I heard something certainly which by this time, unhappily, was neither new nor strange. It was the voice of a newsboy calling out the last edition of a newspaper which, he asserted with stentorian lungs, contained further particulars of the awful murder in Victoria Park. Amid all the jargon he was bawling out, there were really only three words clearly distinguishable. "Murder! Awful murder! Discoveries! Awful discoveries!"
"Are you alarmed, Fanny," I asked, "by what that boy is calling out?"
"Yes," she replied in a whisper, "it is that, it is that!"
"But you must be familiar with the cry," I observed. "There isn't a street in London that was not ringing with it all yesterday."
"It don't matter, it don't matter!" she gasped, in the most inexplicable state of agitation I had ever beheld. "Lemon never stirred out of the house. I'll take my solemn oath of it--my solemn oath."
I released myself from her grasp, and, running into the square, caught up with the newsvendor and bought a paper. Before I returned to the house I satisfied myself that the paper contained nothing new in the shape of intelligence relating to the murder of my friend Melladew's daughter. What the man had bawled out was merely a trick to dispose of his wares. I had reached the doorstep of Fanny's house when my attention was arrested by the figures of two men on the opposite side of the road. One was a man of middle age, and was a stranger to me. In his companion I immediately recognised George Carton. The elder man appeared to be endeavouring to prevail upon George Carton to leave the square, but his arguments had no effect upon Carton, who, shaking him off, hurried across the road to speak to me. His companion followed him.
"Any news, sir?" cried George Carton. "Have you discovered anything?"
"Nothing," I replied, not pausing to inquire why he should put a question so direct to me.
"Nothing!" he muttered. "Nothing! But it shall be brought to light--it shall, or I will not live!"
"Come, come, my dear boy," said the elder man. "What is the use of going on in this frantic manner? It won't better things."
"How am I to be sure of that?" retorted Carton. "It won't better things to stand idly aside, and think and think about it without ever moving a step."
"My ward knows you, sir," said Carton's friend, "and I confess I was endeavouring to persuade him to come home with me when you were running after the newspaper boy. He insisted that your sudden appearance in this square was a strange and eventful coincidence."
"A strange and eventful coincidence!" I exclaimed, and thought, without giving my thought expression, that there was something strange in the circumstance of my being in Fanny Lemon's house, about to listen to a revelation which was not unlikely to have some bearing upon the tragic event, and in being thus unexpectedly confronted by the young man who was to have been married to the murdered girl.
"Yes, that is his idea," said Carton's friend; "but I am really forgetting my manners. Allow me to introduce myself. You are acquainted with my ward, George Carton, the dearest, most generous-hearted, most magnanimous young fellow in the world. I have the happiness to be his guardian. My name is Kenneth Dowsett."
He was a smiling, fair-faced man, with blue, dreamy eyes, and his voice and manners were most agreeable. I murmured that I was very pleased to make his acquaintance.
"My ward," continued Mr. Dowsett, laying his hand affectionately on Carton's shoulder, "has also an odd idea in reference to this dreadful affair, that something significant and pregnant will be discovered in an odd and unaccountable fashion. Heaven knows, I don't want to deprive him of any consolation he can derive from his imaginings. I have too sincere a love for him; but I am a man of the world, and it grieves me to see him indulge in fancies which can lead to no good result. To tell you the honest truth," Mr. Dowsett whispered to me, "I am afraid to let him out of my sight for fear he should do violence to himself."
"My dear guardian," said Carton, "who should know better than I how kind and good you are to me? Who should be better able to appreciate the tenderness and consideration I have always received at your hands? I may be wilful, headstrong, but I am not ungrateful. Indeed, sir"--turning to me--"I am wild with grief and despair, and my guardian has the best of reasons for chiding me. He has only my good at heart, and I am truly sorry to distress him; but I have my ideas--call them fancies if you like--and I must have something to cling to. I will not abandon my pursuit till the murderer is brought to justice, or till I kill him with my own hands!"
"That is how he has been going on," said Mr. Dowsett, "all day yesterday, and the whole live-long night. He hasn't had a moment's sleep."
"Sleep!" cried Carton. "Who could sleep under such agony as I am suffering?"
"But," I said to the young man, whose intense earnestness deepened my sympathy for him, "sleep is necessary. It isn't possible to work without it. There are limits to human strength, and if you wish to be of any service in the clearing up of this mystery, you must conduct yourself with some kind of human wisdom."
"There, my dear lad," said Mr. Dowsett, "doesn't that tally with my advice? I tried to prevail upon him last night to take an opiate----"
"And I wouldn't," interrupted Carton, "and I said I would never forgive you if you administered it to me without my knowledge. Never, never will I take another!" Mr. Dowsett looked at him reproachfully, and the young man added, "There--I beg your pardon. I did not mean to refer to it again."
"If I have erred at all in my behaviour towards you, my dear lad, it is on the side of indulgence. Still," said Mr. Dowsett, addressing me, "that does not mean that I shall give up endeavouring to persuade George to do what is sensible. As matters stand, who is the better judge, he or I? Just look at the state he is in now, and tell me whether he is fit to be trusted alone. My fear is that he will break down entirely."
"I agree with your guardian," I said to Carton; "he is your best adviser."
"I know, I know," said the young man, "and I ought to be ashamed of myself for causing him so much uneasiness. But, after all, sir, I am not altogether in the wrong. I saw Mr. Portland last night, and he said that you and he had had an important interview about this dreadful occurrence."
"I was not aware," I observed, "that you were acquainted with any of the elder members of your poor Lizzie's family."
"I was not," rejoined Carton, "till last night. I introduced myself to Mr. Portland, and told him all that had passed between poor Lizzie and me. I did not have courage enough to go and see Mr. and Mrs. Melladew, but Mr. Portland was very kind to me, and he said that you had undertaken to unravel the mystery."
I did not contradict this unauthorised statement on the part of Mr. Portland, not wishing to get into an argument and prolong the conversation unnecessarily; indeed, it would have been disingenuous to say anything to the contrary, for it really seemed to me in some dim way that I was on the threshold of a discovery in connection with the murder.
"Hearing this welcome news from Mr. Portland," continued Carton, "you would not have me believe that my meeting with you now in a square I never remember to have passed through in my life is accidental? No, there is more in it than you or I can explain."
"What brought you here, then?" I inquired. "Were you aware I was in this neighbourhood?"
"No," replied Carton, "I had not the slightest idea of it."
"He followed the newsboy," explained Mr. Dowsett, "of whom you bought a paper just now. These people, crying out the dreadful news, excercise a kind of fascination over my dear George. I give you my word, he seems to be in a waking dream as he follows in their footsteps."
"I am in no dream," said Carton. "I am on the alert, on the watch. I gaze at the face of every man and woman I pass for signs of guilt. Where is the murderer, the monster who took the life of my poor girl? Not in hiding! It would draw suspicion upon him. He is in the streets, and I may meet him. If I do, if I do----"
"You see," whispered Mr. Dowsett to me, "how easy it would be for him to get into serious trouble if he had not a friend at his elbow."
"What good," I said, addressing Carton, "can you, in reason, expect to accomplish by wearing yourself out in the way you are doing?"
"It will lead me to the end," replied Carton, putting his hand to his forehead; and there was in his tone, despite his denial, a dreaminess which confirmed Mr. Dowsett's remark, "and then I do not care what becomes of me!"
Mr. Dowsett gazed at his ward solicitously, and passed his arm around him sympathisingly.
"Would it be a liberty, sir," said Carton, "to ask what brings you here?"
"I came on a visit to an old friend," I replied evasively, "whom I have not seen for years, and who wished to consult me upon her private affairs."
"Pardon me for my rudeness," he said, with a pitiful, deprecatory movement of his shoulders. "In what you have undertaken for Mr. Portland, will you accept my assistance?"
"If I see that it is likely to be of any service, yes, most certainly."
"Give me something to do," he said in a husky tone, "give me some clue to follow. This suspense is maddening."
"I will do what I can. And now I must leave you. My friend will wonder what is detaining me."
"But one word more, sir. Have you heard any news of Mary?"
"None. So far as I know, she is still missing. If we could find her we should, perhaps, learn the truth."
"Should you need me," said Carton, "you know my address. I gave you my card yesterday, but you may have mislaid it. Here is another. I live with my guardian. It is a good thing for me that I am not left alone. But, good God! what am I saying? Iamalone--alone! My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie, is dead!"
As I turned into the house I caught a last sight of him standing irresolutely on the pavement, his guardian in the kindest and tenderest manner striving to draw him away.
Fanny was waiting for me at the door of her little parlour. There was a wild apprehensive look in her eyes as they rested on my face.
"What has kep you so long, sir?" she asked in a low tone of fear.
"I came across an acquaintance accidentally," I replied.
"A policeman, sir, or a detective?"
"Good heavens, neither!" I exclaimed.
A sigh of relief escaped her, but immediately afterwards she became anxious again.
"You was talking a long time, sir."
"It was not my fault, Fanny."
"Was--was Lemon's name mentioned, sir?"
"No."
"Was there nothing said about him?"
"Not a word."
This assurance plainly took a weight from her mind. She glanced at the paper I held in my hand, and said:
"Is there anything new in it, sir? Is the murderer caught?"
"No," I replied; "the paper contains nothing that has not appeared in a hundred other newspapers yesterday and to-day. Fanny, I am about to speak to you now very seriously."
"I'm listening, sir."
"Has Mr. Lemon, your husband, anything to do with this dreadful deed?"
"He had no hand in it, sir, as I hope for mercy! I'll tell you everything I know, as I said I would; but it must be in my own way, and you mustn't interrupt me."
I decided that it would be useless to put any further questions to her, and that I had best listen patiently to what she was about to impart. I told her that I would give her my best attention, and I solemnly impressed upon her the necessity of concealing nothing from me. She nodded, and pouring out a glass of water, drank it off. A silence of two or three minutes intervened before she had sufficiently composed herself to commence, and during that silence the feeling grew strong within me that Providence had directed my steps to her house.
The tale she related I now set down in her own words as nearly as I can recall them. Of all the stories I had ever heard or read, this which she now imparted to me was the most fantastic and weird, and it led directly to a result which to the last hour of my life I shall think of with wonder and amazement.
"I must go back sir," she commenced, "a few years, else you won't be able to understand it properly. I'll run over them years as quick as possible, and won't say more about e'm than is necessary, because I know you are as anxious as I am to come to the horrible thing that has just happened. I was a happy woman in your angel father's house, but when Lemon come a-courting me I got that unsettled that I hardly knew what I was about. Well, sir, as you know, we got married, and I thought I was made for life, and that honey was to be my portion evermore. I soon found out my mistake, though I don't suppose I had more to complain of than other women. In the early days things went fairly well between me and Lemon. We had our little fall-outs and our little differences, but they was soon made up. We ain't angels, sir, any of us, and when we're tied together we soon find it out. I daresay it's much of a muchness on the men's side as well as on our'n. Lemon is quick-tempered, but it's all over in a minute, and he forgits and forgives. Leastways, that is how it used to be with him; he would fly out at me like a flash of lightning, and be sorry for it afterwards; and one good thing in him was that he never sulked and never brooded. It ain't so now; he's growed that irritable that it takes more than a woman's patience to bear with him; he won't stand contradiction, and the littlest of things'll frighten him and make him as weak as a child unborn. There was only a couple of nights ago. He'd been going on that strange that it was as much as I could do to keep from screaming out loud and alarming the neighbourhood, and right in the middle of it all he fell asleep quite sudden. It was heavenly not to hear the sound of his voice, but I couldn't help pitying him when I saw him laying there, with the prespiration starting out of his forehead, and I took a cool handkercher and wiped the damp away, and smoothed his hair back from his eyes.
"He woke up as sudden as he went off, and when he felt my hand on his head he burst out crying and begged me to forgive him. Not for the way he'd been storming at me--no, sir, he didn't beg my forgiveness for that, but for something else he wouldn't or couldn't understandingly explain."
"'What do you mean by it all?' I said. 'What do you mean by it all?'
"But though I as good as went on my bended knees to git it out of him, it wasn't a bit of good. I might as well have spoke to a stone stature. Lemon's had a scare, sir, a frightful awful scare, and I don't know what to think.
"When I married him, sir, he kep a saloon, as I daresay you remember hearing of; shaving threepence, hair-cutting fourpence, shampooing ditter. He had a wax lady's head in the winder as went round by machinery, and Lemon kep it regularly wound up with her hair dressed that elegant that it would have been a credit to Burlington Arcade. There used to be a crowd round his winder all day long, and girls and boys 'd come a long way to have a good look at it; and though I say it, she was worth looking at. Her lips was like bits of red coral, and you could see her white teeth through 'em; her skin was that pearly and her cheeks that rosy as I never saw equalled; and as for her eyes, sir, they was that blue that they had to be seen to be believed. She carried her head on one side as she went round and round, looking slantways over her right shoulder, and, taking her altogether, she was as pritty a exhibition as you could see anywheres in London. It brought customers to Lemon, there was no doubt of that; he was doing a splendid trade, and we put by a matter of between four and five pounds a week after all expenses paid. Itdidgo agin me, I own, when I discovered that Lemon had female customers, and, what's more, a private room set apart to do 'em up in; but when I spoke to him about he said, with a stern eye:
"'What do you object to? The ladies?'
"'Not so much the ladies, Lemon,' I answered, 'as the private room.'
"'O,' said he, 'the private room?'
"'Yes,' said I; 'I don't think it proper.'
"'Don't you?' said he, getting nasty. 'Well, I do, and there's a end of it. You mind your business, Fanny, and I'll mind mine.'
"I saw that he meant it and didn't intend to give way, and I consequenchually held my tongue. Even when I was told that Lemon often went out to private houses to dress ladies' hair I thought it best to say nothing. I had my feelings, but I kep 'em to myself. I'm for peace and harmony, sir, and I wish everybody was like me.
"One night Lemon give me a most agreeable surprise. He came home and said:
"'Fanny, what would you like best in the world?'
"There was a question to put to a woman! I thought of everything, without giving anything a name. The truth is I was knocked over, so to speak.
"Lemon spoke up agin. 'What would you say, Fanny, if I told you I was going to sell the business and retire?'
"'No, Lemon!' I cried, for I thought, he was trying me with one of his jokes.
"'Yes, Fanny,' he said, 'it's what I've made up my mind to. I've been thinking of it a long time, and now I'm going to do it.'
"I saw that he was in real rightdown earnest, and I was that glad that I can't egspress.
"'Lemon,' I said, when I got cool, 'can we afford it?'
"'Old woman,' he answered 'we've got a matter of a hundred and fifty pound a year to live on, and if that ain't enough for the enjoyment of life, I should like to know how much more you want?'
"He had his light moments had Lemon before certain things happened. People as didn't know him well thought him nothing but a grumpy, crusty man. Well, sir, hewasthat mostly, but with them as was intimate he cracked his joke now and then, and it used to do my heart good to hear him.
"So it was settled, sir. Lemon actually sold his business, and we retired. Five year ago almost to the very day we took this house and become fashionable.
"It was a bit dull at first. Lemon missed his shop, and his customers, and his wax lady, that he'd growed to look upon almost like flesh and blood; but he practised on my head for hours together with his crimping irons and curling tongs, and that consoled him a little. He used to pretend it was all real, and that I was one of his reg'lars, and while he was gitting his things ready he'd speak about the weather and the news in a manner quite perfessional. When he come into the room of a morning at eleven or twelve o'clock with his white apern on and his comb stuck in his hair, and say, 'Good morning, ma'am, a beautiful day,'--which was the way he always begun, whether it was raining or not--I'd take my seat instanter in the chair, and he'd begin to operate. I humoured him, sir! it was my duty to; and though he often screwed my hair that tight round the tongs that I felt as if my eyes was starting out of my head, I never so much as murmured.
"We went on in this way for nearly three years, and then Lemon took another turn. Being retired, and living, like gentlefolk, on our income, we got any number of circulars, and among 'em a lot about companies, and how to make thousands of pounds without risking a penny. I never properly understood how it came about; all I know is that Lemon used to set poring over the papers and writing down figgers and adding 'em up, and that at last he got speculating and dabbling and talking wild about making millions. From that time he spoke about nothing but Turks, and Peruvians, and Egyptians, and Bulls, and Bears, and goodness only knows what other outlandish things; and sometimes he'd come home smiling, and sometimes in such a dreadful temper that I was afraid to say a word to him. One thing, after a little while, I did understand, and that was that Lemon was losing money instead of making it by his goings on with his Turks, and Peruvians, and Egyptians, and his Bulls and Bears; and as I was beginning to git frightened as to how it was all going to end, I plucked up courage to say,
"'Lemon, is it worth while?'
"And all the thanks I got was,
"'Jest you hold your tongue. Haven't I got enough to worrit me that you must come nagging at me?'
"He snapped me up so savage that I didn't dare to say another word, but before a year was out he sung to another tune. He confessed to me with tears in his eyes that he'd been chizzled out of half the money we retired on, and it was a blessed relief to me to hear him say,
"'I've done with it, Fanny, for ever. They don't rob me no longer with their Bulls and their Bears.'
"'A joyful hour it is to me. Lemon,' I cried, 'to hear them words. The life I've led since you took up with Bulls and Bears and all the other trash, there's no describing. But now we can be comfortable once more. Never mind the money you've lost; I'll make it up somehow.'
"It was then I got the idea of letting the second floor front. As it's turned out, sir, it was the very worst idea that ever got into my head, and what it's going to lead to the Lord above only knows."
"Our first lodger, sir, was a clerk in the City, and he played the bassoon that excruciating that our lives become a torment. The neighbours all complained, and threatened to bring me and Lemon and the young man and his bassoon before the magerstrates. I told the clerk that he'd have to give up the second floor front or the bassoon, and that he might take his choice. He took his choice, and went away owing me one pound fourteen, and I haven't seen the colour of his money from that day to this.
"Our second lodger was a printer, who worked all night and slep all day. I could have stood him if it hadn't turned out that he'd run away from his wife, who found out where he was living, and give us no peace. She was a dreadful creature, and I never saw her sober. She smelt of gin that strong that you knew a mile off when she was coming. 'That's why I left her, Mrs. Lemon,' the poor man said to me; 'she's been the ruin of me. Three homes has she sold up, and she's that disgraced me that it makes me wild to hear the sound of her voice. The law won't help me, and what am I to do?' I made him a cup of tea, and said I was very sorry for him, but that she wasn'tmywife, and that I'd take it kind of him if he'd find some other lodgings. All he said was, 'Very well, Mrs. Lemon, I can't blame you; but don't be surprised if you read in the papers one day that I am brought up for being the death of her, or that I've made a hole in the water. If she goes on much longer, one of them things is sure to happen.' He went away sorrowful, and paid me honourable to the last farthing.
"It wasn't encouraging, sir, but I didn't lose heart. 'The third time's lucky,' I said to myself, as I put the bill in the winder agin, little dreaming what was to come of it. It remained there nigh on a fortnight, when a knock come at the street-door.
"I do all the work in the house myself. A body may be genteel without keeping a parcel of servants to eat you out of house and home, and sauce you in the bargain. A knock come at the street-door, as I said. If I'd known what I know now, the party as knocked might have knocked till he was blue in the face, or dropped down in a fit before he'd got me to answer him. But I had no suspicions, and I went and opened the door, and there I saw a tall, dark man, with a black moustache, curled up at the ends.
"'You've got a bill in the winder,' said he, 'of a room to let.'
"'Yes, sir,' I answered, hardly giving myself time to look at him, I was that glad of the chance of letting the room; 'would you like to see it?'
"'I should,' said he.
"And in he walked, and up the stairs, after me, to the second floor front. It didn't strike me at the time, but it did often afterwards when I listened for 'em in vain, that I didn't hear his footsteps as he follered me up-stairs. Never, from the moment he entered this house, have I heard the least sound from his feet, and yet he wears what looks like boots. He's never asked me to clean 'em, and I'd rather be torn to pieces with red hot pinchers than do it now.
"'It's a cheerful room, sir,' said I to him. 'Looks out on the square.'
"'Charming,' he said, 'the room, the square, you, everything.'
"'That's a funny way of talking,' I thought, and I said out loud, 'Do you think it will suit, sir?'
"'Do I think it will suit?' he said. 'I am sure it will suit. I take it from this minute. What's the rent?'
"'With attendance, sir?' I asked.
"'With or without attendance,' he answered; 'it matters not.'
"Not 'It don't matter,' as ordinary people say, but 'It matters not,' for all the world like one of them foreign fellers we see on the stage. I told him the rent, reckoning attendance, and he said:
"'Good. The bargain is made. I am yours, and you are mine.'
"And then he laughed in a way that almost made my hair stand on end. It wasn't the laugh of a human creature; there was something unearthly about it. As a rule, a body's pleased when another body laughs, but this laugh made me shiver all over; you know the sensation, sir, like cold water running down your back. Then, and a good many times since when he's been speaking or laughing, I felt myself turn faint with sech a swimming sensation that I had to ketch hold of something to keep myself from sinking to the ground.
"'I beg your pardon, sir,' I said, when I come to, 'but if you've no objections I'd like a reference.'
"'Of course you would,' he said, laughing again, 'and here it is.'
"With that he gives me a sovering, and orders me to light the fire. There's that about him as makes it unpossible not to do as he orders you to, so on my knees I went there and then, and lit the fire.
"'Good,' he said. 'I couldn't have done it better myself. Mrs. Lemon--' and you might have knocked me down with a feather when I heard him speak my name. How did he get to know it?Inever told him.--Mrs. Lemon,' said he, 'I see in your face that you'd like to ask me a question or two.'
"'I would, sir,' I said, shaking and trembling all over. 'If I may make so bold, sir, are you a married man?'
"He put his hand on his heart, and, grinning all over his face, answered, 'Mrs. Lemon, I am, and have ever been, single.'
"'Might I be so bold as to ask your name, sir?' I said.
"'Devlin,' said he.
"'Dev--what?' I garsped.
"'Lin,' said he. 'Devlin. I'll spell it for you. D-e-v-l-i-n. Have you got it well in your mind?'
"'I have, sir,' I said, very faint.
"'Good,' said he, pointing to the door. 'Go.'
"I had to go, sir, and I went, and that is how Mr. Devlin become our lodger."
"That very night Mr. Devlin come down to this room, without 'with your leave or by your leave,' where Lemon and me was setting, having our regular game of cribbage for a ha'penny a game, and droring a chair up to the table, he begun to talk as though he'd known us all his life. And he can talk, sir, by the hour, and it never seens to tire him, whatever it does with other people. Lemon was took with him, and couldn't keep his eyes off him. No more could I, sir. No more could you if he was here. You might try your hardest, but it wouldn't be a bit of good. There's something in him as forces you to look at him--just as there's something in that bird, and the stone figger on the mantelshelf, and Lemon's portrait as forces you to look atthem. I've found out the reason of that. When Devlin ain't herehe leaves his sperrit behind him--that's how it is. I was never frightened of the dark before he come into the house, but now the very thought of going into a room of a night without a candle makes me shiver. And many and many's the time as I've been going up-stairs that I've turned that faint there's no describing. He's been behind me, sir, coming up after me, step by step. I can't see him, I can't hear him, but I feel him; and yet there ain't a soul in sight but me. At them times I'm frightened to look at the wall for fear of seeing his shadder.
"Well, sir, on the night that he come into this parlour he goes on talking and talking, and then proposes a hand at cribbage, which Lemon was only too glad to say yes to.
"'Mrs. Lemon must play,' said Devlin; 'we'll have a three-handed game.'
"I shouldn't have minded being left out, especially as our cribbage-board only pegs for two, but his word was lore. So we begun to play, and Devlin marks his score with a red pencil.
"The things he did while we played made my flesh creep. He threw out his card for crib without looking at it, and told us how much was in crib while the cards was laying backs up on the table; and when Lemon and me, both of us slow counters, began to reckon what we had in our hands, Mr. Devlin, like a flash of lightning, cried out how many we was to take. We played five games, and he won 'em all. Then he said he'd show us some tricks. Sir, the like of them tricks was never seen before or since. I've seen conjurers in my time, but not one who could hold a candle to Mr. Devlin. He made the cards fly all over the room, and while he held the pack in his hand and you was looking at 'em, they'd disappear before your very eyes.
"'Where would you like 'em to be?' he asked. 'Underneath you, on your chair? Git up; you're sitting on 'em. In your workbox? Open it and behold 'em.'
"And there they was, sir, sure enough, underneath me, though I'd never stirred from my seat, or in my workbox, which was at the other end of the room. It wasn't conjuring, sir, it was something I can't put a name to, and it wasn't natural. I could hardly move for fright, and as I looked at Mr. Devlin, he seemed to grow taller and thinner, and his black eyes become blacker, and his moustaches curled up to his nose till they as good as met. But Lemon didn't feel as I felt; he was that delighted that he kep on crying--
"'Wonderful! Beautiful! Do it agin, Mr. Devlin, do it agin. Show us another.'
"I don't know when I've seen him so excited; that Devlin had bewitched him.
"'We're brothers you and me,' said Devlin to him. 'I am yours, and you are mine, and we'll never part.'
"The very words, sir, he'd used to me.
"'Hooray!' cried Lemon, 'we're brothers, you and me, and we'll never, never part.'
"'I once kep a barber's shop myself,' said Devlin.
"'What!' cried Lemon, 'are you one of us?'
"'I am,' said Devlin, 'and I've worked for the best in the trade--for Truefitt and Shipwright, and all the rest of 'em. I've been abroad studying the new styles. I'll show you something as 'll make you open your eyes, something splendid.'
"And before I knew where I was, sir, Devlin, in his shirt-sleeves, had whipped a large towel round my neck, and had my hair all down, and was beginning to dress it. Where he got the towel from, and the combs, and the curling-tongs, and the fire, goodness only knows. I didn't see him take them from nowhere, but there they was on the table, and there was Devlin, with his hands in my hair, frizzling it up and corkscrewing it, and twisting and twirling it, and me setting in the chair for all the world as if I'd been turned into stone. But though I didn't have the power to move, I could think about things, and what come into my head was that the man as had taken the second floor front must be some unearthly creature, sprung from I won't mention where.
"'Do you really believe so?' whispered Devlin in my ear.
"'Believe what?' I asked, though my throat was that hot and dry that I wondered how he could make out what I said.
"'That I am an unearthly creature,' he said softly, 'sprung from a place which shouldn't be mentioned to ears perlite?'
"If I was petrified before, sir, you may guess how I felt when I found out that he knew what I was thinking of.
"'You shouldn't be, you shouldn't be,' he whispered agin.
"'Shouldn't be what?' I managed to git out, though the words almost stuck to the roof of my mouth.
"'Sorry you ever took me as a lodger,' he said with a grin. 'Fye, fye! It isn't grateful of you after sech a good reference as I give you. Something 'll happen to you if you don't mind.'
"Well, sir, it was true I'd thought it, but I'll take my solemn oath I never spoke it. It was jest as though that Devlin had my brains spread open before him, and could see every thought as was passing through 'em. I was so overcome that I as good as swooned away, and I believe I should have gone off in a dead faint if he hadn't put something strong to my nose as made me almost sneeze my head off. And while I was sneezing, there was Devlin and Lemon laughing fit to burst theirselves. All the time he was dressing my hair that sort of thing was going on; there wasn't a thought that come into my head that he didn't tell me of the minute it was there, till he got me into that state that I hardly knew whether I was asleep or awake. At last, sir, he finished me up, and stepping back a little, he waved his hand and said to Lemon,
"'There! what do you think of that?' meaning my hair.
"'Wonderful! Beautiful!' cried Lemon, clapping his hands and jumping up and down in his chair, he was that egscited. 'I never saw nothing like it in all my whole born days. It's a new style--quite a new style, and so taking! The ladies 'll go wild over it. Where did you git it from?'
"'From a place,' said Devlin, grinning right in my face, 'as shall be nameless.'
"'But you'll tell me some day, won't you?' cried Lemon. 'Because there might be other styles there as good as that, and we could make our fortunes out of 'em.'
"'I'll take you there one day,' said Devlin, with an unearthly laugh, 'and you shall see for yourself.'
"'Do, do!' screamed Lemon. 'I'd give anything in the world to go there with you!'
"'Good Lord save him!' I thought, looking at Lemon whose eyes was almost starting out of his head. 'He's going mad, he's going mad!'
"'As to making our fortunes,' Devlin went on, 'why not? It shall be so.'
"'It shall, it shall!' cried Lemon.
"'We'll make hunderds, thousands,' said Devlin.
"'We will, we will!' cried Lemon. 'Fanny shall ride in her own kerridge.'
"'Fanny shall,' said Devlin.
"'The Lord forbid,' I thought, 'that I should ever ride in a kerridge bought at sech a price!'
"I thought more free now that Devlin's hands was not in my hair; he didn't seem to be able to read what I was thinking of so long as we was apart.
"'I bind myself to you,' said Devlin to my poor dear Lemon, 'and you bind yourself to me. The bargain's made. Your hand upon it.'
"Lemon gave him his hand, and whether it was fancy or not, it seemed to me that Devlin grew and grew till he almost touched the ceiling; and that, while he was bending over Lemon and looking down on him, like one of them vampires you've read of, sir. Lemon kep growing smaller and smaller till he was no better than a bag of bones.
"'We go out to-morrer morning,' said Devlin, 'you and me together, to look for a shop. Is it agreed?'
"'It is,' answered Lemon, 'it is.'
"'We will set London on fire,' said Devlin.
"'We will, we will,' said Lemon; 'and we'll have shops all over it.'
"'You're a man of sperrit,' said Devlin. 'I kiss your hand.'
"He said that to me; but I clapped my hands behind my back.
"'If you refuse,' said Devlin, smiling at me all the while, 'I must show Lemon another style.'
"And he made as though he was about to dress my hair agin.
"'No, no!' I screamed; 'anything but that, anything but that!"
"I give him my hand, and he kissed it. His mouth was like burning hot coals, and I wondered I wasn't scarred.
"'Don't forgit,' said Lemon, 'to-morrow morning.'
"'I'll not forgit,' said Devlin. 'Till then, adoo.'
"The next minute he was gone.
"No sooner did he close the door behind him than I felt as if tons weight had been lifted off me. I started up, and put my hands to my hair, intending to pull it down.
"'What are you doing?' cried Lemon, starting up too, and seizing hold of me. 'Don't touch it--don't touch it! I must study the style. I never saw sech a thing in all my life. It's more than wonderful, its stoopendous. You look like another woman. Jest take a sight of yerself in the glass.'
"I did take a sight of myself in the glass, and if you'll believe me, sir, it seemed as if my head was covered with millions of little serpents, curling and twisting all sorts of ways at once; and, as I looked at 'em moving, sir--which might have been or might not have been, but so it was to me--I saw millions of eyes shining and glaring at me.
"'O, Lemon, Lemon!' I cried, bursting out into tears; 'whathaveyou done, whathaveyou done?'
"'Done?' said Lemon, rubbing his hands; he'd let mine go. 'Why, gone into partnership with the finest hairdresser as ever was seen. Our fortune's made, Fanny, our fortune's made!'
"I tried to reason with him, but I might as well have spoke to stone. He was that worked up that he wouldn't listen to a word I said. All the satisfaction I could git out of him was--
"'A good night's work, Fanny; a good night's work!'
"If he said it once he said it fifty times. But I knew it was the worst night's work Lemon had ever done, and that it'd come to bad. And it has, sir."