CHAPTERX

Mr. Falconer uttered a yell of triumph.

"A-a-ah!Nowwe are getting at the facts. What is your address?"

Philip told him.

Mr. Falconer assumed an air of ferocious satisfaction.

"Admirable!" he cried; "most inexpressibly satisfactory! You are outwitted! I have over-reached you—criminal! To-night, since you desire it, you shall enjoy my hospitality; but to-morrow morning, on the stroke of nine, an officer of the law—a policeman—shall wait upon you and conduct you back to the slum from which you came. Meanwhile, wretched offal, sleep! Sleep all over the studio if you like, and be damned to you! To-morrow—ad leones! Good-night!"

And without another word this excellent but ill-balanced householder shot out of the studio into the passage, locking the door behind him.

Philip finished the last piece of ham and the last mouthful of cocoa, turned out the electric light, rolled himself up in a Greek robe of saffron serge, and lay down upon the sofa. He was concerned in his mind about several things. In the first place, he had been discovered, and that might mean trouble both for Peggy and her mother. In the second the door was locked, which meant that he was a prisoner. In the third, he was to be sent back to Uncle Joseph at nine o'clock next morning, which would be an ignominious ending to his first great adventure. He pondered.

In due course, just before he fell asleep, his obvious and proper course of action occurred to him. It was the only way, he decided, and moreover promised further adventure. He would have liked to be able to say good-bye to Peggy, but....

His eyes closed, and he slipped into the dreamless, motionless sleep of tired childhood, the lay figure and the other Strange Bedfellows keeping watch and ward by his pillow.

THE ECCENTRIC GENTLEMAN

Itwas a lovely morning. Philip, tramping vigorously along a Hertfordshire highway, felt that if all his adventures were to be conducted under such a kindly sun as this he would have little to complain of. But at present his most pressing desire was to get as far away from the residence of Mr. Montagu Falconer as possible.

He had quitted that restful establishment some three hours previously, escaping from durance by the simple expedient of opening the French window and walking out on to the lawn. He had caught an early morning train into the country; and having travelled as far as one-and-ninepence would carry him, had also covered a considerable distance upon two sturdy legs. But he was uneasily conscious of the avenging power of the Law, which, goaded into activity by his late host,—Heaven only knew on what charges,—might be interesting itself on his behalf over all the countryside.

Still, he felt that he had no alternative. If he had accepted Mr. Falconer's pressing invitation to remain and be arrested at nine o'clock that morning, a still more involved situation would have arisen. For one thing Pegs and Mrs. Falconer would have been dragged into the fray, which would have been a most unnecessary complication;for apparently their choleric but obtuse protector had not scented their presence in the plot at all. They would certainly have confessed complicity and taken Philip's side; and this would have led to a domestic upheaval of a most monumental character. So Philip had cut the Gordian knot by running away.

It was eleven o'clock. He had breakfasted off the very inconsiderable remains of his supper, and was now acutely conscious of the existence of an excellent digestion clamouring for employment. He tramped resolutely along the wide country road, fingering the sum of elevenpence which remained in his right-hand trouser pocket, and wishing he could come to a shop.

He also speculated as to his future. He was a clear-headed little boy, and though he had led a secluded life, he had spent it almost entirely with grown-up people, and was accustomed to marshalling facts and weighing probabilities. He ran over the list of his accomplishments and limitations.

He had no Latin or Greek, but was a good stenographer and typewriter. He could keep accounts and file correspondence with method and neatness. He was a promising mathematician, with a useful but unsystematic acquaintance with mechanics and physics. He had read and re-read some twenty of Shakespeare's plays. He knew long passages of Milton and Tennyson by heart, and was well up in the history of ancient chivalry. His favourite book was Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte d'Arthur"; next in order ranked a string of well-thumbedscience manuals. It may be added that he had never read a novel in his life. The foundation-stone of nine novels out of ten is a woman, and the coping-stone thereof is love made perfect; so naturally such works had found no place upon Uncle Joseph's shelves.

He was fairly expert with singlestick and rapier, and could play piquet and double-dummy bridge with more than average skill. But he knew nothing of cricket and football; and the ordinary joys of the schoolboy's holidays—pantomimes, parties, and the like—were a sealed book to him.

His labours on behalf of the Kind Young Hearts and Thomas Smith had introduced him to a large and varied, if unusual, circle of acquaintance, and he possessed a knowledge of human nature and the world in general that a seasoned man about town might have envied.

For some time back his thoughts had been occupied with the contemplation of a suitable career. The profession of Knight Errantry having apparently fallen into desuetude, he had been compelled to resign himself to the prospect of a more humdrum occupation. With the true instinct for the surviving possibilities of romance, he had decided to become an engineer. Like all boys of the present age he was consumed with the desire to understand, direct, and control machinery—especially the machinery of the automobile. The numerous cars which whizzed up and down the Finchley Road were an abiding joy to him. He could tell the make of any of them—just as a woman can tell the make of another woman—by the cut of its bonnet.Number plates attracted him especially, for they stimulated his imagination. When a mud-splashed car displaying the letters "S.B." stole silently past him in the gathering darkness, he realised with a thrill the bigness of the world; for this weary giant, now slipping into the roaring heart of London, had come all the way from the fastnesses of Argyllshire. He paid a penny a week for a small but highly technical journal which dealt with the latest mode in such things as sleeve-valves and detachable rims. He even executed designs of his own, inventing tyres which never punctured and carburettors that never choked. So now, with the choice of a career suddenly thrust upon him, he had no difficulty in making up his mind. It had been made up for some time. At this very moment he was on his way to Coventry, whence he knew that vast numbers of motor-cars emanated. What he was going to do when he got there he had not definitely settled. He felt that he already possessed certain saleable merchandise in the form of clerical skill: this he proposed to barter for technical instruction. He would arrange details when he reached Coventry. Philip was essentially one of those people who decline to think of the Vistula until they have crossed the Rhine.

Presently he came to an old, lofty, and warmly tinted brick wall, skirting the road for nearly a quarter of a mile on his right, and evidently sheltering some venerable house and garden. As he approached, Philip observed a large notice-board, jutting out for all to see.

MOTORISTSPlease drive slowly alongthis wall. It containstwo hidden gates.

MOTORISTS

Please drive slowly alongthis wall. It containstwo hidden gates.

A quarter of a mile farther on, where the wall ended, came another board, which said, simply:—

THANK YOU!

Philip's comment on this pretty device was characteristic.

"What a beast you would feel," he said to himself, "if youdidn'tdrive slowly and then found that 'Thank You!' sticking out at the end!"

He made a mental note that if ever he possessed a car of his own and came to this wall, he would comply punctiliously with the request upon the first board and so earn the right to read the second. He added a rider to the effect that if ever he possessed a house of his own like that he would put out a similar board.

He had scarcely passed the second of the concealed gates—the first was a mere kitchen door—whenthere was a grinding of bolts, and the gates were dragged open, slowly but resolutely, first one and then the other, by a small but intensely fat girl of seven or eight. This proceeding exposed to view the front of an ancient and ivy-clad house. Exactly opposite to the front door stood a motorcar of antique design and dilapidated appearance. From beneath the car projected a pair of human feet, attached to a pair of lengthy legs. The owner of the legs was apparently doing something painful to the underbody of the car, from beneath which came a stream of objurations of a bloodthirsty but innocuous type, punctuated by the clink of a spanner.

The small girl, breathing heavily, stooped down to inspect these operations. Presently, adopting a more comfortable but somewhat reptilian attitude, she crawled bodily under the car. Here she encountered the head of the mechanic, who was lying on his back, engaged apparently in the task of removing mud-stalactites from the bottom of the car with a spanner. As fast as the stalactites were dislodged they fell into the excavator's eyes or mouth.

"What are you doin' of, Daddy?" enquired a husky but interested voice in his ear.

"Eating mud," replied the mechanic. "Splendid thing for the digestion, Dumps. Have some?"

"No, thank you," was the dignified reply. "I shall be havin' a glass of milk soon. But I will watch you," added Miss Dumps indulgently.

She rolled over with some difficulty on to her back, and lay staring solemnly at the mud-encrustedvault above her, while her harassed parent resumed his task of digging with the spanner for a buried nut.

"I've opened the gates, Daddy," announced the small lady presently, in tones which were intended not so much to convey information as to remind her companion that he was forgetting his duties as a conversationalist.

"Thank you, madam," replied Mr. Mablethorpe. "Is the road clear?"

"I seen a little boy."

"Trust you for that! Well, we must contrive not to run over him. Just look in my left ear and see if you can find a nut, there's a good girl. I rather fancy I heard it drop in just now. No, don't bother. Here it is in my eye. Now we are really getting on!"

He adjusted the nut to the now exhumed bolt, and began to screw it tight with the spanner. The recumbent Dumps turned her head and regarded him admiringly.

"You are clever, Daddy!" she said.

"You are right," admitted her parent modestly. "I am a wonder. People simply come miles to—Dash and confound the rotten thing! Run your finger round the inside of my collar, Daniel Lambert. I think I can feel it lying somewhere round at the back."

Once more the fugitive nut was recaptured and replaced—this time permanently. Mr. Julius Mablethorpe wriggled painfully from under the car on the gravel drive, and then, rising to his legs, politely dragged his daughter out by the heels, andhaving first stood her upon her head (in order, as he explained, to give her feet a rest) restored her to an upright position, and surveyed her doubtfully.

"We shall get into trouble with Mother, Dumpling," was his first remark.

He was right. At that moment the front door opened, and Mrs. Mablethorpe appeared.

"I can only say, Julius," she began at once,—as a matter of fact, no one had invited her to say anything.—"that I am not in the least surprised at anything you may do; but Ithink"—her voice quavered tearfully—"that you might have had the sense to prevent that child from crawling about in the mud too. Baby, go into the house and ask nurse to give you a bath at once. Your hands and face are black!"

"But I am quite white, Mummy," replied Miss Dumpling soothingly (one soon picked up the habit of speaking soothingly to Mrs. Mablethorpe), "all over the rest of myself. Look, I'll show you!"

Before any one could stop her, the infant detached a stocking from its moorings and rolled it down to her ankle.

"There!" she said triumphantly.

Mrs. Mablethorpe, fearing further enterprise, hurriedly reiterated her ultimatum on the subject of a bath.

"A good hot one," she added.

"The kiddie would do much better to wash her hands and face in cold water," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "What she is covered with is chiefly oil, and hot water will only open her little pores and drive it in."

Mrs. Mablethorpe put her hand to her head, dizzily.

"You know I cannot bear argument, Julius," she said, with a little moan.

"Sorry!" said Mr. Mablethorpe humbly. "We must do as we are told, Dumps. We will go upstairs and wash in hot water. Then we shall have black hands and faces for months and months, and Mother won't be able to take us to Church. Hurrah!"

And this undutiful parent and callous husband caught up his daughter on his shoulder and carried her, shrieking joyfully, to the nursery. Five minutes later he descended, clean and smiling, and after caressing his hypochondriacal spouse, set to work to start up his engine. After three back-fires this feat was accomplished, and the car, with much burring of gear-wheels and slipping of the clutch, started off upon its deafening career. The vehicle in question was an old friend, and like most old friends felt privileged to speak its mind on all occasions, which it did with no uncertain voice.

Mr. Mablethorpe, having safely negociated the gateway,—no light feat, considering the amount of play on his steering-wheel,—turned sharp to the right and proceeded northward. Presently he came to four cross-roads. At the foot of the signpost sat a small, sturdy, and well-dressed boy, with short, curly, red hair and hazel-green eyes.

As the car slowed down in case of cross traffic the boy rose to his feet, and ranging up alongside asked a polite question.

Mr. Mablethorpe leaned over as far as he could.

"Is itveryimportant?" he yelled above the din. "If I stop this engine to listen to you I may never be able to start it again."

Philip replied with the full pressure of his lungs, but the only distinguishable word was "Coventry." The amiable Mr. Mablethorpe accordingly switched off the current, and the engine clanked itself into a state of coma.

"Now let us hear all about it," he said.

"Can you please tell me the way to Coventry?" enquired Philip.

"Coventry—eh? Have you been sent there?" Mr. Mablethorpe's eye twinkled.

"No. I'm going of my own accord," said Philip innocently.

"First time I have heard of a man sending himself to Coventry," mused Mr. Mablethorpe. He surveyed Philip's bewildered face with interest. "Perhaps you don't catch the allusion, though. Don't you ever send any one to Coventry at school?"

"I have never been to school, sir," replied Philip.

"That's a pity," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "But to resume. Coventry must be a good eighty miles from here. Do you propose to walk?"

"Yes."

Mr. Mablethorpe eyed the pedestrian curiously. "Running away?" he asked.

"Sort of," admitted Philip.

"Well, I have only one motto in life," said Mr. Mablethorpe, "and that is, 'Mind your own business!' So I will refrain from comment. I don'tknow where Coventry is, but I should think you would not go far wrong if you kept along this road, and asked again later. Now, with your permission, I must be getting on."

Mr. Mablethorpe had not proceeded far on his way—to his surprise and gratification the engine had come to life almost immediately—when his conscience smote him.

"I might have offered the little beggar a lift," he said to himself. "Silly not to have thought of it. He has a longish journey before him—that is, if Papa doesn't lay him by the heels. I might stop and let him overtake me. I wonder where he is."

He leaned over the side of the car and surveyed the road behind him.

The car, which had been waiting for some such opportunity as this all morning, promptly mounted the footpath and charged a hedge. Fortunately it was climbing a hill on its first speed at the time, so the results of the impact were not serious.

Mr. Mablethorpe, who was quite accustomed to mishaps of this kind, stopped his engine, and descended to earth to review the situation.

The first object which met his eye was Philip—a little blown and obviously taken by surprise—standing in the road with one hand still upon the Cape-cart hood.

"Hallo!" remarked Mr. Mablethorpe genially. "Still here?"

"Yes," replied Philip. "I thought I would run behind."

"Better come and sit in front," advised Mr.Mablethorpe. "But first of all we must get Boanerges out of the hedge."

"Who?"

"Boanerges. Let me introduce you. I present Boanerges—my superb, four-seated, two-cylinder, one dog-power reaping machine—to—to—Mr.—"

"Philip Meldrum."

"—To Mr. Philip Meldrum. Now you know one another. (At least, Boanerges knows you: you don't know Boanerges.) Come and help to shove his ugly face in!"

Philip assisted his new and eccentric friend to disentangle Boanerges from the hedge and push him back into the roadway, and then obediently took his seat. He was trembling with pure ecstasy. He was in a motor-car! At last he had stepped from textbooks into the realms of reality.

He surveyed the various appliances on the dingy dashboard. There were two switches of the electric light variety, one marked "M" and the other "A," which Philip knew stood for Magneto and Accumulator respectively. There was an oil-reservoir, with a piston-rod protruding from the top, and a glass gauge at one side to show the level of the oil. Last of all, suspended from its tail by a drawing pin, came a clockwork mouse, which had originally been the property of the Dumpling and was now spending its declining years as a motor-mascot. Meanwhile Mr. Mablethorpe, with the assistance of the starting-handle, had been playing a monotonous and unmelodious tune upon his hurdy-gurdy-like engine. Presently he paused for breath.

"Boanerges takes a lot of starting-up," he explained. "I'll have one more go, and if that fails we will run him backwards down the hill and let the reverse in. That ought to do it."

"Are you running on magneto or accumulator, sir?" enquired Philip.

Mr. Mablethorpe left the starting-handle and came thoughtfully round to the side of the car.

"I don't seem to be running on either," he remarked. "My mistake! Let us try this little fellow."

He turned down the switch marked "A," and returned to his labours. The immediate result was a stunning explosion immediately under Philip's feet.

"That is the first gun," explained Mr. Mablethorpe. "He always gives us three before we start. The first is a protest; the second means 'Drop it, or there will be trouble!' and the third usually ushers in a conflagration. After that I blow the flames out, and off we go!"

But this was too sanguine an estimate. After five resounding back-fires the engine still failed to exhibit any signs of abiding vitality, although the accumulator had been reinforced by the magneto. Mr. Mablethorpe accordingly took his seat at the wheel and, releasing the brakes, allowed the car to slide rapidly backward down the hill. At the same time he performed some complicated evolutions with his feet.

Instantly the engine sprang into life, and Boanerges, with a playful swerve, shot stern foremost into a bank at the other side of the highway, with a bump which nearly sent Philip back-somersaultinginto the seat behind. The engine immediately stopped again.

That resourceful but unconventional mechanic, the owner of the car, abandoned his pedal-work, descended once more into the road, and after dispassionately kicking Boanerges three times in the pit of his stomach—the radiator—seized the starting-handle and gave it another resolute twirl.

This time his efforts were successful beyond all expectation. Boanerges promptly charged forward, nearly pinning his tormentor beneath his off-front wheel, and proceeded smartly up the hill once more, Mr. Mablethorpe running frantically alongside and endeavouring to climb into the driver's seat over the spare wheel.

"Another little mistake of mine," he panted, as he finally hopped on board and took the wobbly steering-wheel over from Philip. "I left the gears in the first speed instead of the neutral. But it is all right now. We are off like an Arab steed. Let me oil him up."

He leaned forward and began to agitate the piston in the oil-reservoir, with the result that Boanerges, emitting dense fumes of black smoke from his exhaust, was soon breasting the slope with quite remarkable vigour.

"So you know something about motors?" said Mr. Mablethorpe, as they reached the top of the hill and began to slide comfortably down the other side.

"Only out of books," said Philip. "I have never been in a car before, but I think I understand the way the engine works, and the ignition."

Mr. Mablethorpe surveyed him admiringly.

"Wonderful!" he said—"wonderful! Fancy any human creature being able to understand textbooks! They simply prostrateme. I dare say," he added enviously, "that you know what poppet-valves are! And worm-drives, and differential sprockets! Prodigious!"

"Only by what I have read about them in a book," explained Philip modestly.

"Well," continued Mr. Mablethorpe. "I know of one thing you never read about in a book, and that was a car like this. Boanerges was built before the printing-press was invented—in the dark ages—in the days of the Black Art. Look at those two switches, marked 'M' and 'A.' They stand for 'Mephistopheles and Apollyon'—the name of the firm who supplied the engine. Oh, it's an eerie vehicle, this. Observe this pedal. You wouldn't think a pedal could do more than just go up and down, would you?"

"It might take out the clutch, or put on the brake, sir," hazarded Philip respectfully.

Mr. Mablethorpe waved his hand contemptuously.

"That's nothing," he said. "Steady, old man!" (This to Boanerges, who, feeling his owner's grip of the wheel relax, had swerved quite thirty degrees out of his course.) "This car was designed by a man without hands or arms—only feet and teeth. At least, I think so. His idea was to steer with his teeth and do everything else with his feet. So he started by abolishing gear-handles and side-brakes, and applied all his ingenuity to the pedals. Lookat this one,—the left. If I push it half-down the car stops. If I push it two thirds down, the car starts again—in the opposite direction—and the engine playsI wish I was an Angel, instead ofHitchy Koo! We have a lot of fun in close traffic that way. If I push it seven eighths down, the radiator boils over, and I can have a shave or a cup of tea; and if I put it right down, the car turns inside out and becomes a portable camp bedstead. I won't do that at present, because I am not sleepy."

All this surprising information was communicated with an air of solemn and confidential conviction; and Philip, who had never previously encountered any one endowed with Mr. Mablethorpe's peculiar brand of humour, merely gaped dumbly.

"Yes, Boanerges is a car of mystery," continued this excellent but frivolous man presently. "There is a little handle-arrangement down here, in the corner of the dashboard. I don't know who put it there: I just noticed it one day, after I had owned the car for some time. I have only turned it three times. The first time the whole of the back axle dropped off into the road. The second time Boanerges turned right round and ran over a duck which was asleep on a cottage doorstep behind us. The third time a policeman with a notebook shot straight up out of the roadway in front of the car, and took my name and address for obstructing a funeral which had been trying to pass me for two hours. That was about seventeen years ago, just after I bought the car. At least, I didn't buy it: itwas left to me by my great-grandmother. I have never meddled with that handle since."

Philip, who had lived in serious company hitherto, and had no idea that grown-up people ever descended to imbecility of this description, began to like this strange gentleman. But he made no attempt to maintain a conversation with him. After the dictatorial austerity of Uncle Joseph he felt pleasantly intoxicated by his present companion's frothy effervescence, and was well content to lean back in his seat and listen.

"Of course," resumed Mr. Mablethorpe presently, "I may be wrong about the designer of this car having had no arms. He may have required them—one of them, at any rate—for other purposes. For instance, he may have been engaged to be married. Are you engaged to be married, by any chance?"

"No," said Philip.

"Ah!"

Mr. Mablethorpe appeared to fall into a fresh train of thought, and after a little while enquired:—

"What is your opinion of the female sex as a whole?"

Not long ago Philip could have given his opinion on this subject clearly and concisely. Now he was content to quote the words of another.

"I don't quite know," he said, "but Uncle Joseph thinks—"

He hesitated. Mr. Mablethorpe might not be interested in Uncle Joseph.

But this astonishing gentleman appeared to be interested in everybody.

"Tell me all that Uncle Joseph thinks," he commanded.

"Uncle Joseph," began Philip, "used to wonder why women were ever created."

Mr. Mablethorpe turned and regarded his small companion sharply.

"Aha! Uncle Joseph used to wonder that, did he? Why?"

"He said," continued Philip, warming to his subject as the familiar phrases came back to him, "that there is no parallel to the female mind in any other branch of Nature."

"That is true," remarked Mr. Mablethorpe approvingly. "I should like to meet Uncle Joseph. Go on."

"It seems incredible," pursued Philip, with a curiously incongruous expression of intense wisdom upon his honest and ingenuous features, "that Providence should handicap its own beautifully designed human engines by placing them in daily contact with such a piece of uncontrolled and ill-balanced mechanism as Woman."

"Oho!" said Mr. Mablethorpe, manipulating the oil-pump, to the noisome satisfaction of Boanerges; "Uncle Joseph said that, did he?"

"Yes; and he said putting women near a man was like putting a lot of bar-magnets round a compass. And he said they were parasites, too, actuated by predatory instincts. They—"

But Mr. Mablethorpe interrupted him.

"Uncle Joseph, I take it," he said, "is a married man."

"Oh, no," replied Philip, "he is a bachelor. Henever allows a woman into his house, even to wash,—at least, he never did until the other day, when the Beautiful Lady came. And then—well, I didn't know what to think, sir," he concluded helplessly.

"This," commented Mr. Mablethorpe, "is elliptical but interesting. Proceed, my infant misogynist. Who was the Beautiful Lady, and why did she call?"

"Well, sir," said Philip, knitting his brows, "it was like this. No woman is ever—was ever—allowed into our house, because—because of what Uncle Joseph thinks—thought—about them. Yesterday a lady called when he was out, and got in."

"Who let her in?" enquired the accusing voice of Mr. Mablethorpe.

"I'm afraid I did, sir," replied Philip apologetically.

"I am not in the least surprised to hear it," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "What was she like?"

"She was all in black, and she sat and talked to me for a long time, and told me she had lost her little girl. Then Uncle Joseph came in, and—and—and they seemed to know each other quite well, sir."

Mr. Mablethorpe deliberately switched off his engine and slowed down to a stop at the roadside.

"Now we can talk without shouting," he said. "I scent copy. This is a real live Romance. Continue. How well did Uncle Joseph and the Beautiful Lady appear to know one another?"

"Pretty well," faltered Philip, with boylike reserve.

Mr. Mablethorpe, who had once been a boy himself,—there were some who said that he had never grown up,—nodded understandingly.

"And what happened after that?" he asked.

"I ran away," said Philip.

"Why?"

"They did not seem to need me any more," said Philip simply.

Mr. Mablethorpe produced a pipe, and filled it with great care. He appeared to be thinking deeply about something. Presently, after lighting the pipe, he turned to Philip, and said:—

"Are you in a pressing hurry to get to Coventry?"

Philip thought not, and said so.

"Then why not come and stay with me for a bit?" suggested this amazing man.

RED GABLES

Anhour later, shopping commissions having been executed, they clanked majestically homeward. The journey was completed without further mishap, though a frisky calf, encountered by the way, almost wrecked its own prospects of ever becoming veal by an untimely indulgence in the game of "Come to Mother, or Last Across the Road,"—that was how Mr. Mablethorpe described it,—gambolling unexpectedly under the very bows of Boanerges in response to the ill-judged appeal of an anxious parent on the opposite side of the highway.

Presently the long red wall, with its polite notice to motorists, came into view on their left, and the car slowed down. Philip realised with pleasure that this was his destination.

"Did you put up that notice, sir?" he enquired.

"I put it up," replied Mr. Mablethorpe, "but my daughter composed it. She makes rather a special feature of the common courtesies of life. Mind your elbow against that gatepost."

Two minutes later Philip found himself being presented to a languid but still pretty lady, who assured him, in a speech which appeared in some curious way to be addressed to Mr. Mablethorpe rather than himself, that she was charmed to meethim, in spite of a headache, and that she had no doubt that fresh servants would ultimately be forthcoming to take the places of those whose resignations the introduction of an unexpected boy into a hitherto tranquil household would naturally precipitate. Adding a mournful postscript to the effect that Philip would doubtless have made an admirable secretary for her husband, but for the fact that his uncle would inevitably insist upon his speedy return to Holly Lodge, Mrs. Mablethorpe, with a look of patient endurance upon her delicate features, faded away upstairs, to bedew herself with eau-de-Cologne and partake of luncheon in bed.

"Friends," observed Mr. Mablethorpe solemnly as his wife disappeared, "are requested to accept this (the only) intimation and invitation. Now, Philip, come and be introduced to my daughter."

The three spent a perfectly happy afternoon together. Miss Dumpling treated "the new inmate," as Mr. Mablethorpe called Philip, with marked favour, introducing himseriatimto three cows, named respectively Boo, Moo, and Coo; a family of lop-eared rabbits; and an aged gramophone suffering from bronchial weakness.

Towards tea-time Mr. Mablethorpe, who knew his wife almost as well as he loved her, penetrated to the invalid's bedroom, and there apologised in the most handsome manner for several crimes which he had not committed. Mrs. Mablethorpe, having delivered herself of a brief homily upon the whole duty of a husband entrusted with the care of a delicate wife, now felt sufficiently recovered tocome downstairs and partake of a tea of encouraging dimensions.

Philip surveyed her curiously. His feminine horizon was enlarging itself.

"Julius, dear," observed Mrs. Mablethorpe presently, "I know, of course, that it is perfectly useless to say anything to you about Baby's upbringing,—the child is ruined for life by this time,—but I must protest, however feebly, against your feeding her with that sweet and sticky cake. We shall have her running in and out of the dentist's every five minutes in a year or two."

"You hear that, Daniel Lambert?" asked Mr. Mablethorpe of his ruined child. "Mother says we aren't to have any more cake. I think it is most tyrannical of her: she knows how we love running in and out of the dentist's. But we must obey orders. About turn, and let us get back to the bread-and-butter! Come on—I'll race you!"

Mr. Mablethorpe began to munch bread-and-butter with enormous enthusiasm, and poor Dumps, reluctantly laying down a generous slice of plum-cake, followed his example. But when the trio finally obtained permission to retire to the library and play at "wolves"—a pastime to which it appeared that Mr. Mablethorpe was much addicted—and tumbled upstairs together, Philip overheard the unregenerate father whisper to his daughter:—

"If you wish a wish and then feel in my pocket, old lady, you may find something."

In the library the Dumpling offered Philip a share in a large slice of plum-cake.

Philip went to bed that evening in the room which had been prepared for his reception (fortunately without causing any break-up in the staff of the establishment), but did not sleep for a long while. He had much to think of. It seemed almost incredible that he had left Holly Lodge only yesterday, and that it was only last night that he had slept with the wolf-scarers in Montagu Falconer's studio; yet it was a fact. The remembrance of the studio brought back visions of Peggy. He wondered when, if ever, he should see her again. He compared her with Dumps, but quickly realised that comparisons were impossible. Dumps was a decent little kid, though fat, but she was not Pegs.

Then he thought of Dumps's parents, and he began to understand that it takes all sorts to make a world. He was beginning to realise the importance, in every department of life, of "making allowances." This duty was not confined to one sex, as he had previously imagined. Mrs. Falconer, it was true, spent her life in making allowances for Mr. Falconer. But here was Mr. Mablethorpe doing precisely the same thing for Mrs. Mablethorpe.

Finally, he thought of Uncle Joseph and the Beautiful Lady. Perhaps, he reflected, if these two had made allowances for one another earlier in life their coming together would not have been delayed for ten years.

Incidentally he made a note that, dragons having become obsolete, a knight might do worse than set out to persuade people to make allowances for one another.

THE OFFICIAL DEMISE OF TOMMY SMITH

Nextmorning Mr. Mablethorpe, after a quite unexpectedly serious conversation with Philip, departed upon Boanerges to seek out Uncle Joseph.

Having achieved a comparatively unadventurous journey (if we except a collision with a milk-cart in the Finchley Road), he drew up at Holly Lodge, which looked very much the same as when Philip had left it two days before, save that a large board, newly painted and announcing that "This House" was to be "Let or Sold," projected over the laurel hedge which separated the gravel sweep from the roadway.

Uncle Joseph was at home, and received his visitor in the library.

The owner of Boanerges came to the point at once.

"My name," he said, "is Mablethorpe. I do not suppose that the information will interest you in the least, but it is customary to give it. What is more to the point is the fact that I have found a stray nephew. Have you lost one?"

Uncle Joseph admitted that this was so.

"He appears to have left home," continued Mr. Mablethorpe, "two days ago, owing to a sudden and rather unexpected change in your domestic routine."

"He told you the story, then?"

"Yes."

"I cannot quite understand," said Uncle Joseph, "why the event to which you refer should have made it necessary for him to leave my house. In fact, I should have thought it would have been an inducement to him to remain. Have a cigar?"

Mr. Mablethorpe helped himself, and replied thoughtfully:—

"I gather that the—the event to which we have referred absolved him, in his rather immature judgment, from further allegiance to your person and service."

Uncle Joseph eyed his visitor keenly.

"Service—eh? Did he explain to you the nature of his services?"

"Yes, he told me all about it. The Kind Young Hearts, the Unwanted Doggies, Tommy Smith—everything. I made him tell me every shred of the story. I would not have missed a word of it. It was priceless—immense—the most brilliant thing I ever heard of! As a brother-artist, in a smaller and less remunerative way, I beg to offer you my felicitations and thanks. But our young friend Philip appears to have found his share of the work uncongenial. Apparently his conscience—"

"Not his conscience," interposed Uncle Joseph: "his disposition. The boy is a born sentimentalist, like his father before him. I had noticed the paternal characteristics developing for some time, and I expected an upheaval sooner or later. The—the event to which reference has been made precipitated matters, that is all."

"Quite so," agreed Mr. Mablethorpe. "But whatever his underlying forces may be, your nephew appears to be a youth of some directness of character. When I intercepted him yesterday he was on his way to Coventry, with the intention of studying the mechanics of automobilism. He is now in my house, and on my representations has agreed to place his future unreservedly in your hands. But I don't think you will persuade him to go back to the Little Tommy Smith business, you know."

"There is no need," said Uncle Joseph. "Little Tommy Smith is dead, and his works have perished with him."

"So I had gathered," said Mr. Mablethorpe.

"How?" asked Uncle Joseph, a little startled.

Mr. Mablethorpe waved his hand in the direction of the window.

"Partly from the presence of that board outside," he said, "and partly because, in the light of—of recent events, any otherdénouementwould have been an inartistic anticlimax, contrary to the canons of the best fiction."

Uncle Joseph surveyed his rather unusual visitor with interest.

"You appear to know something of men and women," he said.

"I have to," explained Mr. Mablethorpe. "I make a living by studying the weaknesses of mankind and publishing the results of my observations at four-and-sixpence net."

"A novelist, I gather."

"Yes, but of the obsolete school. I hate yourmorbid, soul-dissecting, self-centred pessimist like poison. I go in for happy endings and the eternal good in human nature. In this respect I rejoice to observe that you are not going to disappoint me."

Uncle Joseph's cold blue eyes glowed suddenly.

"No, thank God!" he said; "I am not."

After that he told Mr. Mablethorpe the rest of the story.

"Her husband died five years ago. I rather gather it was drink, but I did not press the point. I am quite content to accept the official virtues of the deceased as enumerated on his tombstone and let his hobbies drop into oblivion. She had one little girl, who died, too; and since then she has been living alone—quite alone. Poor soul, she has paid—paid in full. Perhaps I have, too. Pride, pride! Have you ever noticed, in your observations of human life, how very heavily—disproportionately, one might say—God punishes pride? Sins which arise from weakness seem to get off, on the whole, rather more lightly than they deserve; but the sins of the strong—pride, obduracy, even reticence—never! I suppose it is God's way of rubbing in the fact that Strength Belongeth to the Lord Alone."

"I don't think that the strong get punished more heavily than the weak," said Mr. Mablethorpe, "but they feel their punishment much more keenly. It is impossible to punish the weak. They run howling to their betters the moment they feel the first whack, and unload their woes on to them. But the strong, especially the proud, endure theirpunishment and say nothing. That's why it hurts so."

"Perhaps you are right," said Uncle Joseph. "But we appear to be digressing into philosophy. I am to be married next month, and we are going to live in the country. She has been left very poorly off, as the money has passed on with the title. But I think we shall be tolerably comfortable—and busy. We have some small arrears of happiness to make up."

"And your benevolent exercises," said Mr. Mablethorpe, after a long silence, "are now a thing of the past?"

"Yes. Frankly, I am sorry; for the people who paid the money extracted a large amount of innocent pleasure from giving it, and it was a perfect godsend to the people who ultimately received it. But, of course, pedantically speaking, the whole thing was illegal, and Vivien has all a woman's respect for the letter of the law. So I intend to close down. My charities will suffer, I fear; but possibly I shall be able to make good by personal service some of the deficiencies caused by my failure as a source of revenue. Still, I shall miss it all. I enjoyed composing the appeals, particularly."

"I rather fancy I once received one from you," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "I read it with great appreciation. In fact, I answered it. But now, as to Master Philip. What are your views?"

"Supposing I hear yours first?" said Uncle Joseph.

"Very well. I am a comparatively prosperous man. I have no son. The boy interests me, and Iscent copy in him. I also want an occasional secretary and amanuensis. I suggest that he should make his headquarters with me, and I will be responsible for his education. He shall visit you whenever and for as long as you want him. The only stipulation I make is that we have no formal agreement or business arrangement about him. I am not a man of business, and I hate legal contracts and attempts to harness the future more than anything in this world. Will you let me have the boy for as long as he is willing to stay with me?"

"Certainly," said Uncle Joseph.

And with that word Philip's career as a misogynist and recluse came to an official conclusion.

BOOK TWO

LABOR OMNIA VINCIT

THE GOLDEN AGE

Philip'slife during the next ten years resembled All Gaul. It was spent partly at a little house in Cheltenham, whither Uncle Joseph, with all his old austerity and cynicism thawed out of him, had conducted the Beautiful Lady two months after their marriage; partly at Red Gables; and partly at a series of educational establishments, ranging from a private school in the neighborhood of St. Albans, where he was initiated into the mysteries of Latin Prose and cricket, to the great engineering shops of the Britannia Motor Company at Coventry.

Life at Red Gables was a very pleasant business. Philip's duties as secretary were of an elastic nature. Sometimes he wrote out cheques for tradesmen and coaxed Mr. Mablethorpe into signing them. Sometimes he battled with publishers about copyrights and royalties. Sometimes he acknowledged the receipt of the letters—chiefly from seminaries for young ladies—of those who wrote to express their admiration of Mr. Mablethorpe's works.

"I suppose, Philip," said Mr. Mablethorpe one morning, ruefully surveying a highly scented missive in a mauve envelope, forwarded by his publishers, "that my booksareread by other peoplebesides schoolgirls; but why in Heaven's name should no one else ever write to me about them? Not that I want any one to write at all,—the penny post is the curse of modern civilization,—but I could do with a touch of variety now and then. I have only once in my life received a letter, as an author, from a man, and that was from a pork-butcher in the north of England, who wrote to point out, most helpfully and sensibly, that I was guilty of a technical error in making my hero purchase both kidneys and bacon at the same shop. I should like to get a lot of letters like that: they are extremely valuable. But whatdoI get? Letters by the score from schoolgirls—sometimes from a syndicate of schoolgirls—all asking for my autograph and endeavouring to find out, by more or less transparent devices, how old I am and whether I am married or not! You can't choke them off. If you don't answer they write again, enclosing a stamped envelope, which hangs round your neck like a millstone for weeks. If you do, they tell all the other girls, and before you know where you are you find you have tapped Niagara. Let us see what Zenana has found me out now."

He opened the mauve envelope, and read the letter with savage grunts.

"This, Philip," he said, "is from Gwendoline Briggs and Clara Waddell. You will be interested to hear that they sit up reading my innocuous works in the dead of night, after the other girls have gone to sleep. Well, I hope the Head Mistress catches them at it, that's all!... Here you are: what did I tell you?

...We often wonder what you are like. One of us thinks you are about forty, with rather tired grey eyes—

"Impudent minx!

—but the other thinks you are much younger than that; clean-shaven, with a very firm mouth.

"This sort of thing makes me quite sick.... Yes, I thought as much; they want my autograph.

Will you please send two, please, as we are not sisters—only great chums.

"Where do these brats hail from?" Mr. Mablethorpe turned back the page and consulted the heading of the letter.

"Bilchester Abbey School, Bilchester, Hants.That's a new name to me. Throw over that directory, Philip: on the third shelf, to your right. Let me see:Founded, 1897. Governing Body: the Lord Bishop of——quite so:Head Mistress, Miss——yes, yes:Assistant Mistresses—never mind them:Gravel soil; Gymnasium; Altitude, four hundred—Ah, here we are:—Number of Pupils, two hundred and seventy-three!Great Heavens! This must be stopped. Get the typewriter quickly, Philip, and take down something!

Mr. Julius Mablethorpe regrets deeply that he is unable to accede to the request of Mesdames Briggs and Waddell for his autograph. Mr. Mablethorpe had the misfortune some years ago to be deprived of the use of his hands (owing to an explosive fountain-pen), and now finds himself compelled to dictate all his work into a gramophone. Mr. Mablethorpe is seventy-eight years of age, and is still in possession of a fair proportion of his faculties. His eyesused to be grey, as Miss Briggs (or was it Miss Waddell?) surmises; but he now possesses only one, having lost the other while on a visit to a Dorcas Society, together with a portion of his scalp. He has been married four times, and possesses sixty-nine grandchildren, reckoning thirteen to the dozen. For further details see "Who's Who."

"That ought to choke them off," observed Mr. Mablethorpe with childish satisfaction, as he finished dictating this outrageous document. "Now, what about this grubby epistle here? It does not smell so vilely as the first, but I bet it is from another of the tribe."

He began to read:—

Dear Mr. MablethorpeAll your books are in our House Library—

Dear Mr. Mablethorpe

All your books are in our House Library—

He broke off.

"I tell you what it is, Philip," he said. "I shall have to write a really shocking novel—something unspeakably awful. Then I shall be banned from girls' schools for ever. My circulation will probably go down by ninety per cent, but it will be well worth it.

My name is Elsie Hope, and I love them all. I have no father or mother, and I have just read a story of yours about a little girl who had no father or mother either. It made me cry.

"Snivelling brat!" commented the unfeeling author.

I have not been here very long, and I do not know many of the girls yet, so your books make splendid company. I thought I would like to tell you. Good-bye.

"Gracious!" said Mr. Mablethorpe incredulously. "She hasn't asked for my autograph! Hello, what's this?"

He turned over the page. The letter continued, in a different handwriting—prim, correct, and formal:—

Elsie has gone to bed. I found her writing this letter, and she showed it to me quite frankly. As the child seemed really eager to write to you, I have undertaken to finish her letter and explain the circumstances. I feel sure you will understand, and pardon the liberty. Do not trouble to reply.Yours faithfullyEllen Wardale.

Yours faithfully

Ellen Wardale.

Mr. Mablethorpe laid down the letter.

"Ellen Wardale is a good sort," he said. "As for Elsie Hope, she has not asked me to write to her, so I shall do so. Now, Philip, get out "The Lost Legacy," and we will have a go at Chapter Fourteen. It is going to be a difficult bit. The hero, who is the greatest nincompoop that I have yet created, finds himself suspected by the heroine of having transferred his affections to another lady. (Between ourselves, it would have been a very sensible thing if he had done so, but, of course, he is incapable of such wisdom.) As the story is not half over, we can't afford to get him out of the mess just yet; so this morning I want him to make an even greater ass of himself than before, and so prolong the agony to eighty thousand words. Here goes!"

After this they would work steadily until lunchtime.

Philip had other duties to perform. He attended to the wants of Boanerges, and in time reduced that unreliable vehicle to quite a surprising degree of docility.

He became gradually infected with the Romance of our mechanical age. He saw himself, a twentieth-century Galahad, roaming through the land in a hundred-horse-power armoured car, seeking adventure, repelling his country's invaders, carrying despatches under cover of night, and conveying beauteous ladies to places of safety. He spent much of his spare time seated upon the garden wall, watching for the motors that whizzed north and south along the straight white road. (It is regrettable to have to record that many of these disregarded Dumps's notice-board.) He saw poetry in the curve of a radiator, and heard music in the whirring of a clutch.

One day, in an expansive moment, he confided these emotions to Mr. Mablethorpe. That many-sided man did not laugh, as Philip had half-feared he would, but said:—

"Romance brought up the nine-fifteen—eh? I must introduce you to a kindred spirit."

And he led Philip to a shelf filled with a row of books. Some were bound in dark blue, and consisted mainly of short stories; the others, smaller and slimmer, were dark red, and contained poetry.

"There," said Mr. Mablethorpe, "are the works of the man whom I regard as the head of our profession. Wire in!"

Philip spent the next three days learning "MacAndrew's Hymn" by heart.

There were many other books in the library, upon which Philip browsed voraciously. Uncle Joseph's selection of literature had been a little severe, but here was far richer fare. Philip discovered a writer called Robert Louis Stevenson, but though he followed his narratives breathlessly found him lacking in feminine interest. The works of Jules Verne filled him with rapture; for their peculiar blend of high adventure and applied science was exactly suited to his temperament. He had other more isolated favourites—"The Wreck of the Grosvenor"; "Lorna Doone"; "The Prisoner of Zenda"; and "To Have and to Hold," which latter he read straight through twice. But he came back again and again to the shelf containing the red and blue volumes, and the magician who dwelt therein never failed him. There were two fascinating stories called "The Ship that Found Herself," and ".007." After reading these Philip ceased to regard Boanerges as a piece of machinery; he endowed him with a soul and a sense of humour. There was a moving tale of love and work called "William the Conqueror"; there was a palpitating drama of the sea called "Bread upon the Waters"; and there was one story which he read over and over again—it took his thoughts back in some hazy fashion to Peggy Falconer and Hampstead Heath—called "The Brushwood Boy."

Only one book upon this shelf failed to please him. It was a complete novel, and dealt with alove affair that went wrong and never came right. The hero, a cantankerous fellow, became blind, and the unfeminine independent heroine never knew, so went her own way and left him to die. This tragic tale haunted Philip's dreams. It shocked his innate but unconscious belief in the general tendency of things to work together for good. He considered that the author should have compelled these two wrong-headed people to "make allowances for one another," and so come together at the last. He even took the opinion of Mr. Mablethorpe on the subject. Mr. Mablethorpe said:—

"His best book, Philip. But—I read it less than any of the others."

Then he introduced Philip to "Brugglesmith," and the vapours were blown away by gusts of laughter.

III

Philip's orthodox education was not neglected. After a year's attendance as a day-boy at the establishment near St. Albans he was sent to Studley, a great public school in the south of England.

Here many things surprised him.

Having spent most of his life in the company of grown men, he anticipated some difficulty in rubbing along with boys of his own age. Master Philip at this period of his career was surprisingly grownup: in fact he was within a dangerously short distance of becoming a prig. But he went to school in time. In three weeks the latent instincts of boyhood had fully developed, and Philip played Rugbyfootball, indulged in unwholesome and clandestine cookery, rioted noisily when he should have been quiescent, and generally tumbled in and out of scrapes as happily and fortuitously as if he had been born into a vigorous family of ten.

He achieved a respectable position for himself among his fellows, but upon a qualification which would have surprised an older generation. The modern schoolboy is essentially a product of the age he lives in, and the gods he worships are constantly adding to their number. Of what does his Pantheon consist? Foremost, of course, comes the athlete. He is a genuine and permanent deity. His worshippers behold him every day, excelling at football and cricket, lifting incredible weights in the dormitory before going to bed, or running a mile in under five minutes. His qualifications are written on his brow, and up he goes to the pinnacle of Olympus, where he endures from age to age. Second comes the boy whose qualifications are equally good, but have to be accepted to a certain extent upon hearsay—the sportsman. A reputed good shot or straight rider to hounds is admitted to Olympusex officio, and is greatly in request, in the rôle of Sir Oracle, during those interminable discussions—corresponding to the symposia in which those of riper years indulge in clubs and mess-rooms—which invariably arise when the rank and file of the House are assembled round a common-room fire, in the interval, say, between tea and preparation.

There are other and lesser lights. The wag, for instance. The scholar, as such, has no seat in thesun. His turn comes later in life, when the athletes are licking stamps and running errands.

But the Iron Age in which we live has been responsible for a further addition to the scholastic aristocracy—the motor expert. A boy who can claim to have driven a Rolls-Royce at fifty miles an hour is accorded a place above the salt by popular acclamation. No one with any claim to social distinction can afford to admit ignorance upon such matters as high-tension magnetos and rotary valves. The humblest fag can tell at a glance whether a passing vehicle is a Wolseley or a Delaunay Belleville. Science masters, for years a despised—or at the best a tolerated—race, now achieve a degree of popularity and respect hitherto only attainable by Old Blues, because they understand induced currents and the mysteries of internal combustion. Most curious portent of all, a boy in the Lower School, who cannot be trusted to work out a sum in simple arithmetic without perpetrating several gross errors, and to whom physics and chemistry, as such, are a sealed book entitled "Stinks," will solve in his head, readily and correctly, such problems as relate to petrol-mileage or the ratio of gear-wheels, and remedy quite readily and skilfully the ticklish troubles that arise from faulty timing-wheels and short circuits.

It was upon these qualifications that Philip originally obtained admission to the parliament which perennially fugged and argued around the fire on winter evenings. It was true that he had never been fined for exceeding the speed limit in Hyde Park, like Ashley major, nor been run into in theRipley Road, like Master Crump; but his technical knowledge was very complete for a boy of his age; and being an admirable draughtsman, he could elucidate with paper and pencil mysteries which both he and his audience realised could not be explained by the English language.

In time, too, he became a fair athlete. Cricket he hated, but he developed into a sturdy though clumsy forward at football; and his boxing showed promise. His speciality was the strength of his wrist and forearm. On gala nights, when the prefects had been entertaining a guest at tea,—an old boy or a junior master,—Philip, then a lusty fag rising sixteen, was frequently summoned before the quality, to give his celebrated exhibition of poker-bending.

Having discovered that the boys at Studley were much more grown-up than he had expected, Philip was not altogether surprised to find that some of the masters were incredibly young—not to say childish. There was Mr. Brett, his Housemaster. Mr. Brett was a typical product of a great system—run to seed. British public schools are very rightly the glory of those who understand them, but they are the despair of those who do not. Generally speaking, they produce a type of man with no special propensities and consequently no special fads. He has been educated on stereotyped and uncommercial lines. He is not a specialist in any branch of knowledge. His critics say that he is unfitted for any profession; that he cannot write a business letter; that he is frequently incapable of expressing himself in decent English. But—public-schooltradition has taught him to run straight and speak the truth. The fagging system has taught him to obey an order promptly. The prefectorial system has taught him to frame an order and see that it is carried out. Games have taught him to play for his side and not for himself. The management of games has instilled into him the first principles of organisation and responsibility. Taking him all round, he is the very man we want to run a half-educated empire.

Possibly these truths had been known to Mr. Brett in his early days. But, as already stated, his principles had run to seed. In the vegetable world,—of which schoolmasters are dangerously prone to become distinguished members,—whenever judicious watering and pruning are lacking, time operates in one of two ways. A plant either withers and wilts, or it shoots up into a monstrous and unsightly growth. In Mr. Brett's intellectual arboretum every shrub had wilted save two—Classics and cricket. These twain, admirable in moderation, had grown up like mustard trees, and now overshadowed the whole of Mr. Brett's mental outlook. In his House he devoted his ripe scholarship and untiring care exclusively to boys who were likely to do well in the Sixth: his mathematicians and scientists were left to look after themselves. French and German he openly described as "a sop to the parental Cerberus." His Modern-Side boys forgave the slight freely—in fact, they preferred it; and their heavily supervised classical brethren envied them their freedom. But cricket was a different matter. Mr. Brett had probably begun byregarding Classics as the greatest intellectual, and cricket as the greatest moral, stimulus in the schoolboy world—a common, and, on the whole, perfectly tenable, attitude of mind. But by the time that Philip came under his charge it is greatly to be feared that he regarded both as nothing more than a means to an end—Classics as an avenue to Scholarships and House advertisement, cricket as an admirable instrument wherewith to lacerate the feelings of other Housemasters.

Cricket was rather overdone at Studley in those days. There were cricket leagues and cricket cups innumerable. Play was organised exactly like work: the control of their pastimes was taken from the hands of the boys themselves and put into the hands of blindly enthusiastic masters. Masters flocked on to the field every afternoon and bowled remorselessly at every net. Healthy young barbarians who did not happen to possess any aptitude for cricket, and whose only enjoyment of the game lay in the long handle and blind swiping, were compelled to spend their allotted ten minutes standing in an attitude which made it impossible for them to slog the ball, listening giddily the while to impassioned harangues upon the subject of playing forward and keeping a straight bat. Cricket, thus highly officialized, soon began to be accepted by the boys as a mere extension of school routine; and being turned from play to work was treated by them as they treated Cæsar and Euclid—that is to say, they did just as much as they were compelled to do and no more. But their enthusiastic preceptors took no account of this. They glowedinternally to think how unselfishly they were devoting their spare time to improving the standard of school cricket,—as, indeed, they were,—and cementing theentente cordialebetween master and boy,—as most assuredly they were not. It did not occur to them that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Nine boys out of ten would have been grateful enough for half an hour's coaching a week; but to be compelled to spend every afternoon repressing one's natural instincts, debarred, by that unwritten law which decrees that no boy may address his fellows with any degree of familiarity in the presence of a master, from exchanging the joyous but primitive repartees and impromptus of the young, struck the most docile Studleian as "a bit too thick."

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