-protection that, in more
primitive conditions of society than our own, would be actively used by
us for our own protection. Moreover, we have become accustomed to look
to the law for protection, and this is, perhaps, another reason why our
instinctive recognition of Nature's danger-signals has become dulled,
and is now so much less effective than the instinct for danger which
some of the lower animals possess in a high degree.

[Illustration: 22. DR. NEILL (CREAM), THE LAMBETH POISONER.]

As I have already suggested, one or more bad signs may often be seen in
the faces of persons who are good rather than bad, kind rather than
brutal, honourable rather than treacherous. In such instances, the bad
point is dominated by the good ones, and it may indeed be converted
into a useful quality. For example, the animal brutality of a murderer
may become in a good face the resolute energy of the man of action.

[Illustration: 23. HENRY BENSON, SWINDLER AND FORGER.]

But where you see many bad signs collected in one face, and when you
feel a certain instinctive aversion for a face, even though your reason
or your supposed self-interest gives you no warning, then I say let
your instinct have its way, and take the warning that Nature is holding
up to you as a danger-signal.

This reliance upon instinct works both ways, moreover. It is equally
foolish to distrust all men, as the cynics do, as it is to trust all
men, as the imprudent do. In giving these necessarily scanty notes upon
faces which contain some of Nature's most obvious danger-signals, my
purpose is to warn people off the bad faces, and at the same time to
encourage a belief in good faces; but in both instances, I suggest, let
instinct be your guide, for in this matter instinct is often a far
surer guide than reason.

     _Note._--These photographs have been specially taken from
     the models in Madame Tussaud's Exhibition. In expressing my
     thanks to Mr. John Tussaud for the facilities thus given, I
     must also express admiration of the art which produces these
     life-like models.--J. H. S.




[Illustration: IN PRAISE OF BABY.]


          The sun rose up in the morning
        Through his door in the Eastern sky;
    And he flung back his curtains of purple and red
    To look out on the world, and he laughed as he said
        "There's nothing so bright as I!"
            But he never had seen my baby's smile,
            That is brighter than sunshine all the while.

          The moon stole out in the evening
        From the clouds; and up, up she rolled
    Through the wonderful blue of the Autumn night,
    And she said, "Ah, the sun may be never so bright,
        Still there's nothing to match my gold!"
            Well, the moon, she's golden, and soft and fair,
            But she couldn't have seen my baby's hair.

          The stars peeped after the twilight;
        And, when they were sure it was gone,
    They all flocked forth in a glittering show,
    Singing, "No one can dance like this below,
        Though we've nothing to dance upon!"
            So they twinkled in mazes light and fleet;
            But they never had watched my baby's feet.

    Barrington McGregor




"MAN OVERBOARD!"

AN EPISODE OF THE RED SEA.

BY WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL.[A]

_Illustrated by Henry Austin._


It was a little after half-past nine when the man fell overboard. The
mail steamer was hurrying through the Red Sea in the hope of making up
the time which the currents of the Indian Ocean had stolen. The night
was clear, though the moon was hidden behind clouds. The warm air was
laden with moisture. The still surface of the waters was only broken by
the movement of the great ship, from whose quarter the long, slanting
undulations struck out, like the feathers from an arrow shaft, and in
whose wake the froth and air bubbles churned up by the propeller
trailed in a narrowing line to the darkness of the horizon.

[Illustration: "THE RAILING GAVE WAY, AND HE FELL BACKWARDS INTO THE
SEA WITH A SPLASH."]

There was a concert on board. All the passengers were glad to break the
monotony of the voyage, and gathered around the piano in the
companion-house. The decks were deserted. The man had been listening to
the music and joining in the songs. But the room was hot, and he came
out to smoke a cigarette and enjoy a breath of the wind which the
speedy passage of the liner created. It was the only wind in the Red
Sea that night.

The accommodation-ladder had not been unshipped since leaving Aden, and
the man walked out on to the platform, as on to a balcony. He leaned
his back against the rail and blew a puff of smoke into the air
reflectively. The piano struck up a lively tune, and a voice began to
sing the first verse of "The Rowdy Dowdy Boys." The measured pulsations
of the screw were a subdued but additional accompaniment. The man knew
the song. It had been the rage at all the music halls, when he had
started for India seven years before. It reminded him of the brilliant
and busy streets he had not seen for so long, but was soon to see
again. He was just going to join in the chorus, when the railing, which
had been insecurely fastened, gave way suddenly with a snap, and he
fell backwards into the warm water of the sea amid a great splash.

[Illustration: "THE LIGHT OF THE SHIP GOT SMALLER AND SMALLER AS HE
THREW UP HIS HANDS AND SANK."]

For a moment he was physically too much astonished to think. Then he
realised that he must shout. He began to do this even before he rose to
the surface. He achieved a hoarse, inarticulate, half-choked scream. A
startled brain suggested the word "Help!" and he bawled this out
lustily and with frantic effort six or seven times without stopping.
Then he listened.

    "Hi! hi! clear the way
      For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys."

The chorus floated back to him across the smooth water, for the ship
had already passed completely by. And as he heard the music a long stab
of terror drove through his heart. The possibility that he would not be
picked up dawned for the first time on his consciousness. The chorus
started again--

    "Then--I--say--boys,
      Who's for a jolly spree?
    Rum--tum--tiddley--um,
      Who'll have a drink with me?"

"Help! help! help!" shrieked the man, in desperate fear.

    "Fond of a glass now and then,
      Fond of a row or noise;
    Hi! hi! clear the way
      For the Rowdy Dowdy Boys!"

The last words drawled out faint and fainter. The vessel was steaming
fast. The beginning of the second verse was confused and broken by the
ever-growing distance. The dark outline of the great hull was getting
blurred. The stern light dwindled.

Then he set out to swim after it with furious energy, pausing every
dozen strokes to shout long wild shouts. The disturbed waters of the
sea began to settle again to their rest. The widening undulations
became ripples. The aërated confusion of the screw fizzed itself
upwards and out. The noise of motion and the sounds of life and music
died away.

The liner was but a single fading light on the blackness of the waters
and a dark shadow against the paler sky.

At length full realisation came to the man, and he stopped swimming. He
was alone--abandoned. With the understanding his brain reeled. He began
again to swim, only now instead of shouting he prayed--mad, incoherent
prayers, the words stumbling into one another.

Suddenly a distant light seemed to flicker and brighten. A surge of joy
and hope rushed through his mind. They were going to stop--to turn the
ship and come back. And with the hope came gratitude. His prayer was
answered. Broken words of thanksgiving rose to his lips. He stopped
and stared after the light--his soul in his eyes. As he watched it, it
grew gradually but steadily smaller. Then the man knew that his fate
was certain. Despair succeeded hope. Gratitude gave place to curses.
Beating the water with his arms, he raved impotently. Foul oaths burst
from him, as broken as his prayers--and as unheeded.

The fit of passion passed, hurried by increasing fatigue. He became
silent--silent as was the sea, for even the ripples were subsiding into
the glassy smoothness of the surface. He swam on mechanically along the
track of the ship, sobbing quietly to himself, in the misery of fear.
And the stern light became a tiny speck, yellower but scarcely bigger
than some of the stars, which here and there shone between the clouds.

Nearly twenty minutes passed, and the man's fatigue began to change to
exhaustion. The overpowering sense of the inevitable pressed upon him.
With the weariness came a strange comfort. He need not swim all the
long way to Suez. There was another course. He would die. He would
resign his existence since he was thus abandoned. He threw up his hands
impulsively and sank. Down, down he went through the warm water. The
physical death took hold of him and he began to drown. The pain of that
savage grip recalled his anger. He fought with it furiously. Striking
out with arms and legs he sought to get back to the air. It was a hard
struggle, but he escaped victorious and gasping to the surface. Despair
awaited him. Feebly splashing with his hands he moaned in bitter
misery--

"I can't--I must. O God! let me die."

The moon, then in her third quarter, pushed out from behind the
concealing clouds and shed a pale, soft glitter upon the sea. Upright
in the water, fifty yards away, was a black triangular object. It was a
fin. It approached him slowly.

His last appeal had been heard.

[Illustration: "UPRIGHT IN THE WATER, FIFTY YARDS AWAY, WAS A BLACK
TRIANGULAR OBJECT--A FIN."]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: As by a very remarkable coincidence there are two Winston
Churchills, both writers, we may mention that this Mr. Churchill is the
son of the late Lord Randolph Churchill.]




_THE HARMSWORTH MAGAZINE, VOL. I._

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With the present January number Six Numbers of the Harmsworth Magazine
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OF BEAUTIFUL AND INTERESTING PICTURES.


[Illustration: A SPANISH PEACE COMMISSIONER.
_From the Painting by Hal Hurst._]

[Illustration: NAPOLEON'S FLIGHT AFTER WATERLOO--"SAUVE QUI PEUT!"
_From the Painting by A. C. Gow, R.A._
By Permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., Bond Street, W.]

[Illustration: A LITTLE DEAR.
_From a Photo by Baron A. von Meyer IV._]

[Illustration: THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD.
_From the Painting by Heywood Hardy._
_By Permission of the Berlin Photography Co., Bond Street, W._]

[Illustration: "ANDRÉE, INDEED! I WAS THERE LONG AGO!"
_From the Painting by T. C. Hepworth_.]

[Illustration: A VERY OLD, OLD STORY.
_From the Painting by L. Alma Tadema, R.A._
_By Permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., Bond Street, W._]

[Illustration: HAPPY AS A KING.
_Gunn and Stuart, Photo_.]

[Illustration: IN RUSSIA--THE TERROR OF THE PLAIN.
_By Permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., Bond Street, W._]




       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes


The beginning title and Table of Contents were not part of the original
magazine. Some illustrations have been moved from their original
positions in order to avoid breaking up paragraphs of text.

Page 626: Retained "passed" although author meant "past".
  (Orig.: I did not speak, but looked towards her, looked passed her)

Page 660: Corrected illustration number from 32 to 23.
  (Orig.: 32. HENRY BENSON, SWINDLER AND FORGER.)










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