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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR6011.O65N5 
 
 The new Humpty-dumpty, 
 
 1924 012 973 057 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012973057 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE SIMPLE LIFE LIMITED 
 
THE NEW i 4 i 
 HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 BY DANIEL CHAUCER, 
 
 ^fo-r^ I'^i^doK forrli 
 
 ' There be summer queens and dukes of a day, 
 But the heart of another is a dark forest." 
 
 Tambov. 
 
 LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXII 
 
THE ANOHOU PEB6B, LID., IIPTEBB, ESSEX. 
 
To 
 GEORGE PLUMPTON McCULLOCH 
 
 My dear George, 
 
 You will remember that some years ago, on a cool 
 morning, we set out to walk some twenty miles from Vila 
 di Goya into the Gallegos District of Galizia. You will not 
 remember that I was in a flaming temper with you, because 
 I did not tell you so. But you may keep still in your mind 
 the fact that I had accompanied you into that valley of 
 desolation and pink dust because you had told me that it 
 contained not only the tin, cobalt, and petroleum for which 
 you were searching, but also the descendants of a semi- 
 mythical stud-bull that you called Le Gran Vasco. That 
 had been my sole motive for coming to the infernally dusty 
 mountains in which you now reside and render hideous with 
 your factories. And then, when I had reached Vila di Goya 
 intent on seeing whether I could not improve my own stud- 
 herd at Warley with some of the blood of that monster, I 
 discovered that the Gran Vasco was not a bull, but a beastly 
 bad painter — the only painter of your country of adoption. 
 You only considered it a joke, and hardly apologised. . . 
 
 Well, in the heat of the noontide we sat under a rock and 
 ate that infernal blue cheese that tastes like the smell of cats, 
 and drank the infernal blue wine that is a mixture of warm 
 leather and onion juice, and the plough-oxen of old Pompone 
 Dedi were breathing down our backs, and the sea at the 
 bottom of the valley was the colour of a blue meat-tin. And 
 then you said : 
 
 " They're putting up a statue to Sergius Mihailovitch in 
 
VI 
 
 the Square at Floras ... By Jove, why you don't 
 write a life of old Mac and call it the Dark Forest he was 
 always talking about, I can't see ! " 
 
 So here is the story of our friend, and I call it " The Dark 
 Forest," Mr. Lane, however, insists on re-christening it 
 " The New Humpty-Dumpty." Mr. Lane is without 
 doubt wise. He is certainly tyrannical, and I am only 
 a breeder of shorthorns writing to pass the time. At any 
 rate, from your region of pink rocks, pink dust, blue cheese 
 blue wine, and the distant sea that resembles a meat-tin, 
 take a glimpse into this account of the pilgrimage of our 
 good Mac — into the Dark Forest. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 D. C. 
 
PART I 
 
The New Humpty Dumpty 
 
 ^'' 
 
 LORD ALDINGTON had been nagging at his wife 
 during all the first two acts of the opera. That 
 was why, during the pause, she had observed the 
 foreign fashion and was walking round the foyer 
 amongst crowds of cosmopolitan and mostly unpresent- 
 able people. Normally, Lady Aldington would have done 
 nothing of the sort. She was as English as any woman 
 could possibly be, even though she undoubtedly kept a 
 thing so foreign as a salon. And, passing amongst all that 
 crowd of foreigners who were all dark and who presented, 
 nearly all of them, the appearance either of financiers with 
 too many diamonds and too much Unen, or of adventurers 
 the state of whose linen showed that they hadn't got enough 
 and that they possessed no diamonds at all. Lady Aldington, 
 with her highly trained aspect and her tout ensemble of a 
 high blondness, presented all that she ever did present to 
 the world in the way of emotions of discomfort. She had 
 attempted to escape as it were from the British brutality 
 of her husband, and she found herself in a place where all 
 the voices were raised too loud. That was the main point 
 about it — that and the air of stuffiness that all these people 
 conveyed to her. She uttered the traditional British 
 phrase : " Why can't they open a window ? " and then 
 she turned her taU, thin body in its dress of grey silk 
 slightly to one side, to pass between a Russian prince, 
 
 B 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 whose hair was too highly oiled, and a Frankfort financier 
 who had no hair at all. Her husband, who was six foot 
 high, forty inches round the chest, and had a disagreeable 
 heavy fair face, was unable to get through between the two 
 foreigners. Thus Lady Aldington passed on alone. It was 
 as if the crowd, which appeared to mass itself round the 
 refreshment bars, where beer and odd-looking messes upon 
 little saucers had by their aspect increased Lady Aldington's 
 feeUng of discomfort — it was as if the crowd stopped sud- 
 denly, and she found herself in an almost empty corridor 
 with square high pillars, walls covered with bluish mirrors, 
 and red strips of velvet carpet underfoot. And suddenly 
 her ladyship shivered. A voice had said : 
 
 " I tell you, Hanne, there's no such thing as rice. Look 
 at you and look at me." 
 
 There stood before her — and just before a seat of grey 
 velvet towards which Lady Aldington was making her way 
 — there stood before her two beings tmmistakably belonging 
 to that country all of whose inhabitants regard the in- 
 habitants of all other countries as something resembling 
 niggers. The male wore dusty cycling stockings which 
 showed that he must have been rickety in his youth, a 
 tweed suit of grey that still showed the dust of the road. 
 The little, dark woman had a thin, cheap blouse of pink linen, 
 and a cycling skirt that heavy rain had shrunk till that 
 too exhibited the fact that her thin legs were slightly 
 bandy. She wriggled her small bowed shoulder-blades 
 uncomfortably. 
 
 " I don't fancy," he added, " that anyone would imagine 
 we had ever seen Camden Town." 
 
 They had obviously been cycHng well and truly, for at 
 this point his eyes fell upon Lady Aldington just as he was 
 wiping his brows with a handkerchief that resembled an 
 oil rag. They were eyes of a singularly piercing and a 
 singularly foreign black, and the lashes, that were actually 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 coated with the dust of the road, gave them an odd touch 
 of greyness. And the curled-up, black moustache, too, 
 was thick with dust, so that he resembled nothing so much 
 as a small French barber at whom had been thrown a bag 
 of flour. 
 
 Losing for a moment her intense physical and mental 
 discomfort now that she was out of the immediate pressure 
 of other people's bodies, Lady Aldington was standing 
 perfectly still, looking down at the red velvet carpet that 
 ran straight and brilliant beside the closed doors of the 
 boxes. She had dressed because they had been dining with 
 the Nugent-Beaumonts at the Rose. And it was part of 
 her discomfort that she felt that her dress was torn half off 
 her back. It was not, though in that year skirts were very 
 full and trained. She had managed to get through some- 
 how, so that all the little flounces of grey silk were intact 
 and she shimmered. Indeed, with her brilliantly fair hair 
 trained down over her ears, her pink and white skin, her 
 delicately aquiline nose, her sUghtly severe features and 
 the clear lines of her Ups, the Lady Aldington, with her full 
 skirt and its many httle flounces spreading out from her 
 waist — this figure of blondness, delicate shot silk, and 
 sUghtly descending bare white shoulders suggested — as the 
 fashions of that year were meant to suggest — a lady of the 
 'forties. She was wondering if she could possibly put up with 
 her husband for another year, and she stood perfectly still. 
 
 The voices reached her ears, but they did not really 
 penetrate to her intelUgence. She had forgotten the two 
 cockneys, and she was standing with her side-face to them. 
 
 "These foreigners do get themselves up to look Uke 
 us ! " the man was sajdng. " Look at that piece of goods ! 
 Wouldn't you say that she was EngUsh ? Who'd think 
 this was Wiesbaden ? " 
 
 " Oh, she's not EngUsh," the woman was saying. " She 
 doesn't understand what we say." 
 
4 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Now, you make a note of this, Hanne," the man con- 
 tinued, " if I forget to put it down in my ethnological note- 
 book. That woman may be of any old nation. She may 
 be Russian or German or French or Spanish. But the type 
 comes true. It's breeding does it, and feeding does it. 
 Look at the way the head's put on ; look at the white flesh 
 of the shoulders." 
 
 It was at this moment that the Lady Aldington began to 
 come to a sense of the place she was in. She was deciding 
 that she must pardon her husband once again. She was 
 aware that the cockney man was saying : 
 
 " Don't you remember, Hanne, how Professor Hufnagel 
 says in ' Das Ewig Menschliche ' . . . ' Except for 
 wide generalisation there is no such thing as Race. There 
 are only Type and Environment. ComeUa of the Gracchi 
 exactly resembled in Type the late Countess von Warschau, 
 who was a Pole, and as equally resembled the Duchess de 
 Dinont, whose mother was an EngUshwoman, and whose 
 father was French with an Itahan mother.' . . . Now, 
 look at that woman in front of us, Hanne 1 Look at her 
 eyes, look at her nose ! Look at her shoulder-blades ! Some 
 women's shoulders when you see them you want to 
 smack . . ." 
 
 Lady Aldington wondered vaguely what woman they 
 were talldng of, and then she heard a voice say in an under- 
 tone : 
 
 " My friend Pett, that is Lady Aldington." 
 
 And she was dimly aware, out of the comers of her eyes, 
 of yet another personality, apparently in evening dress, who 
 was sitting on the seat that these two people had masked. 
 She turned her back slowly upon them, and slowly and 
 coldly she moved away. And she heard the voice of the 
 cockney exclaiming : 
 
 " Comrade M. ! Who'd have thought of seeing you here, 
 and in these togs 1 ' " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Lord Aldington was bearing down upon her fast. His 
 heavy face was full of a malicious gloom. But, looking over 
 her shoulder, he exclaimed : 
 
 " Hallo ! there's Count Macdonald. I must introduce 
 you to him when he has done talking to his friend." He 
 added, " He is the sort of person that you would get on 
 with." 
 
 And Lady Aldington knew that that was intended for 
 another insult. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 II 
 
 GEORGE FAWKENHURST, third baron Aldington, 
 was one of those unfortunate persons whom 
 everybody called a brute. Everybody without 
 exception. There was not even one of the four- 
 teen or fifteen maid-servants at Leicester House or at 
 Aldington Towers who had a single good word to say for their 
 master. Heavy, hairy, and untidy, he carried himself with a 
 slouch, and he had enormous hands. At Harrow he hadn't 
 made a friend ; from Oxford he had been sent down for ill- 
 treatment to a cat. This animal he had put into a barrel, 
 setting half a dozen young terriers upon it in order to train 
 them to face the badger. He just escaped imprisonment. 
 From the Guards he was requested to resign after he had 
 been with his regiment in the perfunctory service that was 
 at that time demanded of this arm of H.M.'s service. He 
 caused so many cases of insubordination that even that 
 regiment could find no use for him. It was just that he 
 was a brute. 
 
 It was in the blood, it was in the tradition. For centuries 
 in the Vale of York, where they have been small landowners, 
 his family had been known as the False Fawkenhursts. 
 This was not so much because they did not keep their 
 word as because no one would ever have thought of 
 extracting a promise from any member of the family. 
 Then, about sixty years before, George Fawkenhurst's 
 grandfather James had married a lady who brought him a 
 considerable amount of land in the Cleveland district. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Within a year of this marriage, iron in great quantity had 
 been discovered upon this land. From that the peerage 
 had come, James, first baron, having purchased it by 
 contributing something over ;^30,ooo to the party funds. 
 Thus was estabhshed the great Whig house of Aldington. 
 James Fawkenhurst had hved to a great age. In habits 
 and behaviour he had been a little better than one of his 
 own farm-servants. But, having been a man of a violent 
 humour, he had beaten and shouted at his son and heir, 
 the second baron, until WiUiam Fawkenhurst, George's 
 father, had been nothing but a sad and disagreeable 
 shadow. William had married Jidia Saxwyndholm, who 
 brought with her the estate of Aldington Towers, and it 
 was from this estate that old James Fawkenhurst chose to 
 take his title, which did not come to him until his son 
 WiUiam had been married a year or so. Aldington Towers 
 was an estate of about four thousand acres in East Sussex, 
 perhaps six miles north of Battle. George's father had 
 faded disagreeably out of existence — he died of dropsy, 
 without ever having had the fim of drinldng hard, when 
 George himself had been, perhaps, thirteen, and was away 
 at Harrow. When George was eighteen, the iron upon the 
 Cleveland land had given out, utterly and suddenly. And 
 none of the Fawkenhursts had been a saver. They had 
 lived to the tune of ^40,000 a year for fifty years, and had 
 got precious httle to show for their money. George 
 Fawkenhurst found himself thus, when he came of age, 
 forced to depend upon the rents from the Aldington 
 Towers estate, from the original Fawkenhurst land in the 
 Vale of York, and the useless lands of his grandmother in 
 the Cleveland district. Thus he was at liberty to consider 
 himself dismally poor, since his mother, who still hved, had 
 a jointure to be paid her that had been calculated in the 
 days when the Fawkenhursts were still drawing their 
 £40,000 a year from iron. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Why Emily Duminy should have fallen in love with 
 Lord Aldington was simply one of the mysteries of sex 
 attraction. She fell in love with him when she was twenty ; 
 she married him when she was twenty-one, and with a 
 cruel cynicism her husband had destroyed all her illusions 
 by the time she was aged twenty-one years and one week. 
 And within six months Emily was ready to acknowledge 
 that when everyone in the world had besought her not to 
 make this match, everyone in the world had been perfectly 
 right. By the time she was twenty-three she had resolutely 
 cut down the allowance that she made her husband to a 
 very few thousands a year. Emily Duminy had been the 
 richest woman in England, and she still was. The grand- 
 daughter and only surviving descendant of James, eleventh 
 Duke of Kintyre, Dijon, and Batalha, her mother Lady 
 Mary Buchanan had married a Ueutenant in the French 
 navy. The Duke had detested his only child for this 
 marriage, and, Lieutenant Duminy turning out a very bad 
 hat indeed, the Duke had left the daughter to starve on 
 ;£500 a year in a villa at Twickenham. But upon the 
 death of Lady Mary the Duke had taken his grand-daughter 
 away from the High School, where she was getting her 
 education. He had done his very best to spoil her. He 
 detested his heir almost more than he detested the rest of 
 mankind, and he was not a very amiable character. Thus, 
 impoverishing the entailed estates as much as he could, the 
 Duke had done his best to build up an immense fortime for 
 his grand-daughter. No one knew exactly how large this 
 fortune was. The Lady Aldington had paid succession 
 duty on something under a million. That the newspapers, 
 of course, reported. But, in addition, he was known to 
 have settled a hundred thousand upon her at her marriage. 
 At that date he had not been pleased with her, and he had 
 declared that he was going to see how the marriage turned 
 out before he made over any more of his " brass " to 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Emily. To his delight, the marriage turned out thoroughly 
 badly. And by the time she had been twenty-five Emily 
 had been able to make her grandfather certain that she 
 was quite able to keep all her money out of her husband's 
 clutches. It was at that date that her grandfather, in 
 order to avoid the death duties, had made over to her what 
 rumour estimated cis one-fifth of the city of Glasgow, half 
 of a Scotch county, or the whole of three London slum 
 districts. By the time she was twenty-seven Emily had 
 been able to assmre her grandfather that she would never 
 have any children by her husband. And in his delight at 
 the thought that none of his money would ever go into the 
 pockets of a descendant of Aldington's, the Duke made 
 over to her the whole of the lands of she Duchy of Batalha. 
 This was an enormous stretch of rather barren territory in 
 the north of the repubhc of Galizia. It contained, however, 
 several very valuable mines of tin, silver, and cobalt. This, 
 the third of His Grace's duchies, was not a matter of tail 
 male, but would pass along with the title itself to Emily. 
 
 No doubt the hard discipline of fate prevented the Lady 
 Aldington from becoming finally spoiled. In insisting on 
 marrying Aldington she had behaved like a spoiled child ; 
 but by disillusioning her so suddenly and completely — 
 within a week of their marriage — ^Aldington had done her 
 character all the good in the world. With a perfectly 
 callous frankness. Aldington at that date had asked her for 
 a business interview. It had been at Taormina. He had 
 said that he kept several estabhshments ; that he had 
 married Emily only to obtain money to keep these going, 
 and he wanted to know what arrangements she was ready 
 to make to that end. He had made the annoxuicement 
 without preface, and he left it without apology, standing 
 with his heavy slouch. The shadows of the vines on the 
 broad pergola had fallen all over him ; the sky had been a 
 hard and dazzling blue, the sea a blue deeper, darker and 
 
10 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 more dazzling, beside and below them. She had had to gel 
 used to it. 
 
 She had consulted his mother, who was still alive, six 
 months later. And the dowager Lady Aldington could 
 only beg her not to let her son have too much money or he 
 would go to the devil, and not to cut him off altogether or 
 he would go to the devil still sooner. She had consulted her 
 grandfather, and he had given her exactly the same advice. 
 So she had taken her Une. 
 
 As things were, she was understood to have some " hold " 
 over her husband. In the early days he had once or twice 
 behaved outrageously to her in pubhc places. Once he 
 had insisted on introducing an obviously impossible woman 
 to her on the lawn at Ascot. But rather suddenly all that 
 had stopped. About that time Aldington had been seen 
 going about with an unusually shaken appearance, and he 
 had been observed to be drinking rather more whisky thari 
 usual at his clubs. Reggie Windus, who had been passing 
 the door of Leicester House on the Saturday after Ascot, 
 had seen a police-sergeant going down the steps, and posi- 
 tively Lady Aldington had been closing the front door 
 upon him. 
 
 Leicester House with its immense gardens stands in the 
 little cul-de-sac that turns off Forbes Square, S.W., so that 
 how Reggie Windus could have been passing the house was 
 not very evident to his friends ; nor id it seem in the least 
 likely that Lady Aldington, the most coldly correct of 
 women, would ever have been near her front door. But 
 Windus stuck to his stoiy, and there it was. He even said, 
 to account for his having passed the door, that the Pekingese 
 spaniel that he had been taking for a walk to oblige Lady 
 Hilary Cholmely had run down the cul-de-sac and, attracted 
 by some delectable odour on the garden railings of Leicester 
 House, had to be fetched and forcibly carried off by Reggie 
 himself. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY ii 
 
 But the Aldingtons at all social functions formed one of 
 the extremely model couples of which so many are to be 
 found in London. Except to teas. Lady Aldington never 
 went out alone, and even to many teas her husband accom- 
 panied her. He was generally to be found somewhere not 
 very far from her chair, and, if he had not very often 
 anything to say, that also was considered to be agreeable, 
 since what he said whenever he did speak was invariably 
 in the nature of a grumble against somebody or something. 
 It was as if Lord Aldington was the most bitterly oppressed 
 individual of a bitterly oppressed class. The Aldingtons 
 spent from Easter to July in London, from July till October 
 they were at Aldington Towers. In October they moved 
 to Fawkenhurst for the shooting. A fortnight before and 
 a week after Christmas they spent in London cigain, and 
 then they moved off to Egypt until a week before Easter. 
 This week they spent always in their yacht in the harbour 
 of the city of Batalha, the northernmost of the three cities 
 that the repubhc of Gahzia contained. In the city of 
 Batalha there was no hotel fit for the Aldingtons, and there 
 was always smallpox. It is exceedingly likely that the 
 large estates of Lady Aldington as Duchess de Batalha 
 would have been confiscated when the republic had been 
 proclaimed in 1909. They would certainly have been 
 confiscated had the Galizian Ministry not very much 
 desired recognition by the Government of Great Britain. 
 As it was, the dictator passed a decree that on account of 
 the briUiant services of the Duchess and her ancestors to 
 the economic and political welfare of the republic of 
 Galizia — (Li servizi insignanti al causa de la Uhertad y econ- 
 omismo Galiziana) — the estates of the Duchess and her heirs 
 should be exempted from the penalties that fell upon all 
 monarchical landowners. Indeed, it might well be said that 
 the old Duke of Kintyre had not been a monarchist and had 
 made for Galizia all the wealth that that impoverished 
 
12 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 country contained. In the whole of it elsewhere there 
 was not to be seen a factory chimney. But, lying in the 
 harbour of Batalha, Lady Aldington from the deck of 
 her yacht could observe no less than nine. And in the 
 remainder of the rocky province there were exactly fourteen 
 more. In Batalha itself there was even an electric tram- 
 way, and, for what it was worth, a water supply and a 
 drainage system, so that Galizians were accustomed to 
 speak of the city of Batalha as le Chicago del Sude — the 
 Chicago of the South. Nay, in Batalha there was even a 
 hospital with German doctors, and two Protestant churches, 
 the one Scotch Episcopal for the benefit of the superinten- 
 dants of the mines, and the other Primitive Methodist for 
 the benefit of the Cornish miners, of whom the province 
 of Batalha boasted a population of nearly three thousand. 
 All these things were the property, or were supported by, 
 the Lady Aldington, and they were all imder the general 
 superintendence of a Scotchman called Macdonald. This 
 gentleman was known as le rey de Batalha — the King of the 
 Province. 
 
 With the regularity of the hands of a clock the Aldingtons 
 had pursued this circular itinerary for seven years— London, 
 Aldington Towers, Fawkenhurst, London, Eg37pt and then 
 Batalha. But three years before Aldington himself had 
 developed stomach troubles. So, at the recommendation 
 of Sir Chrested Joins, they had managed to squeeze three 
 weeks at Wiesbaden into their yearly round. Lady Alding- 
 ton herself suffered from no troubles of any physical kind. 
 
 She was thirty-one. She stood five foot nine in her 
 stockinged feet. She rode ten stone, and she rode it for 
 an hour and a half every morning of the year, wet or fine. 
 She was called a hard woman, and she had few preoccupa- 
 tions in hfe except that she desired to be able to classify 
 her husband's attacks of bad temper and insubordination. 
 She put these down as a rule to ill htealth. Thus she dis- 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-PUMPTY 13 
 
 covered that Aldington never attended a sitting or voted 
 in the House of Lords without on the next day behaving 
 like a sulky wild beast with criminal leanings. She was, 
 therefore, fairly certain that this came from the fact that 
 the Upper Chamber had a particularly bad atmosphere, 
 and that its wine list contained the name of one really good 
 wine — a Pontet Canet of which Aldington was particularly 
 fond. Thus four years before she had got her husband to 
 pair with a Tory peer who had become incapable of putting 
 in an appearance through confirmed and premature senile 
 decay. 
 
 It was part of Aldington's disagreeable eccentricities 
 that he obstinately insisted on remaining a Whig. He did 
 not even follow the Marquis of Hartington into the Unionist 
 fold. Nay, he had once, for a period of two months, held 
 an inferior office in a Liberal Ministry ; but two months 
 after the general election he had had to resign. Fourteen 
 cottages on the Fawkenhurst estate had been peremptorily 
 closed by the local sanitary authority, and the Liberal 
 Government being engaged at that time in promoting a 
 biU for the housing of the poor, Lord Aldington's name, 
 however short the party might be of peers, was held not 
 to decorate the roll of the ministry. Indeed, it was quite 
 as disagreeable to the Liberals to have Lord Aldington for a 
 supporter as it was to the Tories that he should vote against 
 them. 
 
14 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 III 
 
 THEY had been at Wiesbaden exactly twenty days 
 and they were to leave for Aldington Towers 
 on the next day but one. On the following 
 day Lady Aldington was going over to Nauheim 
 to lunch with her aunt, Mrs. Crewkerne, who was taking 
 the waters there. And suddenly, whilst her husband was 
 bearing down upon her over the red velvet carpet from out 
 of the crowd that surrounded the bars, it occurred to Lady 
 Aldington that her husband for the last three years had 
 always had one of his fits of bad temper on the twentieth 
 day of their stay at Wiesbaden. Undoubtedly the curative 
 waters did something to his Uver. She replied to him : 
 
 " I do not think I feel like being introduced to anyone 
 at this moment." 
 
 But Aldington positively caught hold of her elbow. 
 His face had a malicious grin that showed ugly teeth, dis- 
 coloured by excessive sinoking. 
 
 " I tell you the man is an idiot," he said ; " come and be 
 introduced to him. You can't tell he won't be your last 
 and dearest love." 
 
 Lady Aldington moved slowly roimd, and faced once more 
 the cockney and his wife. Of the man they were speaking 
 to she could perceive only the point of a patent leather shoe, 
 because he was sitting down upon the grey velvet seat. And 
 
 suddenly Lady Aldington felt contented. She imagined 
 
 nay, she was certain that she had discovered another cause 
 for one of her husband's bad days, and if she knew the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 15 
 
 cause she could put up with it. For the point was that 
 she had to keep Aldington in order. She could be deaf to 
 his brutal speeches ; she did not Uke them, but she could 
 put up with them. But she was afraid — she was always 
 afraid, that there would come an extended period of time 
 in which he would defy her. Then she would have but one 
 remedy, and a remedy that she could only apply once. 
 She would have to have him imprisoned. He forged her 
 cheques from time to time. But for the moment she felt 
 almost happy. 
 
 Aldington was really puUing her down the slightly 
 sloping velvet carpet. A httle in advance of her he can- 
 noned against the two cockneys, as a billiard ball might 
 do, and they fled apart to left and to right. Lady Aldington 
 heard his rough voice exclaim : 
 " I want to introduce you to my wife, Macdonald." 
 And then : " Count Macdonald, Lady Aldington." 
 She was so occupied in her mind with the problem of her 
 husband's health that she hardly raised her eyes to the 
 young man's face. She had the impression that he was 
 very tall, and that his dress clothes fitted him quite well, 
 which she wouldn't have expected of anyone who was a 
 friend of the two cockneys. She murmured the indistinct 
 sounds — the little meaningless whispers that, in England, 
 betoken pleasure at making a new acquaintance. Then she 
 asked : 
 
 " Are you taking the waters ? Do you find that they 
 affect your temper ? " 
 
 She became stiU more aware of the great height of the 
 man when she observed that he appeared to be slightly 
 bending his knees in order to come within range of her ear. 
 She became aware, too, that he was making slight lateral 
 gestures with his long and nervous hands ; and she bowed 
 minutely, first to the right to the cockney man and then to 
 his wife upon her left, for she realised that, in a correctly 
 
i6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 English manner. Count Macdonald was effecting an intro- 
 duction. She realised also that the name of these people was 
 Pett, and that Count Macdonald had the sUghtest possible 
 suspicion, for all the singular Englishness in his appearance, 
 of a foreign accent. It was just that he pronounced his 
 words too well — he pronounced them as well as Lady 
 Aldington herself did, and she knew that she was regarded 
 as pedantic. And then he said : 
 
 " No ; I'm in attendance on the Grand Duke, in order 
 to cement our reconciliation." 
 
 And at that moment the cockney man entered the 
 conversation. 
 
 " The Wiesbaden waters," he said, " contain sulphur, 
 strontium, and barytes. The bath doctors are always 
 claiming that they find radium, too. You'll find about as 
 much radium in a penny packet of Epsom salts." 
 
 There was about all his vowels the faint tinge of the 
 jargon of West Essex. Thus if he did not actually say 
 " abaht " and " all-wise," he at least suggested those 
 soimds. His voice, however, had a slightly aggressive 
 and slightly authoritative ring, and then his wife spoke. 
 
 " Your ladyship needn't," she said, " that is to say, no 
 one really need feel distress if their tempers are sightly 
 altered by the action of the waters— if they're following 
 the rdgime." 
 
 " It's very kind of you," Lady Aldington said. " My 
 temper is all right, thank you." 
 
 And then Aldington put in: "It's me she means. 
 We've been behaving like cat and dog all the evening." 
 
 Mr. Pett giggled. But his wife looked seriously at the 
 peer. She had the air of a small pink sparrow who might 
 be thoughtfuUy considering the case of a half-bred 
 Newfoundland. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't be concerned," she said. " It won't 
 last. People are rather morbid nowadays, and they're 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 17 
 
 apt to think that temporary depressions are becoming 
 incorporated into their characters. But it isn't so in this 
 case. At least, I have never heard of any ill resulting from 
 the use of these waters. There are, of course, baths that 
 can only be used with extreme caution." 
 
 Aldington stuck his hands into his trousers' pockets ; 
 he leaned back the upper part of his body, and guffawed. 
 And then a httle bell rang. Macdonald moved slightly 
 forward, bowing minutely to Lady Aldington. 
 
 " I am afraid that means," he said, " that I must get 
 back to the Grand Duke." He muttered some more words 
 in which " delighted " and " acquaintance " could faintly 
 be distinguished ; and then he slipped between Lady 
 Aldington and Mr. Pett, and sauntered towards the white 
 door of a box. 
 
 Mr. Pett called jocularly after him : " Ain't the old 
 Duke afraid you'll stick a dagger in his back ? " 
 
 And then he continued to Lady Aldington : " Used to 
 be a first-class anarchist in the old Houndsditch days." 
 
 " He looks extraordinarily English," Lady Aldington 
 said vaguely. 
 
 " Oh, he's as Russian as they make them," Mr. Pett 
 answered. " His ancestors went over to Russia in the 
 time of Peter the Great. But if you'd read my travel 
 notes in the Daily Herald you'd have seen how I proved that 
 they don't turn out any Russians or French or Germans or 
 niggers any more. The whole world's just engaged in 
 manufacturing middle-class Englishmen, whether it's me 
 or you, or Mrs. Pett, or your husband, or the man I bought 
 Ansichtskarten of this morning. He looked exactly like 
 any English clerk, and he thought like any Enghsh clerk 
 from what I could gather in conversation with him. The 
 same with the porter at the hotel where we're stopping. 
 He's a nigger, but he ought to have been born in Acton." 
 Mr. Pett pronouiiced it Ecton. , 
 
i8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " That's very interesting, now." 
 
 " It means," Mrs. Pett said, " that we're gradually 
 approaching to a unity of mankind. We're bringing the 
 whole world to one standard. Then the brotherhood of 
 man wUl begin." 
 
 " When we're all English middle-class ? " Lady Aldington 
 asked. 
 
 " Your ladyship means lower middle-class," Mr. Pett 
 said. 
 
 " Well, I suppose I do," Lady Aldington conceded 
 amiably. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 19 
 
 IV 
 
 LADY ALDINGTON was on the platform waiting 
 for a train that was to take her to Nauheim. She 
 was going to spend the day with her aunt, Mrs. 
 Crewkerne, a disagreeable old lady, who was 
 troubled with her heart. She had written very minutely to 
 Emily with the programme of her day of cures. Thus, 
 Lady Aldington was to be at the hotel at a quarter to eleven. 
 She might walk with her aunt to the baths, and then she 
 might wait outside for half an hour, after which she would 
 be permitted to walk back with Mrs. Crewkerne to the hotel. 
 The cure, Mrs. Crewkerne wrote, was very severe. Thus, she 
 would have to go to bed from a quarter-past eleven until 
 one-fifteen. It would take her till half-past one to dress, 
 so that Lady Aldington would be free to pay calls. She 
 had better leave cards on Mrs. Sidney Trench, the wife of 
 the Minister for Education, and on Lady Jane Wills, who 
 was a particular friend of Mrs. Crewkerne 's and W9uld feel 
 offended if Emily neglected her. There was also Baroness 
 Sassonoff, the delightful lady they had met in Cairo three 
 years before. 
 
 Lady Aldington was quite determined that she would not 
 call upon either the wife of the Education Minister or Lady 
 Jane Wills. But the thought of seeing the Baroness 
 Sassonoff gave her some pleasure, and she determined, 
 after she had taken a httle walk in the park, that she would 
 take her chance of finding that cosmopolitan lady at home. 
 Aldington, true to their tradition of presenting to the 
 
20 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 world the aspect of a model couple, had sauntered down 
 to the station with her. He wore a rough suit of light grey 
 tweed which made him appear enormous, and a panama 
 hat which gave him more than his usual aspect of untidiness. 
 Lady Aldington wished that he had not, and he knew it. 
 It was one of his ways of administering a pin-prick. They 
 did not, however, speak a single word aU the way along 
 the ugly, broad, new streets until they reached the ugly, 
 squat, new railway station with its aspect of being half 
 music-hall and half prison. Lady Aldington managed to 
 take her own ticket, for she could get as far as three or 
 four words in German, and Aldington was able to get from 
 an automatic machine the penny ticket that admitted 
 him on to the platform. Then he went to the bookstall 
 to buy for his wife a copy of the Daily Mercury, a journal 
 which her ladyship cordially detested. 
 
 Lady Aldington was standing on the platform medita- 
 tively tapping the ground between her feet with the point 
 of her parasol, and she was regarding the place where she 
 was tapping, for a quick glance had shown her that there 
 were upon the platform at least half a dozen people whose 
 existence she did not want to acknowledge. She was 
 wearing an immense hat of thin straw, with a single very 
 long pheasant's feather buckled into it, so that, since it 
 came down weU over her ears, she was quite able to avoid 
 anybody's glances. For the rest of her she had on a costume 
 of white linen touched off about the shoulders and breast 
 with passementerie work in pink. She had also a diaphanous 
 cloak of ivory-coloured lace that feU from her shoulders 
 right down to her feet. It was very hot weather that 
 summer. And suddenly she heard a voice, with the slightest 
 possible foreign intonation, saying : 
 
 " It is Lady Aldington, isn't it ? " 
 
 She had to look up, and then she smiled. 
 
 Count Macdonald was standing before her with his hat 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 21 
 
 off. He had in his left hand a traly enormous parcel of an 
 irregular funnel shape, enveloped in white tissue paper. 
 He waved the great object lightly in the air, and exclaimed : 
 
 " I'm taking these as a compUment from the Grand 
 Duke to Madame Sassonoff in Bad-Nauheim ; " and then he 
 added rather gaily, " I want to apologise immensely . . ." 
 
 " But there's nothing to apologise for, in taking flowers 
 to Madame Sassonoff," Lady Aldington said. " I'd take 
 some myself if I could find them on the road." 
 
 At that moment Aldington came up, waving as ostenta- 
 tiously as he could the paper that he had bought. He 
 knew that, much as his wife disliked reading it, she dis- 
 liked other people to see her with it immensely more. 
 
 " Sassonoffs ! " he said ; " are they at Nauheim ? If I'd 
 known I would have come along." 
 
 " Well, come," Macdonald exclaimed sunnily. " We 
 are both going to pay our respects, as it appears." 
 
 " Ah," Aldington said, with a grin that disclosed all his 
 bad teeth beneath his ragged clipped moustache, " I knew 
 you were birds of a feather." 
 
 " It looks as if your feathers were the same," Macdonald 
 said, " if you want to call on Madame Sassonoff too." 
 
 " There you're wrong," his lordship answered. " I want 
 to, but I want to meet your friends, the Petts, more." He 
 added, "I'm going to meet them at the Pump Room in a 
 quarter of an hour and motor them to Mainz." 
 
 " It's an odd taste," Macdonald said ; " but they're 
 quite dear people." 
 
 Lord Aldington looked his wife straight in the eyes. 
 " Mrs. Pett," he said, " reminds me of someone I know." 
 
 A small invincible shudder went all over Lady Aldington's 
 tall white figure. Aldington grinned pantomimically, and 
 at that moment the train wandered into the station with 
 its genial air of not knowing exactly where it wanted to go. 
 
 It happened that the steps of a long car stopped just in 
 
22 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 front of them. And Lord Aldington, taking each of them 
 by a shoulder, fairly pushed them in. Macdonald found an 
 empty compartment, into which he introduced Emily. He 
 stood in the doorway. 
 
 " I don't in the least know," he said, " whether you want 
 me with you ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, come in," she said. " Sit down quickly so as to 
 show that you are with me." 
 
 She indicated with her eyes the corridor behind him, and 
 Macdonald perceived a man with a head covered with an 
 immense growth of tawny hair flecked with white, and a 
 great beard resembling a bird's nest. He was surveying 
 Lady Aldington with his head bent down, his eyes looking 
 beneath his brows as if he intended to butt her. 
 
 " Please don't look at him," Lady Aldington said. 
 " Please don't ! At the sUghtest encouragement he'll 
 come in." 
 
 The man passed lingeringly onwards, the last Macdonald 
 saw of him being his enormous calves, that were encased in 
 grey worsted stockings. 
 
 " He might have chaperoned us, you know," Macdonald 
 said. 
 
 " He might, of course," Lady Aldington said coolly ; 
 " but I want to ask you half a dozen things, and if he had 
 come in we should have had to listen all the way to a 
 rehearsal of his next speech, asking that the carriage of 
 whisky by rail should be suppressed by law in Scotlsmd." 
 
 " Oh, you know him, then ? " Macdonald said. 
 
 " Of course I know him," Lady Aldington answered. 
 " He is Dr. Farquhar, the member for the Mull of Cantyre." 
 
 " But how do you get to know such people ? " Mac- 
 donald asked. " The welts of his boots must have been 
 three inches broad. I thought he was just a substantial 
 butterfly attracted by the flame." 
 
 " Oh no, he wasn't," Lady Aldington said ; " if he'd been 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMP TY 23 
 
 that I could have managed to deal with him. He is 
 an awful inheritance of my husband's Whig traditions. 
 We're one of the great Whig Houses, you know." 
 
 Macdonald raised both his hands in a slight foreign 
 gesture that might have been one of horror or it might 
 have been mere pity. 
 
 " Oh, I know," he said ; and then he asked, this time 
 really commiseratingly, " It means that they're always 
 with you ? " 
 
 " Always," Lady Aldington said. And at that moment 
 the train started smoothly. 
 
 " At any rate," Couiit Macdonald brought out, with a 
 sigh, " we're on a holiday now. Let's make it as gay as 
 we can." 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " I haven't the least objection." 
 
 A minute afterwards Macdonald leant forward and asked, 
 with an air almost as if the question were slightly obscene : 
 
 " Are the Temperance Party always with you ? " 
 
 " Oh," Lady Aldington said, " Dr. Farquhar isn't temper- 
 ance. He drinks a great deal of whisky. I forget what his 
 label is — I think it's the NationaUsation of Railways." 
 
 " But if," Macdonald said, " he wants the railways not 
 to be allowed to transport whisky " 
 
 "That," Lady Aldington replied, " is because he wants 
 greater facilities for what he calls minerals." 
 
 " Isn't that soda water, in idiomatic English ? " Mac- 
 donald asked. 
 
 " Only for waiters, I believe," Lady Aldington said. 
 
 Macdonald threw up his hands. " What a language ! " 
 he said. " What a country ! What boots ! What poli- 
 ticians ! And Rome, you know, is really burning whilst 
 Farquhar fiddles." 
 
 " Oh, but you know," Lady Aldington said, " he really 
 has discovered that a glue factory, or a golosh factory, or 
 a dynamite factory in Arbroath or Lochaber was hung up 
 
24 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 for a whole week for want of coal, whilst the Scotch trains 
 were delivering whisky. You may thank your lucky 
 stars that you don't know what these tremendous dis- 
 coveries are." 
 
 " Oh, but I do, I do," Macdonald said pitifully. " I 
 have been through it all. Don't forget that I am a Russian. 
 I've been an anarchist in Tottenham Court Road ; I have 
 been a member of the Fabian Society in Putney, S.W. I 
 was one of the Milhiukoff , exiled deputies of the Duma at 
 Sveaborg. Now I'm trying to save my soul — don't forget 
 that I'm a countryman of the great and regretted Tolstoi — 
 I am trying to save my soul by carrying flowers from the 
 Grand Duke to Madame Sassonoff. No, don't on any 
 account forget that I am a Russian." 
 
 " You know I don't in the least understand what you're 
 talking about," Lady Aldington laughed. 
 
 "That's it," Macdonald said ; and, leaning forward, he 
 touched the lady upon her white knee with a gesture of 
 earnest appeal. " That's exactly it. Let's have a jolly 
 day's holiday. Let's talk about our sorrows to each 
 other." 
 
 Lady Aldington laughed once more. " I'm perfectly 
 ready to talk about mine," she said, " but you haven't let 
 me get a word in, and I don't believe you will let me." 
 
 " Ah, that," Macdonald said, " is because my sorrows 
 are so much greater than yours. Rome is burning, you 
 know, whilst you're only troubled by Whigs. I know all 
 about them. I knew the members of the first Duma. 
 They were Marxists to a man." Macdonald broke off to 
 look earnestly at Lady Aldington. " Did you ever meet a 
 Marxist ? " 
 
 " No, I never did," Lady Aldington said. " But I 
 understand what it is." 
 
 " Oh, it's dreary . . . dreary," Macdonald com- 
 mented. " No Whig was ever so desolatingly dreary or so 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 25 
 
 drearily opinionative, I could understand at once what 
 you suffer in your procession. I am a great strong man, 
 you're a weak woman. So that I can reckon it up pretty 
 exactly. You suffer all your life exactly what I suffered 
 with my colleagues at Sveaborg. I've exactly gauged 
 your case, so that you need not do any more talking, 
 though you've a lovely voice, if you'll let me say so. But 
 you haven't got it in your bones that Rome is burning." 
 
 " You are quite sane ? " Lady Aldington leaned forward 
 to ask. " One likes to know, for I still don't understand a 
 single word you say." 
 
 " That," Macdonald said^ " is because I've got such a 
 tremendous amount to say that I have to use one image to 
 express twenty thousand ideas. That is the great trouble 
 with all great thinkers. But, oh yes, I'm sane. I'm the only 
 sane man whilst all Rome is burning. That is why the Grand 
 Duke can't find anything better for me to do than carry 
 bouquets to Madame Sassonoff." He looked reproachfully 
 at Lady Aldington. " You might have realised that " 
 
 " What ? " Lady Aldington asked. 
 
 " That when a man of my power of thought is set by a 
 Grand Duke to carry bouquets, it's because the Grand 
 Duke is grand ducally afraid of his ideas. You ougM to 
 have seen that it makes me a very sane man indeed." 
 
 Lady Aldington leaned as far back on the white lace 
 antimacassar of the foreign first-class carriage — she leant 
 as far back as her large hat would let her. . . . 
 
 " I suppose I ought to say that all this strikes me as 
 extremely odd. But it doesn't. You're exactly like a 
 queer but not very unpleasant nightmare ; you go on and 
 on, and I have not the slightest idea of where you're going 
 on to. But just go on ! Only remember that I'm Enghsh 
 as you're Russian." 
 
 " Well," Macdonald said, "I'm not going to bring the 
 blush to your cheek." 
 
26 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Oh, I can defend mjrself against that," Emily answered 
 coolly. " What I meant to say was that no properly 
 conducted English person understands even what an image 
 is. You oughtn't really even to use a figure of speech." 
 
 Macdonald once more threw up his hands in dismay. 
 
 " Oh, you can go on," Lady Aldington comforted him. 
 " Only do rehearse your woes in a language that I can 
 understand one word in three of." 
 
 " Dear lady " Macdohald said ; and he remained 
 
 for a moment lost in thought. Then he began : 
 
 " I was bom in the month of April of the year 1872, in 
 my ancestral domain of Potsdamskaia, in the government 
 of Kieff. My distinguished ancestor. General Count 
 Macdonald, was able to persuade the Empress Catherine 
 of blessed memory that he was the legitimate king of Scot- 
 land. And that fact is inscribed upon our Charter of 
 Nobility." Macdonald broke off to gaze at Lady Alding- 
 ton. " I hope this biographic style is clear enough. 
 Well . . . my first education was undertaken by 
 tutors and tutoresses of various nationalities. I can 
 remember most distinctly an English governess who was 
 called Miss Pett. ... In the year 1886 . . ." 
 
 Lady Aldington suddenly interrupted him with the 
 words, " That reminds me that I meant to ask you who 
 were your friends the Petts." 
 
 Macdonald held up his hand authoritatively. "Lady 
 Aldington," he exclaimed, " you are about to listen to one 
 of the most singular biographies ever related by a child 
 of his age. And you interrupt me in order to ask who a 
 person called Pett may be 1 " 
 
 " I don't really care about Pett," Lady Aldington said. 
 " What I want to know is, who is the man's wife ? " 
 
 " That," Macdonald said, " would have come out in the 
 ordinary course of my story. Mr. Pett is the thinker who 
 has most profoundly influenced my career." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 27 
 
 " But " Ladj? Aldington said, — 
 
 " Oh, I know," Macdonald said. " He called you Lidy 
 Haldington. But that does not affect the quality of his 
 thoughts. You have to adjust yourself to a new world. 
 Rome, in fact, is burning. It has burnt off the initial 
 ' h's ' and the final ' g's ' of your language. The very 
 distinguished Mr. Pett, the product of your Education 
 Act of 1870, is a school-master abroad. He is also a 
 journalist, and he will probably be Conservative Prime 
 Minister of your country — or, if not Pett, then someone like 
 Pett. Pett's wife is Pett's cousin, a school-mistress and 
 journalist, and to the two of them my excellent Miss Pett, 
 who taught me the Lord's Prayer in Enghsh and the virtues 
 of your late Queen Victoria — to these two the excellent 
 Miss Pett stood in the relation of aunt. But the train is 
 proceeding at the rate of twelve miles an hour towards 
 our destination, and, if I am to finish my biography, I 
 must now proceed with it. . . . In the year 1886 I 
 proceeded to the University of Smolensk. . . ." 
 
 Slowly and smoothly the train rolled on beside high 
 hills, covered with dark woods upon which the sun shone 
 down. At a wayside station it appeared to wait for three- 
 quarters of an hour for no particular reason. Then they 
 were dragged slowly past a broad-spreading castle which 
 was decorated with a great number of flags hanging from 
 the peaked roofs. A number of maid-servants in caps and 
 aprons were leaning over the green slopes of the glacis, 
 conversing with a number of black brass-bound soldiers 
 in the road below. 
 
 " My august sovereign," Macdonald said, " is visiting 
 his august relatives in that castle. That is why the train 
 was delayed three-quarters of an hour." 
 
 A man looking like a waiter, with narrow eyes and a 
 foxy moustache, peered in at them from the corridor. 
 
 " That," Macdonald said, " is the chief of the Russian 
 
28 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 detective police. The train was kept waiting to suit his 
 convenience. He could have gone to Nauheim in ten 
 minutes, in a motor-car. He's spying on us now." 
 
 Lady Aldington shuddered slightly. 
 
 " Disgusting ? " Macdonald asked her. " Yes, of course 
 it's disgusting. It's disgusting that an express train should 
 be kept waiting for a detective, just as it's disgusting that 
 you'll find yourself shadowed by dirty-looking Russians 
 wherever you go in Nauheim till they find out who you are. 
 That's because you're talking to a subject of my august 
 sovereign. And that is why Rome is burning to the tune 
 of those mouchards." 
 
 Then Macdonald continued the story of his life. Leaning 
 forward, animated and giving the impression that he was 
 not in the least in earnest, Macdonald was extremely fair, 
 and his clothes, as Lady Aldington had already remarked, 
 were just too well cut to let him be really English, of good 
 tradition. His suit of blue serge had the frontal creases 
 of the trousers so exceedingly stiffly marked that they 
 appeared to be kept out by a whale-bone spring. His 
 hands were large and long ; they had the aspect of being 
 cool and firm, and from time to time he used them to empha- 
 size what he was sasdng. Lady Aldington was astonished 
 that she did not find this disagreeable. His face would 
 have been as bland as it was blonde if it had not been for the 
 shape of his eyelids. His eyes were of a Scotch blue, but 
 the lids, slightly narrow and running shghtly upwards, 
 gave Lady Aldington to understand that in this man there 
 would be upon occasion a touch of a devil. It was a faint 
 suggestion of black Scotch pride, of dark Tartar passion and 
 cruelty, as well as the romantic self-containment of which 
 both these races are capable. Lady Aldington could not 
 exactly have put it into words. But once he broke off 
 the account of the immigration of his soul amongst Russian 
 revolutionists in London to say, gazing at her fingers : 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 29 
 
 " You English women have such beautiful hands ! " And 
 there was in the undertones of his voice such a quaver of 
 longing that Lady Aldington felt as if he were devoting to 
 her long fingers a passion that he could not respectfully 
 address to her whole person. She leant back, all in white, 
 surveying him through her eyelashes, and she listened. 
 Only the curve of her long neck showed her pride not 
 only of place but in every other thing. And that was 
 involuntary. . . . 
 
 " I can't," Madame Sassonoff said, " I can't tell you 
 whether he's " quite,' unless you tell me, dear Lady Alding- 
 ton, what ' quite ' means." 
 
 " Well," Lady Aldington said, "I've been walking about 
 with him all the morning and, as he's either enterprising 
 or astonishingly simple, it looks as if we should be walking 
 about together for the rest of the day. At least, he has 
 annoimced his intention of calling for me at my aimt's 
 hotel exactly at four o'clock, when my aimt goes to bed." 
 
 " Well, he is discreet, is Sergius Mihailovitch," Madame 
 Sassonoff said. " You can rely upon him to be that." 
 
 " I don't know that I care," Emily said, " whether he is 
 that or not. But I should hke to know the other." 
 
 The Baroness chuckled deep in the throat of her round, 
 dark personality. Her hotel room was filled with masses 
 of bouquets that occupied borrowed vases on every article 
 of furniture. Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald had just 
 left them to see if he could get for his Grand Duke a certain 
 French novel that the censorship at Wiesbaden had cleared 
 the bookshops of. The Baroness's plump hands were 
 perpetually moving, and had an air of being extremely 
 accomplished. She had upon each finger at least two large 
 rings. Her income was said to exceed three milUon roubles, 
 and the Czar himself was one of her trustees. And this 
 imperial backing gave to Madame Sassonoff a recklessness 
 
30 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 that a great many people found attractive. In spite of 
 her immense wealth, she never entertained in the English 
 sense of the word, because it was too much trouble. She 
 Uved in hotels, and yet she was never without a constant 
 stream of pleased visitors. She was capriciously charitable. 
 Once she gave a quarter of a million roubles to a fund for 
 providing Paris coachmen with button-holes on the feast 
 of the Assumption of the Virgin. She was in no way 
 religious, not in the least superstitious, and she had no n;oral 
 illusions of any kind. 
 
 " My dear," this la^ answered Lady Aldington's last 
 speech, " you never know when you won't want a man to 
 be discreet, and I wouldn't, if I were you, be so crudely 
 frank. What you implied just now was that although 
 Sergius Mihailovitch may have been my lover, he would 
 never be yours. But, quite apart from that having been 
 insulting to me, it is a thing you never can tell." 
 
 Lady Aldington said irrelevantly : " My husband put 
 me in his charge. That's generally considered . . ." 
 
 " My dear," the Baroness said, " avec un man comme le 
 voire — it would be generally considered a case for des 
 circonstances extenuantes. A deucedly suspicious circum- 
 stance, in English." 
 
 " My dear," Emily said, " I don't think you in the least 
 understand what Aldington wants." 
 
 " But I profess to understand what Aldington is," the 
 Baroness answered. " You don't suppose we spent that 
 six weeks in that hotel at Cairo together without my dis- 
 covering what sort of a monster your husband is. . . , 
 Unless he's changed in these three years ? " she added 
 interrogatively. 
 
 " Oh, he hasn't changed," Lady Aldington said, and she 
 permitted before this foreigner just a shade of desolation 
 to appear in her tone. 
 
 "And you haven't changed, aiid the world hasn't 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 31 
 
 changed, so that nothing has changed ! " the Baroness said. 
 " Quelle misere I " 
 
 " I don't know that I want anything changed," Lady 
 Aldington said reflectively. " What should it change 
 to?" 
 
 " Ah ! " the Baroness said, " that is all very well ; but 
 even frozen mutton thaws in the end." 
 
 " I'm not a sheep," Lady Aldington said. 
 
 " No, but you are a lamb," Madame Sassonoff answered, 
 
 " I shall be thirty-one next week," Emily said, " and I 
 can take care of myself." 
 
 " Oh, poor lamb ! oh, poor lamb ! " the Baroness said. 
 " What is that that I perceive upon your head ? " 
 
 Emily instinctively raised her hands towards her hat. 
 But then she remembered that Madame Sassonoff in the 
 Russian court was believed to have certain gifts that in 
 Russian were called sgaravoie — as who should say, " the 
 voices." For, every now and then, the Baroness would 
 drop into a sort of trance. She would gaze before her and 
 prophesy. As a rule she did not permit herself these 
 excursions when English women were present in her draw- 
 ing-room, for it was apt to render them imcomfortable. 
 Nevertheless, the two ladies having lived in some intimacy 
 at Cairo, Emily had once or twice witnessed such a mani- 
 festation on her friend's part — more particularly on one 
 occasion, when a member of the imperial family had been 
 passing through Eg57pt and had called on the Baroness. 
 
 Madame SassonoS continued to gaze at the buckle of old 
 paste that secured the large feather in her guest's hat. And 
 in the silence Lady Aldington was vaguely wondering 
 whether this scintillating object just above the Baroness's 
 line of vision had not produced in her some kind of hypnotic 
 state. And suddenly Madame Sassonoff said : 
 
 " Round your smooth golden hair I see a crown of the 
 little white roses of passion. And over your head is a small 
 
32 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 white cloud, and the voices say : ' It is very well. Death 
 alone will finish it with a traitor's shaft in the back of the 
 spine. And the roses round your hair turn aU to a jet 
 black. But they do not fade. So whilst lamenting, you 
 will approve the death.' " 
 
 Lady Aldington laughed. She could not associate the 
 gorgeous bad taste of the hotel room and the climbing 
 showers of hot-house blooms with any gift of serious 
 prophecy. " What was it you said the sgaravoie said ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I could not repeat it," the Baroness answered. " I 
 do not know ; it is gone out of my mind." 
 
 " It was something about being shot in the back by a 
 traitor," Lady Aldington commented. " I do not see how 
 that could happen to me, or even to Aldington, unless one 
 of the workmen in my mines in Galizia took it into his 
 head to do something of the sort. There are some rough 
 customers in that repubhc." 
 
 " I do not know," the Baroness said blankly. " It is 
 gone from my mind." And then she laughed, with a 
 gentle cooing sound. " My dear Emily," she said, " you 
 are thirty-one. But you are a little frozen white lamb. 
 When you find the sun, shall you not go frisking in the green 
 grass like all the others ? Yes, surely you shall. For do 
 you not understand you have never lived ? " 
 
 " Never Uved ! " Lady Aldington said, with a polite 
 bitterness. " Have you an idea what my life has been ? " 
 
 " No, don't become unenglish over your wrongs," 
 Madame Sassonoff warned her. " I know that if you 
 scratch an English woman you find a grievance. But 
 just because I know very well what your life has been, I 
 know very well that you have never lived, and in the end 
 life must come. Did you ever hear of the nightingales of 
 Kurshk district ? . . . The nightingales of the Kurshk 
 district are celebrated all through Holy Russia for the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 33 
 
 sweetness of their voices. Well, those whose occupation 
 it is to catch and to sell these little servants of Heaven and 
 of love, les attrapeni Ires jeunes : Us les prennent de leurs 
 nids et puis Us les tienneni pendant deux, pendant trois annees 
 dans des caves. . . . You understand, they have the 
 belief that the nightingale sings best if it has never sung 
 for several years, or has never sung at all. So when 
 these nightingales have Hved to long to sing for all those 
 years, upon a moonlight night they take such a nightingale 
 from the cellar where it has lived in silence. And in the 
 moonlight they hang it in its little cage in the park of a 
 prince or the garden of a lover who has paid them a great 
 deal of money. And so the bird sings all through that 
 moonlight night, and in the morning it dies." 
 
 Lady Aldington smiled a Uttle. " If some of the gentle- 
 men who come to my receptions were to hear that," she 
 said, " they would move in the House for a detachment of 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals people to be sent to 
 the district of Kurshk." 
 
 " My dear," Madame Sassonoff replied, " God also is some- 
 times such a trainer of nightingales. After many years He 
 will let one loose in the garden of a prince or of a lover. 
 And not even the British Constitution can send Prevention 
 of Cruelty People to God." 
 
 " I don't think you quite understand," Emily said, 
 " how we live in England, I don't want to be pharisaic, 
 of course ; but we don't give way in this sort of thing as 
 foreigners do. I don't say we're any better for it, but our 
 training is different." 
 
 " Oh, come," the Baroness said, " we are not the high 
 contracting powers of England and Russia ; there is no 
 need for you to utter these official falsehoods to me. Let 
 me tell you a little anecdotte. If you cling so much to your 
 British chastity, let me give you a little warning. Once 
 Aldington was in my salon in the hotel at Cairo. He was 
 
 D 
 
34 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 all alone, waiting for me. But when I came in he did not 
 hear me, for he was looking out of the window. And he 
 had on his face such an extraordinary expression, he was 
 looking so intently, that I too went to look and see what it 
 was he was looking at. You were on that marble terrace 
 where they had the geraniums in tubs. And you were 
 talking to the Graham boy. And you were laughing^- 
 laughing ! My dear, I never saw you so animated." 
 
 " The poor Graham boy ! " Lady Aldington said. " He 
 was killed at Adis Abeba." 
 
 " And your husband was looking at you and muttering. 
 He had had a little too much wine for lunch." 
 
 " Well, you needn't teU me what he said," Lady 
 Aldington interrupted. 
 
 " I wasn't going to," the Baroness said. " But I thought 
 I would warn you." 
 
 " He said as much to my face," Lady Aldington uttered ; 
 and then she suddenly really did break out. " TeU me 
 what I ought to have done. I don't know. Three years 
 ago — just about that time — ^Aldington was very unhappy. 
 Yes, I mean imhappy, not merely disagreeable. I didn't 
 like to see him suffer, and I said in exactly these words : 
 ' Look here. Aldington, if I divorced you and gave you a 
 couple of hundred thousand, would you marry that woman ? ' 
 And he looked at me and swore. ' Marry her ? ' he said. 
 " Good God, no ! She was a barmaid.' " 
 
 " It's still the same woman ? " Madame Sassonoff asked. 
 
 " It's still the same," Emily answered. " I don't know 
 what she's like. I know she was a barmaid. And I think 
 I've gathered to-day that she has a cockney voice, and 
 drops her h's. And her extravagance must be extra- 
 ordinary. I know in one way and another Aldington gets 
 fifteen thousand a year out of me. Why, she has a house 
 in Curzon Street. . . ." And Lady Aldington's eyes 
 filled with unmistakable tears. " My dear," she said. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 35 
 
 " what is the attraction of these creatures ? Why is it 
 that we women have to suffer ? They appear to be nothing, 
 these women. They are vulgar, they daub themselves 
 with paint. And the men howl over them and suffer the 
 pains of the damned. And if one offers to set them free 
 to marry, they say, ' My God, no ! ' What does it mean ? 
 Isn't it the most abominable insult one can have offered 
 to one ? What does it mean ? " 
 
 Madame Sassonoff shook her head almost sadly, " Ah ! 
 if one only knew that ! " 
 
 After a time she added, " My dear, no, it's not an insult. 
 Men are made like that. They are aU the same." And 
 then she added again, " Sometimes I think it is a compli- 
 ment — to our delicacy. Men are coarse creatures. They 
 need a touch of coarseness in their companions. It's 
 necessary for them. It's what keeps them going. We're 
 too delicate." 
 
 " But," Lady Aldington said plaintively, " we — that 
 is, you have your lovers." 
 
 " Perhaps," Madame Sassonoff reflected, " that's only 
 a matter of reaction too. Sergius Mihailovitch has a 
 terrible wife. A terrible woman. She was the daughter 
 of a London tailor." 
 
 Suddenly, as if she thought she had unbent more than 
 sufficiently, Lady Aldington drew herself up into an 
 attitude of British calm, which was symbolised by her 
 taking from her pocket her little green card-case. And 
 she began to ask questions about the Woronzow-Dash- 
 koffs, and Prince Peshkoff, and the Lacour-Ch^nteUeries, 
 and other people who had been at Cairo three years before. 
 Madame Sassonoff returned the appropriate answers. 
 And very shortly Lady Aldington rose and achieved the 
 feat of laying one of her own cards and two of her husband's 
 on the comer of a marble console table that was much 
 occupied by many vases of flowers. She made her adieux. 
 
36 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 and Madame Sassonoff's man had already opened the 
 door, when the Baroness said : 
 
 " Of course, Sergius Mihailovitch is perfectly trust- 
 worthy as to money, if that's what you mean by ' quite ' 
 . . . He has given all his money away, you know." 
 
 Lady Aldington halted in her path towards the door. 
 " I should have thought," she said, " that that would 
 have made him exceedingly untrustworthy in money 
 matters." 
 
 " Oh, come ! " the Baroness said. " Don't be so extra- 
 vagantly English ! Sergius Mihailovitch was an ex- 
 tremely wealthy man. Not, of course, wealthy as people 
 like you go ; but stiU decidedly well off. Well off, even for 
 England. And he gave it all away. Don't you see that 
 that makes him absolutely imUkely to try to get at your 
 money ? " 
 
 " Oh, I can look after my money well enough," Lady 
 Aldington said. " Whom did he give his money to ? " 
 
 " I thought he'd related his whole biography to you," 
 the Baroness commented. " He gave the money, of 
 course, to that London Russian anarchist club. Wasn't 
 it fine ? " 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " Oh dear ! " rather helplessly ; 
 and then she added, " But didn't it help those wretches to 
 go on throwing bombs ? " 
 
 The Baroness said : " My dear ! How extraordinarily 
 obtuse you are as soon as we get on to the subject of 
 Sergius Mihailovitch. Of course the money broke up that 
 anarchist plub altogether. As soon as there was a large 
 sum of money to be divided, those anarchists divided 
 it. Then of course they became capitalists. Sergius 
 Mihailovitch is accustomed to say that half the cheap 
 restaurants, gambling clubs, and sweating tailors' businesses 
 in one quarter of London, whose name I forget — half of 
 them were set up by his first fortune. . . ." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 37 
 
 " His first fortiine ? " Lady Aldington ejaculated. 
 
 " Well, of course he came into a second," the Baroness 
 said, " on the death of his mother. The second fortune 
 he gave to some Socialist society in the west end of London. 
 Sergius Mihailovitch says that those people were all 
 discontented middle-ckss failures. Of course, his second 
 fortime broke them up." 
 
 " But, dear me," Lady Aldington said, " did he want to 
 break them up ? " 
 
 " Goodness,, no ! " the Baroness said. " But don't you 
 see these people being about to regenerate society — that 
 is what Sergius Mihailovitch says in his pleasant manner — 
 being about to regenerate society, they naturally wanted 
 to be careful of how they set about it. When they got 
 money, they naturally wanted to print pamphlets. These 
 advanced people always want to print pamphlets. It's 
 a mania. So that ruined them." 
 
 " But how could pamphlets " Lady Aldington was 
 
 beginning to ask. 
 
 The Baroness laughed outright. " Oh, dear ! " she said, 
 " don't you understand ? They could not agree as to 
 whose pamphlets they were to publish. So they aU went to 
 law. They had innumerable lawsuits. There was a httle 
 gentleman called Pett — of real genius ; but, of course, not 
 of our world . . ." 
 
 " What did Mr. Pett do ? " Lady Aldington asked. " I 
 met him last night." 
 
 The Baroness said : " Yes, dear Sergius is very fond 
 of taking those people about. He has introduced them 
 to the Grand Duke. He's brought them here. . . . 
 Well, Mr. Pett wanted all the pamphlets that that society 
 pubhshed, to be by himself. He said that he was the only 
 one of the club that could write English." 
 
 " But he drops his h's," Lady Aldington protested. 
 
 " Of course I do not notice that, being not English," 
 
38 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Madame Sassonoff said. She motioned with her hand to 
 her man to shut the door and go away. Then she said : 
 
 " Dearest — sit down again that I can explain to you what 
 a really beautiful character Sergius Mihailovitch has." 
 
 Lady Aldington obediently sat down. " You're always 
 good fun to listen to," she said. " But it all sounds a little 
 like madness. Why should Count Macdonald have given 
 his money away, and why should he go about with that 
 terrible Uttle cockney ? " 
 
 " Ah," the Baroness said, " Sergius Mihailovitch is the 
 darling baby of us all — of all the court, and of aU of us in 
 Russia who are what you would call in English ' quite good 
 people.' And if you mean by " quite ' does Sergius Mi- 
 hailovitch come of ' quite good people,' of course he does. 
 As to his giving away his money, that is a thing that you 
 cannot well understand. But to us Russians, it is part of 
 our nature. Why, one of these days I shall give all my 
 money away to build some monastery or to improve flying 
 machines, or to convert India — or England, for the matter 
 of that — to the orthodox church. I shall go begging my 
 way along the roads. . . ." 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " My dear ! " in a tone of real 
 concern. 
 
 " Oh yes, I shall," the Baroness said sagely. " And it 
 will not be madness, it's in us. It's in the Russian people, 
 from the highest to the lowest. There was a case I knew 
 in Russia ... a poor tailor, the cousin of one of my 
 serfs. This tailor was miserably poor. He lived in a 
 cellar beneath a nobleman's house, and patched up the 
 uniforms of second-rate officials. One day a drunken idiot 
 came in to his cellar and said to the tailor, ' Little brother, 
 I'm starving. I can't work. I have come to Uve with you." 
 And, mind you, this drunken idiot was no relative of the 
 tailor, who had never seen him before. So the drunken 
 idiot hved with the tailor. He stole all the tailor's money 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 39 
 
 for drink ; he stole the second-rate officials' uniforms, and 
 pa^A^led them for drink. At last, in a moment of anger, 
 the tailor locked him out of the cellar, and the drunkard 
 went away. Who knows where ? Then on the next 
 morning the tailor hanged himself. You understand that 
 he could not bear to think that he had turned one of God's 
 poor people away from the door. And we are all like that, 
 we Russians. At any moment any one of us may do such 
 a thing." 
 
 " But it's horrible," Lady Aldington said. " One could 
 not trust oneself with any Russian. Of course, there was 
 Count Tolstoi. . . ." 
 
 " Oh, Alexis Alexeivitch," the Baroness said, with a 
 touch of contempt in her voice. " The newspapers made 
 an enormous fuss about him ; but nobody mentioned the 
 poor cousin of my serf, and there are a million Russians 
 Uke that. Sergius Mihailovitch is one of them." 
 
 " He does not seem to have been very patient with his 
 anarchist and sociaUst friends," Lady Aldington said. " He 
 got tired of them in the end." 
 
 " Oh ! " the Baroness answered, " must he not have his 
 phases like anyone else who grows older ? Even your 
 newspaper-advertised Tolstoi went through his phases. He 
 was a gambling officer, and then a Social reformer, and then 
 a Quietist. Sergius Mihailovitch has gone through his 
 phases in the reverse direction, that is all. At present he is 
 assimilating the ideas of the great Mr. Pett. To those I 
 should say he will adhere to the end of his Ufe. The voices 
 have told me that Mr. Pett will kill Sergius Mihailovitch." 
 
 " Kill him ? " Lady Aldington said. 
 
 " Yes," the Baroness answered. " He will murder him. 
 That's what I mean." 
 
 " But this is being mad," Lady Aldington said. " If 
 you think Count Macdonald is going to be murdered— what 
 is it about ? Will the little man be jealous of his wife ? 
 
40 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 If you think Count Macdonald is going to be murdered, 
 aren't you going to do something to prevent it ? " 
 
 The Baroness shook her head. " We are Orientals, we 
 are Fatahsts, we Russians," she said. " How are you 
 going to prevent it ? And, no, it will not be about Mr. 
 Pett's wife. Sergius Mihailovitch has a wife of his own. 
 As one of your ministers said of one of your prime ministers, 
 ' The right honourable gentleman was married for many 
 years to a lady of no charm, with little intellect, and of a 
 disagreeable character, to whom, nevertheless, he was 
 singularly faithful.' " 
 
 " Well," Lady Aldington said, " if he's faithful to his 
 wife he has at least one virtue that an English woman can 
 appreciate." 
 
 And once more she rose to go. Madame Sassonoff looked 
 up at her sagaciously. 
 
 " I don't know," she said, " that in this case it's really 
 a virtue. The woman ought to be drovmed, or she will 
 kill dear Sergius before Mr. Pett can do it. Did you ever 
 meet an English shopkeeper's wife ? " 
 
 " I don't believe I ever did," Lady Aldington answered. 
 
 " Well, study her well when you meet her," Madame 
 Sassonoff said. " I understand that Countess Macdonald 
 is a typical member of that class." 
 
 " I don't suppose," Lady Aldington said, " that I ever 
 shall meet her." 
 
 " Oh yes, you will," the Baroness answered. " I think 
 you will find that Sergius Mihailovitch is going to England 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Lady Aldington laughed from the doorway. 
 
 Her visit to her aunt, Mrs. Crewkeme, was as trying 
 as she could have expected. Mrs. Crewkeme had been 
 a Mademoiselle Duminy, the sister of Lady Aldington's 
 father, the French Lieutenant de Vaisseau. Mademoiselle 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 41 
 
 Duminy had married an English west-country parson, who 
 had hoped for preferment from the fact of his wife's distant 
 connection with a duke. The preferment had never come, 
 and Mrs. Crewkeme had vegetated in a small isolated 
 rectory until she had become as typically and disagreeably 
 an English clergyman's wife as if she had been bom in 
 a cathedral close. Upon the death of her husband, Mrs. 
 Crewkerne had been left entirely destitute. Lady Alding- 
 ton had not only supported her since then, she had also 
 treated the disagreeable old woman as if she were a dowager 
 of the house of Aldington or Kintyre. When they went to 
 Egypt, Mrs. Crewkeme went with them ; and she would 
 have lived with them in London but for the fact that her 
 health required a country life. Lady Aldington, indeed, 
 treated her with a formal deference and a patient respect 
 that came to her with her French blood. The only reward 
 that she got for this was that Mrs. Crewkeme had conceived 
 an immense and whole-hearted admiration for Lord Ald- 
 ington. She was indeed his sole admirer in the whole 
 world, so that the great part of her conversation was 
 devoted to telling her niece that she treated Aldington badly. 
 She said that Emily ought to pay more attention to the 
 poor man's comfort, and, during the whole of that after- 
 noon, she embroidered unceasingly upon this theme. She 
 instmcted her niece as to how, by seeing that he never went 
 out without a Uver-protector when there was the least 
 touch of east wind, she had managed to keep the Rev. 
 Mr. Crewkeme in a good humour. She had given him 
 linseed tea every Saturday night of their married life. She 
 had seen on every single night that his sleeping-socks were 
 aired and warmed. And she enjoined upon Emily all these 
 stratagems for recovering the affections of her husband. 
 
 Once Lady Aldington said : " But, aunt, he has twenty- 
 four servants to wait upon hini in my house, and seven in 
 another." 
 
42 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 But her aunt paid no attention to this speech, and that 
 was almost the only time that Emily opened her lips 
 during the two hours and a half of her visit. 
 
 Mrs. Crewkerne managed to make even the gilded room 
 of the best hotel of Nauheim give Lady Aldington the 
 feeling that she was sitting in the small stuffy chamber of 
 a country parsonage, on a long Saturday afternoon, whilst 
 the vicar was preparing his sermon. And that is exactly 
 what, with one of her rare smiles. Lady Aldington said 
 to Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald, when she found him 
 waiting for her in the hall of the hotel. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " you feel like a schoolgirl released. 
 And so do I. I am going to England to-morrow." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 43 
 
 MACDONALD found his wife standing in the 
 drawing-room of the Grand Duke's suite in the 
 Hotel des Anglais. The room was officially 
 furnished with chairs and tables, and even 
 pictures which had formerly been the property of Marie 
 Antoinette. The proprietor of the hotel had purchased 
 these articles under the impression that they would afford 
 comfortable associations to such royal guests as deigned to 
 visit him. The rooms had been used, amongst other people, 
 by Napoleon III, the Emperor don Pedro of Brazil, and, 
 the year before, by the dethroned King of Galizia ; so that 
 the Grand Duke, who possessed a sense of humour, was 
 accustomed to call this apartment the Memento Mori 
 room, and to wish that his imperial nephew might pay him 
 a visit there. Indeed, with the view to this possibility, 
 the Grand Duke had ordered from Paris full-length portraits 
 of each of those dethroned sovereigns. Thus, in place of 
 " F6tes Galantes " by Watteau or Lancret, these lugubrious 
 personages looked down from the walls. To make the 
 joke more complete, the Grand Duke had ordered a large 
 and particularly ugly copy of " Les Enfants d'Edouard," 
 and this monstrosity the Grand Duke had caused to be 
 placed upon an easel immediately in front of the principal 
 door by which, when the Emperor visited the Grand Duke, 
 he must necessarily enter. Indeed, every time that 
 Macdonald passed through the room, the immense and 
 lugubrious picture of the murdered princes of the Tower 
 
44 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 gave him a disagreeable shock. He had, indeed, ventured 
 to remonstrate with his imperial master. He said that the 
 picture was in the very worst of tastes. But the Grand 
 Duke, with the sinister jocularity that distinguished him 
 from other princes, answered Sergius Mihailovitch with 
 the words : 
 
 " And why not ? That cretin is persuaded that I desire 
 to play Richard of Gloucester to his children. Let him 
 understand that I know he suspects me of that imbecile 
 design." 
 
 And Sergius Mihailovitch had left it at that. 
 
 It was more than his wife could do. She was a suffi- 
 ciently startling figure to find amongst the royal furniture 
 and the imperial bibelots. The daughter of a London 
 tailor of renown. Sergius Mihailovitch had met her rather 
 frequently at socialistic meetings in the Putney of the 
 early 'nineties. It is impossible to know why foreigners 
 of distinction fall desperately in love with EngUsh women 
 of the lower classes. Perhaps Macdonald had fallen in 
 love with her hands ; with her voice, which was not loud 
 but exceedingly determined ; with the precision with 
 which she enunciated sociaUst doctrines of the Fabian 
 order ; or with the aesthetic cut of her trailing garments. 
 But the tragedy of the imfortunate Russian's fate enacted 
 that, whereas his own views had completely altered, his 
 wife's had remained exactly the same. She still dressed in 
 clothes of sage green, her sleeves still swept the floor ; 
 round her neck was a rope of amber beads, each one as 
 large as a duck's egg. Her dark hair was elaborately 
 waved with curhng irons, and because she passed the greater 
 part of her life in the open air, she had a starthngly high 
 colour. From endless discussions in which she attempted 
 to force Sergius Mihailovitch back into the roads of 
 orthodox socialism, her face had assumed a permanently 
 strained expression, and her voice had grown high and 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 45 
 
 slightly discordant. Sergius Mihailovitch, upon taking 
 up his post in the Grand Duke's suite, had done his best 
 to impress her with the fact that she must not attempt to 
 convert the Grand Duke himself to the principles of Karl 
 Marx. He had had the utmost difficulty in persuading the 
 lady to promise him that she would not do so. Indeed, 
 he had had to threaten to leave her at home in England 
 before he could feel reasonably safe in the matter. It 
 was no good telUng her that to preach socialism to a grand 
 duke — even to a grand duke travelling incognito — would 
 show a serious lack of tactfulness. She said that there 
 are higher things than tact. And she said that truth is 
 great and shall prevail. Macdonald said that she might 
 practise her converting zeal upon the other gentlemen in 
 attendance upon the eminent person, upon their wives, and 
 the pages and servants. This was not at all what Countess 
 Macdonald desired. She wanted to have a grand duke 
 sitting at her feet. So that at last she gave Sergius 
 Mihailovitch the promise that he needed. She was not 
 going to speak to the Imperial Highness directly about 
 municipal trading or the general distribution of wealth. 
 But she was pretty determined to make the Grand 
 Duke see that if socialism could turn out a creature so 
 altogether desirable as herself, it would be a good thing 
 for him if he became her student. And she imagined 
 that she would be able to do this without ever quoting 
 one of the three hundred and twenty-eight Fabian tracts 
 upon which her faith was founded. Thus Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch had no actual mortification caused him, beyond 
 the fact that all the attendants upon the Grand Duke 
 considered that his wife was mad. And to this he was 
 pretty well hardened by that date. Moreover, as most 
 of his companions considered that if he had married a 
 tailor's daughter she must have been a millionairess, 
 they mostly regarded Macdonald himself with envy 
 
46 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 It was of no use his sa3ang that she had not brought 
 him a penny. They simply would not believe it. No 
 one, they said, would take less than one hundred 
 thousand roubles a year to sit opposite a scarecrow at 
 breakfast every morning. For they regarded the Countess 
 Macdonald as a scarecrow, their own women dressing in 
 clothes that came from Paris. 
 
 Crossing the room, Macdonald said amicably to his 
 wife : " Why, Margaret, what are you doing here ? " 
 
 His wife made a use of her eyes that she would have 
 called scornfully looking him up and down. She strongly 
 disapproved of his having visited, even at the Grand 
 Duke's orders, Madame Sassonoff. She did not indeed 
 believe that the Grand Duke had ordered her husband to 
 call on that lady, whom she regarded as a dissolute member 
 of the Russian smart set. That, at least, was the phrase 
 she used. Once, when the Duke of Nottingham, who had 
 met Sergius Mihailovitch at the Russian Embassy, had 
 called upon Countess Macdonald at Putney, that lady being 
 at the time without a servant had sent the Duke into her 
 kitchen to fetch the kettle for tea. That, she was accus- 
 tomed to say, was like her. 
 
 Now, having looked twice from Macdonald's head to 
 his heels, she brought out in a deep angry voice the 
 words : 
 
 " I'm trying to do more than you ever did here. I'm 
 trying to do some good." 
 
 The Countess Macdonald had come there with a double 
 object. She had wanted to discover whether the Grand 
 Duke really had sent her husband to Madame Sassonoff, 
 and she was going to read and to explain to him a work 
 by the late William Morris, called "The Roots of the 
 Mountains." She had lent it to H.I.H. some days before. 
 On the previous evening he had told her that he had not 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 47 
 
 been able to make head or tail of it. Now she was going 
 to explain it. 
 
 " Oh, well," Macdonald said lightly as he passed her, 
 "that's a good thing, but a jolly hard job." He was 
 passing on towards a small gilt door at the end of the long 
 room. 
 
 " Tell the Duke," his wife commanded, " not to keep me 
 waiting any longer." 
 
 Macdonald nodded slightly. 
 
 The Grand Duke's own suite consisted of a great number 
 of little rooms, the one opening out of the other. They 
 were all exceedingly imtidy, for the Grand Duke disliked 
 orderliness beyond all things ; so that in one little room 
 books, in another clothes, and in another empty champagne 
 bottles lay about on the valuable carpets. Indeed, in one 
 room — that which was decorated by the champagne 
 bottles — all the looking-glasses were broken, and the glass, 
 mingled with bottle glass, lay about on the carpets. The 
 night before the Grand Duke had been exercising himself 
 by throwing bottles at his own reflection in the mirrors. 
 This was not a mere display of senseless waste. It had 
 occurred to H.I.H. that a bottle is a capital weapon in a 
 restaurant, in case you should be approached by an assassin, 
 or by any other troublesome person. And this idea happen- 
 ing to occur to him when he was sitting in the little room 
 which contained a great number of old wall nairrors, it 
 had at once occurred to him that he had better practise 
 this means of self-defence. Indeed, he took great credit 
 to himself that he had only flung one full bottle at a 
 looking-glass. He had sent to the cellar of the hotel for 
 several dozen empty ones. He said that nobody, after 
 that, could call him wasteful. Nevertheless, the old glasses 
 which had reflected the features of Marie Antoinette and 
 of how many other fallen royalties would certainly never 
 
50 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 The Duke, who was distinguished for the enormous 
 strength of his hands, with a single effort tore the yellow 
 volume in half. H.I.H. was wearing a bathing wrap of 
 pink Chinese silk embroidered all over with great dragons. 
 It came down right to his feet, and added to his tall, stout 
 figure an air of exaggerated voluminousness. The gipsy, 
 who regarded this royal personage as a constant farcical 
 entertainment, had come into the room and was leaning 
 against the door-post, grinning negligently, with her legs 
 crossed. 
 
 " That I will do to you, wild cat," the Grand Duke said ; 
 " one of these days I will break you in half like this book." 
 
 One half of the torn volume he threw on to the floor, 
 and the other at the head of the gipsy. She bent down — 
 and indeed she was like a wild cat — and, picking up a 
 handful of the scattered leaves, she flung them back at the 
 Grand Duke so that the white squares fluttered all over his 
 bald head. Then she ran away in the next room, screaming 
 with laughter. A soft odour of aromatic herbs spread 
 slowly into the room from the vapour bath. The Duke 
 yawned enormously. 
 
 " I have had a terrible day. I have taken six baths 
 this afternoon. It is the only place where I could think 
 myself safe." 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch said : " Imperial Highness ? " 
 interrogatively. 
 
 "Yes, my friend," the Duke repeated, "safe! I am 
 afraid for my hfe. All day I've been afraid— of your 
 wife." 
 
 Macdonald laughed. 
 
 " But what a terrible woman ! " the Duke exclaimed. 
 " What an overwhehning woman ! She is camped in my 
 drawing-room. She has got a terrible book that she insists 
 on reading to me. It is incomprehensible ; it is maddening. 
 I never knew such books existed ! I never knew such 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 51 
 
 women existed ! My good friend, Sergius Mihailovitch, 
 you deserve Siberia because you did not strangle that 
 woman on your wedding night." 
 
 Macdonald said gaily : " That book is by a great English 
 poet and moralist. It would immensely improve Imperial 
 Highness's morals to let Madame la Comtesse expound it 
 to Imperial Highness. Let me tell Imperial Highness 
 something about WiUiam Morris, the Enghsh poet and 
 moralist who wrote that book which no one was ever able 
 to read — except when they were reading it to someone who 
 was driven mad with terror at the thought of hearing it." 
 
 The Grand Duke said : " Seriously, my friend, I do not 
 believe you are safe with that woman. For God's sake, for 
 my sake, since I do not want to lose your services, have her 
 locked up. I tell you she will bore you to death ! I tell 
 you she will bore me to death ! . . . And she makes 
 eyes at me. But eyes ! I am frightened out of my hfe ! 
 My good friend, supposing she should transfer her ardent 
 affections from you to me ! How horrible that would be ! 
 But what a blessing for you ! Horrible ! Besides, it is 
 hardly creditable to you in the capacity of husband. Get 
 rid of her, Sergius Mihailovitch, my good fellow ! " 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch drew himself up to his full height 
 and clicked his heels together. 
 
 " Imperial Highness will of course expect," he said, 
 " that after such an insult offered to the lady who shares 
 my name, I shall at once hand in to your Highness my 
 demission." 
 
 The Duke looked at him with a face of incredulous 
 panic. " But Sergius Mihailovitch ! " he spluttered, " but 
 my good fellow " 
 
 " I desire," Macdonald said, " to leave Wiesbaden to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " But that's impossible, my friend," the Duke said. 
 
 "To-morrow," Sergius Mihailovitch repeated. 
 
52 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " But, you ass," the Duke expostulated, " I have said 
 nothing but the truth about the Countess ! Death to my 
 life, do we not all know how you suffer under this infliction ? 
 I tell you I am your friend, Sergius Mihailovitch. I will 
 get my nephew to issue a special ukase divorcing you from 
 this creature." 
 
 " Imperial Highness ! " Macdonald answered, "it is 
 imperative that I should go to England to-morrow " 
 
 " Now, what woman is this after ? " the Grand Duke 
 said. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch reflected for the fifth of a second 
 that the chief of the Fourth Service had seen him in the 
 train with Lady Aldington. 
 
 " I don't want in the least to deny," he said, " that a 
 woman has something to do with it. It is Lady Aldington, 
 as I.H. wiU of course hear to-night from I.H.'s information 
 officers." 
 
 The Grand Duke said : " This Lady Aldington who 
 prevented you from getting gossip of Madame Sassanoff ? 
 I have seen her. She is a beautiful woman. I felicitate 
 you, my good friend. But is it necessary that you should 
 leave my service ? Reflect a little. You are yoimg and 
 precipitate." 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch bowed slightly. "Without doubt," 
 he said ironically, " not even the most beautiful woman in 
 the world would make me desire to leave I.H.'s services. 
 But I desire to be of some use in the world. I am going 
 to become the director of a motor car agency in London." 
 
 " But this is a farce ! " the Duke said. 
 
 " Well, it is a farce," Sergius Mihailovitch answered. 
 " But it will satisfy Madame la Comtesse, who is always 
 desiring that I should be of some use in the world. Actually 
 I am going to engineer a revolution." 
 
 The Grand Duke said : " My God ! Another revolu- 
 tion ! What a waste of time." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 53 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch bowed once more to the Grand 
 Duke. " It will be a counter-revolution this time," he said. 
 
 The Grand Duke said : " Oh ! " His eyes perused 
 Macdonald's face with a searching glare. Then he uttered 
 heavily the one word " GaHzia." 
 
 Macdonald again bowed silently. 
 
 " You understand," the Duke said rather frostily, " I 
 am financially interested. Their rentes are rising." 
 
 " To-day we rise, to-morrow we fall," Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch said expressionlessly. The Duke continued to gaze 
 at him with an august glance. 
 
 " Am I to understand," he said, " that this is in the 
 nature of financial information ? " 
 
 " I.H.'s favourite dish is the little lamprey of the Don," 
 Macdonald said. " If I.H. should receive a letter from me 
 from London saying that the lamprey of the Don is unpro- 
 curable in the markets of that city, I.H. may take my word 
 for it that it is financial information." 
 
 The Duke continued to gaze questioningly at Macdonald. 
 He was a man who liked to be perfectly certain in matters 
 of high finance. '' 
 
 " You mean," he said slowly, " that if I receive a letter 
 from you in which the word lamprey is used I may regard 
 it as an instruction to myself to ' bear ' the rentes of that 
 coimtry ? " He added almost threateningly, " You under- 
 stand that this is a very serious matter — to give me advice 
 that may be wrong. I may say that if the advice proves 
 wrong your future in this world will be very precarious." 
 
 " I understand it very well," Macdonald said, with a 
 pleasant smile. " I do not know how far this enterprise 
 may prosper. I am engaged upon it, but I cannot tell. 
 But I make I.H. the promise to write to him about lampreys 
 if the enterprise seems likely enough to succeed to bring 
 those securities down in the market. It will not need a 
 successful revolution to do that. A mere revolt will do 
 
54 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 it, as I.H. well knows. If it is a revolt which fails, I shall 
 without doubt pay for it with my life, but I.H. may make 
 a million or so." 
 
 The Grand Duke smiled suddenly. " That is a very 
 proper spirit of loyalty," he said, a little ironically. " That 
 is the spirit of the preux chevaliers who lay down their 
 lives for the profit of their kings." 
 
 Macdonald laughed. " I don't know that it's that," he 
 said. " I was merely thinking of gaining Your Highness's 
 favour for the new government. It is well known that 
 Your Highness, Hke your ancestor Alexander I, is pre- 
 judiced against the illustrious family that we are about to 
 restore to its throne." 
 
 " Prejudiced ! " the Duke said. " I tell you that they 
 are ignorant, cowardly, and useless fools ! " He smiled 
 once more, however. " Of course," he said, " if I am to 
 make a million or so out of this restoration it might change 
 my views as to the hereditary antipathy that the Romanoffs 
 have always felt for the Bourbons." 
 
 " If I.H.," Macdonald began warily, " could use his 
 enormous influence in the foreign ministry to get recog- 
 nition for our new government as early as possible, it will 
 be of the greatest help." 
 
 " If I get my million," the Duke said, " you shall have 
 it on the next day." 
 
 Macdonald bowed again. " Then that is all that I need 
 trouble I.H. about," he said. 
 
 The Prince raised his royal eyebrows. " But hang it all, 
 my good fellow," he said, " you've asked for nothing for 
 yourself." 
 
 Macdonald reflected for a moment. " Your Highness," 
 he said, "could do me the utmost favour — and make a 
 little more money . . . " 
 
 " How ? How ? " the Duke asked. " Of course, I am 
 always ready to make money." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 55 
 
 "Supposing now," Macdonald said argumentatively, 
 " that a couple of Russian cruisers should be going to 
 Shanghai " 
 
 " Oh, hang it all ! " the Duke said, " I can't let Russian 
 cruisers bombard the port of a friendly republic. We are 
 not going to war with " 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch extended a soothing hand towards 
 the Prince. 
 
 " Listen, Highness," he said. " I am talking of Russian 
 cruisers that are going to Shanghai. On the way there is 
 a port called Toulon. Now, supposing that these two 
 Russian cruisers discover off the port of Toulon that their 
 boilers — excellent boilers — are defective. The two Russian 
 crusiers would put into the port of Toulon." 
 
 The Duke said: " There is nothing new about that. It 
 is always happening." 
 
 " When the two Russian cruisers arrive in Toulon it is 
 discovered that their boilers are utterly useless." 
 
 "That, too, is always happening," the Duke said. 
 " You are thinking of the Javorskaia and the Admiral 
 Kunin." 
 
 " I admit," Macdonald said, " that the condition of those 
 two vessels of H.I.M.'s navy gave me the idea. But I 
 should require vessels of a better class." 
 
 The Prince said : " WeU— well ? " 
 
 " Being discovered to be entirely useless, the vessels will 
 be sold to a syndicate." 
 
 " For what price ? " the prince asked, with interest. 
 
 " Let us say," Macdonald said, " for a quarter of a million 
 pounds sterling." 
 
 " It is not very much," the Duke commented. 
 
 " It is aU that I am empowered to offer," Mac- 
 donald answered. " Besides, it will be all sheer profit 
 to Your I.H." 
 
 " Oh, come," the Duke said, " I have a conscience. I 
 
54 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 it, as I.H. well knows. If it is a revolt which fails, I shall 
 without doubt pay for it with my life, but I.H. may make 
 a million or so." 
 
 The Grand Duke smiled suddenly. " That is a very 
 proper spirit of loyalty," he said, a little ironically. " That 
 is the spirit of the preux chevaliers who lay down their 
 lives for the profit of their kings." 
 
 Macdonald laughed. " I don't know that it's that," he 
 said. " I was merely thinking of gaining Your Highness's 
 favour for the new government. It is well known that 
 Your Highness, like your ancestor Alexander I, is pre- 
 judiced against the illustrious family that we are about to 
 restore to its throne." 
 
 " Prejudiced ! " the Duke said. " I teU you that they 
 are ignorant, cowardly, and useless fools ! " He smiled 
 once more, however. " Of course," he said, " if I am to 
 make a million or so out of this restoration it might change 
 my views as to the hereditary antipathy that the Romanoffs 
 have always felt for the Bourbons." 
 
 " If I.H.," Macdonald began warily, " could use his 
 enormous influence in the foreign ministry to get recog- 
 nition for our new government as early as possible, it will 
 be of the greatest help." 
 
 " If I get my million," the Duke said, " you shall have 
 it on the next day." 
 
 Macdonald bowed again. " Then that is all that I need 
 trouble I.H. about," he said. 
 
 The Prince raised his royal eyebrows. " But hang it all, 
 my good fellow," he said, " you've asked for nothing for 
 yourself." 
 
 Macdonald reflected for a moment. " Your Highness," 
 he said, "could do me the utmost favour— and make a 
 little more money . . . " 
 
 " How ? How ? " the Duke asked. " Of course, I am 
 always ready to make money." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 55 
 
 "Supposing now," Macdonald said argumentatively, 
 " that a couple of Russian cruisers should be going to 
 Shanghai " 
 
 " Oh, hang it all ! " the Duke said, " I can't let Russian 
 cruisers bombard the port of a friendly repubhc. We are 
 not going to war with " 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch extended a soothing hand towards 
 the Prince. 
 
 " Listen, Highness," he said. " I am talking of Russian 
 cruisers that are going to Shanghai. On the way there is 
 a port called Toulon. Now, supposing that these two 
 Russian cruisers discover off the port of Toulon that their 
 boilers — excellent boilers — are defective. The two Russian 
 crusiers would put into the port of Toulon." 
 
 The Duke said : " There is nothing new about that. It 
 is always happening." 
 
 " When the two Russian cruisers arrive in Toulon it is 
 discovered that their boilers are utterly useless." 
 
 "That, too, is always happening," the Duke said. 
 " You are thinking of the Javorskaia and the Admiral 
 Kunin." 
 
 " I admit," Macdonald said, " that the condition of those 
 two vessels of H.I.M.'s navy gave me the idea. But I 
 should require vessels of a better class." 
 
 The Prince said : " Well— well ? " 
 
 " Being discovered to be entirely useless, the vessels will 
 be sold to a sjmdicate." 
 
 " For what price ? " the prince asked, with interest. 
 
 " Let us say," Macdonald said, " for a quarter of a million 
 pounds sterling." 
 
 " It is not very much," the Duke commented. 
 
 " It is all that I am empowered to offer," Mac- 
 donald answered. " Besides, it will be all sheer profit 
 to Your I.H." 
 
 " Oh, come," the Duke said, " I have a conscience. I 
 
56 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 could not take more than a million roubles for acting as 
 agent." 
 
 " As for me," Macdonald said, " I will undertake that 
 within a few days the war-ships shall be returned to the 
 govemmeiit of H.I.M. The S3aidicate having a conscience 
 will have discovered that the war-ships are much more 
 efficient than was supposed." 
 
 " Oh, come ! come ! " the Duke said, " you had better 
 keep them for yourself, and sell them to some South 
 American government. You will make a handsome 
 profit." 
 
 " I am not a dealer in old iron," Macdonald answered. 
 The Duke looked at him fixedly. " That, of course, is 
 an insult to me," he said. 
 
 " God forbid ! " Macdonald answered. " I am only a 
 poor man, with few of the responsibilities of Your Highness, 
 who is a mighty prince. So I can afford to say that I will 
 not weaken my own country by permanently removing her 
 battle-ships, I need them only for a few days." 
 
 " You really are a most impracticable idiot ! " the Prince 
 remarked. 
 
 Macdonald bowed. " Your Highness," he said, " is only 
 uttering the exact words that have been used time and again 
 by my wife." 
 
 " ReaUy, she is to be S37mpathised with in that par- 
 ticular." the Duke said. " It makes me positively angry 
 to see how you neglect your opportunities. That must be 
 your Scotch blood. They say, ' Fier comme un Ecossais.' " 
 Again Macdonald inclined his head. " Let us then," he 
 said, " be certain that we have the details correct. Upon 
 my writing to Your Highness- about lampreys. Your High- 
 ness will conduct a financial operation. But if I telegraph 
 that I have procured lampreys in London, Your Highness 
 will see that the two first-class cruisers Uvaroff and 
 Alexander II, with all their arms and ammunition on board. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 57 
 
 are dispatched for Shanghai, under secret orders to be 
 opened in mid-Channel." 
 
 " There will be no mistake about the money ? " the Duke 
 asked. 
 
 "There will be no mistake if I telegraph," Macdonald 
 said. 
 
 " Then that is all," the Duke answered. 
 
 Macdonald once more bowed, and was making for the 
 little door when once more the Duke exclaimed : 
 
 " But, hang it all, Macdonald, what are you going to live 
 upon ? " 
 
 " I ? " Macdonald said. " I have already told Your 
 Highness that I am going to become the manager of a motor 
 car business." 
 
 " But confound it ! " the Duke said. " Your faithful 
 services . . . They can't go unrewarded." 
 
 " I have chosen for Your Highness," Macdonald said 
 amiably, " three hundred and forty neckties. I have read 
 the papers for six months for Your Highness to discover 
 any amusing paragraphs, Also, I have carried three bou- 
 quets to Madame La Baronne Sassonoff, and I have bought 
 Your Highness a novel without illustrations. I do not ask 
 for a reward commensurate with these enormous services." 
 
 " No ! no ! " the Duke said. " You are a very amusing 
 person. You must be rewarded. Wait ! I will make you 
 my supernumerary aide-de-camp with permission to reside 
 in London. But no ! no ! then I should have to pay 
 your salary. — I wiU name you supernumerary aide-de- 
 camp to my nephew, with forty thousand roubles a year 
 from the private purse, and the Order of Alexander H of 
 the First Class, and rooms iri the embassy. In that way 
 you have an official position that wiU be of great service 
 to you." 
 
 '' I must still," Sergius Mihailovitch said, " take up the 
 position of manager of motor cars. It is part of the plan." 
 
58 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 The Grand Duke said amiably : " Damn your motor 
 cars ! Become the manager of a pawnshop, if you like. I 
 need not interfere with your duties, for you will have no 
 duties. To-night I will give a banquet in your honour." 
 
 " I had rather," Sergius Mihailovitch said, " that you 
 commanded me to attend the opera." 
 
 " Aha ! " the Grand Duke said, " that icicle will be 
 there." 
 
 " Lady Aldington will be there." Macdonald said. 
 
 " And you are passionately devoted to her ? " the Grand 
 Duke asked. 
 
 " Passionately 1 " Macdonald answered. 
 
 " But you will never melt that icicle," the Grand Duke 
 said. 
 
 Macdonald smiled faintly. "Do you know, ' ' he answered, 
 " I do not know that I really want to." 
 
 " Oh, you are incorrigible ! " His Highness commented. 
 " But I would not mind being you." 
 '. 
 
 As Macdonald went through the next room, the tall, 
 dark man who had been looking at the prints in the port- 
 folio turned slowly upon him. 
 
 " Have you any idea," he said, " when the Grand Duke 
 will be disengaged ? " 
 
 With his unfailing light smile Macdonald answered : 
 " I don't really know. I'll send a man, if you like. Or, 
 no, I'll go and ask him myself." 
 
 But at that moment the Duke threw the door open. 
 With his immense bulk swathed in its pink bath robes, he 
 had the air of having burst it open with his heavy shoulder. 
 
 " My God, Kintjrre," he said, " I've kept you waiting. 
 My dear fellow, I was having a bath." 
 
 The tall, dark man smiled faintly. " Oh, it's all right," 
 he said. " I only came to look at your Rops's. I've been 
 right through the portfolio." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 59 
 
 Macdonald was going out of the room when the Prince said: 
 
 " Wait a minute, Sergius Mihailovitch. This gentleman 
 may be of use to you. He is the Due de Batalha." 
 
 The tall, dark man gathered the point of his beard in 
 rather spidery fingers and bit it reflectively. 
 
 "I'd be delighted to be of service to your friend," he 
 said ; " but I'm not the Duke of Batalha, you know. I 
 feel as if I ought to be. But I'm not." 
 
 The Grand Duke muttered some genial curses against 
 English titles and their complexity. 
 
 " I thought you were Kintyre, Dijon, and Batalha," he 
 said. " Your uncle was." 
 
 " No," he got his answer. " I'm only Kintyre and 
 Dijon. Batalha went to my cousin. Lady Aldington, along 
 with almost everything that was worth having in the 
 beastly titles. That's why I am so poor." 
 
 " Poor ! " the Grand Duke grumbled. " You're all 
 alike, you people. You don't know what poverty is." 
 
 " I wish," Kintyre said meditatively, " that my cousin 
 Emily Aldington was dead. I'm her heir." 
 
 The Grand Duke put his finger upon his lips. " Oh, 
 you mustn't say that here, Duke," he said. " We have 
 the highest admiration for that lady. We are going to the 
 opera to-night in her honour." 
 
 Kintjnre said : " Oh, I didn't know, I am sure." 
 
 And then Macdonald asked him : "Is Lady Aldington 
 really the owner of Batalha ? I had heard that the person 
 one had to negotiate with was a Scotchman of my own 
 name. They call him le rey de Batalha." 
 
 Kintyre looked him up and down with a leisurely glance. 
 
 "This is Count Macdonald," the Grand Duke said, 
 
 the spoiled baby of aU the Russias." 
 
 Kintyre uttered an " Oh ! " that expressed the fact that 
 in that case Sergius Mihailovitch was a person that he 
 could talk to. 
 
6o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Then he addressed him : "Of course, if you wanted to 
 buy tin or cobalt or whatever it is that they get out of the 
 mines, you would have to address yourself to a Scotchman, 
 and probably his name would be Macdonald. All large 
 undertakings are managed by Scotchmen, and they are 
 generally called Macdonald. Sometimes they're called 
 Graham." He looked at Macdonald carefully again. 
 " But I don't suppose you want tin or cobalt ? " he added. 
 
 " Sergius Michailovitch," the Grand Duke said, " only 
 wants to give money away. I kept you waiting all this 
 time because I was trying to make him accept a high posi- 
 tion with a salary. And it was so much trouble that I 
 perspired imtil I might just as well have never taken a bath 
 at aU." 
 
 Again Kintyre surveyed Macdonald curiously. "I 
 suppose you can afford it," he said at last. " I only wish 
 somebody would offer me a salaried position." 
 
 " Well, you know," Macdonald said amiably, " I could 
 always take you as assistant manager in a motor car 
 shop." 
 
 " Oh, you're interested in motor cars ? " the Duke 
 questioned. " I wish I was. I wish I was interested in 
 anything." 
 
 " What a confoundedly discontented fellow you are, 
 Kintyre ! " the Grand Duke said. 
 
 "Oh, they're all like that," Macdonald explained to 
 him. " You don't know these English as I do. Now, 
 there's Aldington. He must be richer than the Czar, and 
 he is always groaning. He says the Government has ruined 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, Aldington ! " Kintyre said, with a shrug of his 
 shoulders. " He's got no money. It's his wife that's got 
 it all. And it ought to be mine." 
 
 " Grumble ! grumble ! grumble ! " the Grand Duke 
 muttered. " You're as bad as a crow to-day, Kintyre." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 6i 
 
 " Well," Kintyre said, " you'd be as bad as a crow if 
 you were me. I've just had to write a cheque for £50,000 
 as the last instalment of succession duty to my uncle's 
 estate." 
 
 " There you are ! " Macdonald said to the Grand Duke. 
 " These are our English. That means that the last instal- 
 ment of his succession was about five million roubles, and God 
 knows what the other instalments were. Yet they wiU all 
 tell you the same tale. Black ruin stares them in the face." 
 " Black ruin would stare you in the face, my friend," 
 Kintyre said, with an amiable moodiness, " if you stood 
 in my boots. But if you want to do anything in Batalha 
 — ^if you want to sell motor cars — you'll have to ask Lady 
 Aldington." 
 
 " I'll tell you," the Grand Duke said. " Sergius Mi- 
 hailovitch doesn't want to sell. He wants to give. He 
 wants to give Batalha a king now." 
 
 Kintyre rounded his thickly haired red lips to a slight 
 whistle. 
 
 " And," the Grand Duke continued, " if you can do any- 
 thing to help him, you'll personally oblige myself." 
 
 Macdonald flushed a little with pleasure. " Now, that's 
 really generous of Your Highness," he said. 
 
 The Grand Duke looked at Kintyre. " Of course," he 
 said, " that does not go beyond these four walls. I cannot 
 be officially implicated in restoring kings. But if you hear 
 that Macdonald wants a backing anywhere, you may let 
 people know that he has a backing from me. Not for any 
 particular purpose, you understand, but just a general 
 
 support." 
 
 And, just as His Highness had meant, there came into 
 the English Duke's whole demeanour an entirely different 
 attitude towards Sergius Mihailovitch. So that it was as 
 if with a regretful candour that he said : 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't be of much use to you in Batalha. 
 
62 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 I wish I could. But you may take it from me that my 
 cousin Emily really rules the roost there, and not any 
 Scotchman." He looked at the bulky Russian prince. 
 
 " You might introduce me to Lady Aldington," he said. 
 " I haven't met her since she was three." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know her," the Grand Duke said. " I 
 should think she thought I wasn't respectable enough to 
 know. I've heard that EngUsh women say that of me." 
 And the Grand Duke chuckled pleasurably. 
 
 Kintyre looked at Macdonald, and this time his glance 
 entirely accepted him. If Sergius Mihailovitch, the glance 
 said, not only had the backing of the Russian prince but 
 was also au mieux with an EngUsh member of his own more 
 than princely family, there was no earthly reason why he 
 should not treat him as a man and a brother. 
 
 " Oh, it's you," he said, " who have the soft spot for my 
 cousin ! My dear fellow, do me the favour to introduce me 
 to her to-night. I'm going on to Ostend to-morrow, so it 
 will have to be to-night." 
 
 "Well, of course I will," Macdonald smiled. 
 
 " You don't think," Kintyre said, " that she'll object 
 to knowing a poor relation ? " 
 
 " Why," Macdonald answered, " she was saying this 
 afternoon that she rather wished she knew you. She just 
 remembered you as a boy of thirteen when she lived at 
 Cluswick." 
 
 Then that's all right," Kintyre answered. " I thought 
 my beastly old uncle might have set her against me. I'll 
 come round to your box at the second act, and you shaU 
 take me to her." And Kintyre sauntered amiably out of 
 the room. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch remained once more to thank the 
 Prince, for the few words that he had uttered had, Sergius 
 Mihailovitch was aware, done him an immense service. 
 He knew that when he got to London he wouldn't be merely 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 63 
 
 an adventurer floating indefinitely in the air ; he would 
 have the safe anchorage of the Grand Duke's good word 
 that Kintyre would quite certainly put about in discreet 
 quarters. 
 
 " My good fellow," the Grand Duke answered his thanks, 
 " don't you see that I stand to make money out of it ? " 
 And he smiled grimly in his beard. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch permitted himself to remark : 
 " You know, I.H,, you are rather a mystery. I shouldn't 
 wonder it at the bottom of you there wasn't some of our 
 Russian mysticism. I shouldn't wonder if, like myself, 
 it worries you to think that Rome is on fire, and you wanted 
 to help put it out." 
 
 " Mystery yourself," the Duke retorted grimly. " What 
 do you go on these wild goose chases for ? You aren't 
 going to tell me that it's because Lady Aldington has 
 interests in Batalha, and you want to protect her against 
 republicans. You wouldn't want to protect anybody's 
 interests if you loved them till you wanted to scream." 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch set his heels together, and bowed 
 for the last time. 
 
 " I.H.," he said, " it is well known that science is the 
 ruling passion of this age. I have a friend and teacher 
 called Pett, who would lecture you on this subject by the 
 hour together. He says ' he is to inherit the earth.' " 
 And Sergius Mihailovitch smiled faintly. " My interests 
 in this mission are purely scientific. Perhaps that is what 
 Socrates meant when he said that we owe a cock to 
 iEsculapius." 
 
 " Well ! well ! " The Grand Duke resigned the dis- 
 cussion. "As the Russian proverb says, 'The heart of 
 another is a dark forest.' " 
 
 " A dark forest," Sergius Mihailovitch repeated. 
 
PART II 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 67 
 
 WELL, we're all English now, at any rate," Mr. 
 Pett said, and he stretched his knicker- 
 bockered legs with the grey worsted stockings 
 luxuriously out in front of the red velvet 
 cushions of the Pullman armchair. " I'm not certain 
 that's not a comfort." 
 
 " It feels a little like what it feels Uke when the ladies 
 go up to the drawing-room after dinner, doesn't it ? " 
 Lady Aldington asked. The train was running smoothly 
 out of the large station. " It's as if nobody had their eyes 
 on us any more." 
 
 " / always feel, too," Mrs. Pett said, " as if foreigners 
 were spying on me." 
 
 " That, you know," Kintyre said a little ironically, " is 
 because the Briton is always conscious that he's a superior 
 animal. He thinks the eyes of the world must be upon him 
 wherever he is." 
 
 " Well, they may look at me as much as they like, and be 
 damned to them," Lady Aldington's husband grunted. 
 " I'm not going to change my habits for anybody." 
 
 " You would not, of course, Aldington," the Duke said, 
 as if he were talking amiably to a butt. " You wouldn't, 
 and you couldn't, and you don't want to, and you won't." 
 
 " Now we have all spoken once," Mr. Pett said cheerfully 
 — " except the Duke of Kintyre. and he's had two goes. 
 Oughtn't we to elect a president to this debating society ? " 
 
68 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Kintyre looked slightly puzzled. He had not yet gathered 
 how Mr. and Mrs. Pett came to be travelling in his cousin's 
 private car, and he didn't quite know who Mr. and Mrs. 
 Pett were, so he supposed that it was all right. Even Lady 
 Aldington looked in the least apprehensive, as if she did not 
 know what Mr. Pett might not be going to say next. But 
 Mr. Pett was not going to have any silence. 
 
 " It's a pity Comrade M. isn't with us," he said reflec- 
 tively ; " he's capital in a mixed party. I always say he's 
 like the oil that binds a salad together." 
 
 " I never saw him at the station," Emily Aldington said, 
 " or I should have asked him." 
 
 " / saw him and asked him," Mr. Pett said, " but he 
 wouldn't come." And then Mr. Pett appealed confidingly 
 to Lady Aldington upon a point of eitquette. " I suppose 
 I oughtn't to have asked him into your saloon." 
 
 " Oh, you did perfectly right," Emily said. " Of course 
 we want him." 
 
 " Ah, but I mean as a matter of good form," Mr. Pett 
 insisted. " What would be the rule, now, in the best 
 society ? " 
 
 Emily Aldington really flushed a little. " Amongst really 
 good people," she said, after a pause, " there aren't any 
 rules at all, you know. People just do what they want, 
 and it turns out all right. You couldn't have done any- 
 thing I wanted more." 
 
 " Of course, it was reaUy the Countess," Mr. Pett said, 
 " that wouldn't let him come. She said you hadn't called 
 on her." 
 
 " I will call on Countess Macdonald the moment I get to 
 London," Lady Aldington said. And again a slightly 
 painful silence fell upon them. Mrs. Pett, who was not 
 able at all times to muster up her husband's purposeful self- 
 assertion, sat with her hands clasped before her. Her face 
 looked tiny, slightly anxious, and very weather-beaten. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 69 
 
 She was wearing in honour of the occasion — for the night 
 before Lady Aldington had already invited them to travel 
 with her, — she was wearing a little ready-made coat and 
 skirt of white canvas that she had purchased in great haste 
 that morning. It was very stiff and did not fit her at all, 
 and the steady gaze with which Aldington all the time 
 regarded her was embarrassing her. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Pett and Emily sat on the red velvet 
 armchairs ; the Duke of Kint5n:e, with his saUow face and 
 black beard, strolled up and down the long carriage as 
 if he wished slightly to dissociate himself from his cousin's 
 proteges. Only now and then did he drop in a word. 
 Aldington, behind his wife's chair, leaned heavily against 
 the plate-glass panel of the window that showed, rapidly 
 moving, the factory chimneys and the slag heaps of the 
 German landscape. He gazed all the time with a sort of 
 fascinated, smouldering passion at the tiny little woman. 
 She reminded him of the woman who was known to Lady 
 Aldington only as Matilda. She wasn't in the least Uke 
 Matilda, who was large, painted, and inclined to grow fat^ 
 but every one of Mrs. Pett's motions and every note of her 
 voice reminded him of Matilda, who, in Curzon Street, was 
 known as Mrs. Montmorency De la Cour. 
 
 Suddenly Kintjnre, sauntering towards Mr. Pett with his 
 hands deep in the pockets of his pilot coat, and swa5nng 
 slightly in a nautical manner to the swaying of the train — 
 before his accession Kintyre had passed the greater part 
 of his hfe yachting — Kintyre exclaimed : 
 
 " I didn't quite catch the name of your constituency." 
 
 " I'm not in Parliament," Mr. Pett said. " I haven't 
 time for fancy frills. I am a thinker." 
 
 Kintyre said : " Ah ! " And before he sauntered away 
 again he let drop the words : " I thought my cousin did 
 not know anyone who wasn't a Radical member. It's 
 generally considered rather desirable, you know." 
 
70 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mr. Pett refrained from letting his retort fly at the 
 Duke's back, which was already towards him. 
 
 " It's extraordinary," he said to Lady Aldington, " how 
 little these dilettantes know of the value of life. Who's 
 got time to sit in ParUament now that it's such a discredited 
 institution ? It was aU right in the 'forties. But I'd as 
 soon be on the London County Coimcil or Islington Vestry 
 nowadays. That's what your friend means by sajdng that 
 Rome is on fire. That's part of what he means." 
 
 " But what does all that he means come to ? " Lady 
 Aldington asked. " He said that it meant several thousand 
 things in one." 
 
 " Ah ! " Mr. Pett answered, " he means everything 
 that's going on in the world. All the movements in this 
 immense jungle that we live in ; all the things that it 
 takes a mind hke mine to catch hold of and understand." 
 
 " Well, it is rather like a dark forest," Lady Aldington 
 said. 
 
 " You got that from Comrade M.," Mr. Pett accused 
 her. 
 
 " Yes, I did," Lady Aldington answered ; " he used the 
 phrase last night." 
 
 " He's always using it," Mr. Pett said. " He's a most 
 extraordinary chap, is Comrade M." 
 
 " May I ask," Kintyre's voice suddenly interrupted, 
 " why you always call Count Macdonald Comrade M. ? " 
 
 " Well, you see," Mr. Pett answered, " once he was an 
 Anarchist, then he was a Socialist, then he was a member 
 of the first Duma. . . ." 
 
 " Oh, we Icnow all about his wild oats," the Duke said. 
 
 " My good chap," Mr. Pett raised his voice to say 
 sharply, " I dare say you do. I was just uttering those 
 words so as to get hold of my subject. I am trjdng to teU 
 Lady Aldington all about His Excellency Count Sergius 
 Mihailovitch Macdonald. She likes to hear about him." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 71 
 
 The Duke slightly raised his eyebrows and turned away. 
 He found it necessary to reflect for a moment or two when 
 he had been sharply rapped over the knuckles. Mr. Pett 
 turned immediately once more upon Lady Aldington. 
 
 " Of course, your ladyship isn't to understand," he said, 
 " that Macdonald is a regular Admirable Crichton. He 
 isn't a thinker in the sense that I am. He acts along the 
 lines of his generous impulses. That is to say that he feels ; 
 he doesn't think." 
 
 " I should think," Emily said, " that that is what gets 
 him into trouble." 
 
 " Trouble ? " Mr. Pett said, " He's never been in any 
 trouble that I know of." 
 
 " But he's lost all his money, hasn't he ? " Lady Ald- 
 ington asked. 
 
 " That's not a trouble," Mr. Pett answered. " It might 
 be for you ; it might be for me, since I have managed to 
 put by a Uttle for a rainy day. But it's not a trouble for 
 Macdonald ; it's just fun." 
 
 "Then I suppose it's creditable of him," Emily said* 
 
 " Creditable," Mr. Pett answered. " Yes, it's creditable 
 if it's creditable for the sun to shine or for vines to grow 
 grapes. Don't you imderstand ? It's just Macdonald. 
 He can't help himself." 
 
 " But it shows at least that he has a generous nature," 
 Lady Aldington said. 
 
 " He's got a generous nature right enough," Mr. Pett said. 
 "But that's no particular credit to him. He'd give a 
 fortune away to a cause that appealed to him, just as easily 
 as you'd throw a lump of sugar to a dog if the dog happened 
 to be begging of you when you were sitting at a table with 
 the sugar basin on it." 
 
 " Still " Lady Aldington began. 
 
 Mr. Pett became almost exasperated, so much did he 
 dislike to hear anyone praised when he was present. 
 
72 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Can't your ladyship understand ? " he said. " You 
 appear to be quite an intelligent person." And Mr. Pett 
 sputtered a little under his heavy moustache. " Look 
 here, I'll try to give you an illustration ! Once Macdonald 
 and I were on a bus coming from a Fabian meeting at 
 Ealing. The bus ran into a lamp standard, and there was 
 a girl hurt — a servant or a factory hand, of the same class 
 that I come of. Well, of course a crowd collected and the 
 police came. And of course the police, who hate the lower 
 classes like poison, were down upon the girl at once. They 
 said she was shamming. The girl had fainted, but they 
 shook her out of the faint — the policemen did — and tried 
 to make her say there was nothing the matter with her. 
 The police, of course, are on the side of the big omnibus 
 companies, and were trying to prevent the girl getting 
 damages against the company. I tell you the police hate 
 the poor hke poison — / knew that. I stood on top of that 
 bus with the large crowd all round it. I didn't want to 
 do anything. I only wanted to get back home. I knew 
 that if I spoke to the police they'd run me in for being 
 dnmk and impeding them in the course of their duties. 
 Regular nasty temper they were in, and I'd instinctively 
 got the poor man's fear of the police. If you'd ever been 
 one of the lower classes you'd have known what it meant. 
 But what did Macdonald do ? Just exactly what was 
 natural to him. He walked down those bus steps smiUng 
 that smile of his, and he put his hand into his breast pocket 
 and took out his card-case and gave a card to a policeman. 
 He was actually humming. Yes ! humming ! And he 
 produced half a sovereign to guarantee the doctor's fee in 
 case the omnibus company didn't have to pay damages. 
 And the police touched their helmets and kowtowed all 
 roimd him, and then the crowd and the police and the 
 whole lot of them streamed off up the road to the nearest 
 doctor's, with Macdonald at their head still humming. And 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DU MPTY 73 
 
 four policemen were carrying the girl as if she had been 
 made of glass. And I stood on top of the bus with my jaw 
 hanging down in sheer amazement. I shouldn't have 
 thought it was possible. But when Macdonald came back 
 he was rolling a cigarette and still humming. He couldn't 
 see that he'd done anything at all, while as for me, it struck 
 me as the bravest action I'd ever witnessed. And as for 
 producing the half-sovereign — why, I dare say it was 
 Macdonald's last coin. I know it was. And I was fairly 
 well off, because I was beginning to make money then, 
 owing very much to the way Macdonald had helped me to 
 make a start. And I'm not at all close with money, but 
 it would no more have entered my head to produce the 
 half-sovereign. . . . Why, it couldn't have entered 
 my head. It was never there among the traditions of 
 my ancestry." 
 
 " But he only did his duty," Lady Aldington said. " He 
 couldn't see a poor girl ill-treated by the police. He would 
 have to interfere." 
 
 " His duty I " Mr. Pett exclaimed. " Yes, his duty, 
 and your duty, and your husband's duty. But not mine. 
 It would never have entered my head. Not if I sat on the 
 bus and reflected on it to this day. But it never had to 
 enter his head at all. It was there all the time. He just 
 got up and did it. Automatically, as a cat catches a mouse 
 or water puts out fire." 
 
 " Well, of course he would," Lady Aldington said. 
 
 " But why ? , . . " Mr. Pett caught her up. 
 "Because he's a member of the ruling classes. Just as 
 you are. Just as your husband is. Just as the Duke of 
 Kintyre is. But Anne and me . . ." 
 
 And Mr. Pett pointed to his wife, who sat silent under 
 the embarrassing gaze of Lord Aldington. 
 
 "Anne and me, we're just the lower classes. We 
 accept the brutalities of the police. We don't try to 
 
74 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 rescue each other. We don't even know that it can be 
 done." 
 
 -' Oh. come I " Lady Aldington said amiably. 
 
 " It's true, your ladyship," Mr. Pett asseverated vigor- 
 ously. " Of course, I know now that it can. I have seen 
 it done. But even now I should have to think twice before 
 doing it. For all I've grown so conceited and sure of my 
 place in the world." 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " I'm not in the least thinking of 
 denying that all Count Macdonald's actions are very fine." 
 
 " No 1 no ! no !" Mr. Pett said in tones of positive 
 exasperation. " None of Macdonald's actions are fine. 
 They are just Macdonald. He doesn't deserve any credit. 
 I should, if I did what he did. But he can't help himself." 
 
 Kintyre slowly stroUed up to them, and, addressing his 
 cousin, remarked softly : 
 
 " Don't you see, Emily, this gentleman won't allow any- 
 one else to praise his friend, just as he won't allow anyone 
 else to blame him ? But if I may be allowed to interrupt 
 the discussion, I should like to say that I think that our 
 friend only acts along the hues of the traditions of a gentle- 
 man of good breeding and lineage." 
 
 Mr. Pett, who intensely disliked that anyone other than 
 himself should lecture an assembly in which he was present, 
 remarked : 
 
 " Well, a blind hen has found a pea I " 
 
 " But if our friend," the Duke contmued amiably, " will 
 let me finish my speech, I should hke to say that it's very 
 fine of Coimt Macdonald to act so well up to his traditions. 
 For we all of us have fine traditions, but there are precious 
 few of us who are much guided by them." 
 
 Whilst the Duke had been speaking. Lady Aldington 
 had summoned her footman and was whispering into his 
 ear. She found one of her cards, wrote two words on it 
 with a httle silver pencil, and sent the man away along the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-D UMPTY 75 
 
 corridor of the train, which was running along the Rhine 
 where it broadens out just before Rudesheim. And then 
 suddenly little Mrs. Pett spoke so that they were all startled. 
 
 " That's really the reason," she said, " why our friend 
 Macdonald has started out on his new wild goose chase." 
 
 Mr. Pett said good-humouredly : " Shut up, Anne ! " 
 But his wife continued speaking composedly : 
 
 " It was that night that gave Herbert his new idea, and 
 it's his new idea that Macdonald is going on. That's why 
 Count Macdonald went back into the Russian Imperial 
 service." 
 
 " I don't in the least understand you," Lady Aldington 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, be quiet, Anne ! " Mr. Pett ejaculated. 
 
 But Mrs. Pett replied : " It's not the least use your 
 trying to explain, Herbert. Nobody ever understands 
 your explanations. They're too long." 
 
 She looked then at Lady Aldington. " It struck Her- 
 bert," she said, "on the top of that bus that if you've abready 
 got a stratum of society that does its duty automatically 
 and efficiently, we Socialists were on the wrong track. We 
 were trsong to pull down when we ought to have been trying 
 to lift up. What struck Herbert was that he ought to 
 have been trained to act as Macdonald acted, not that 
 Macdonald ought to have been levelled down to act like 
 Herbert, or rather not to act at all." 
 
 " That seems quite reasonable," Kintyre once more came 
 near them to say. 
 
 Mrs. Pett looked him in the eyes. " But don't you make 
 any mistakes," she said. " You aren't going to sit on your 
 pedestals alone. We're going to chmb up and sit beside 
 you." 
 
 " I should think that would be rather pleasant for us," 
 the Duke said amiably. 
 
 But Mrs. Pett went on with her remarks. " What struck 
 
76 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Herbert," she said again, ' was that it was downright 
 waste to have to have Macdonald running about in the mud 
 of socialist meetings. It struck him that humanity had 
 spent millions of pounds and millions of lives to train him 
 to be the chivalrous and self-sacrificing creature that he 
 is. Then what was the good of our spending just about as 
 many efforts to undo what humanity has unconsciously 
 been doing for ages ? What we've got to do, Herbert said 
 — I remember his coming home on the night after the bus 
 accident, and — What we've got to do, he said, is to level 
 up, not to level down. ' For,' he said, ' if a system of 
 society can breed an animal as finely adapted to the needs 
 of society as Macdonald is, then that tjrpe of society is 
 what we want to preserve, not to destroy.' " 
 
 Kintyre came near her for long enough to say : " It's 
 very gratifjdng to hear you talk like this." 
 
 " Ah ! but wait a minute," Mrs. Pett commanded, and 
 the Duke stood still. " Don't you make any mistakes. 
 We aren't going to give carte blanche to all aristocrats. 
 Those of you who don't act up to your standards will be 
 weeded out. It wiU be Uke breeding prize animals. Those 
 that don't come up to standard will be fattened off and killed 
 at once. They won't be used for breeding from." 
 
 " Well, I'm not married, you know," the Duke said. 
 
 Mrs. Pett paid no more attention to him. She turned 
 once more upon Lady Aldington. 
 
 " Of course," she said, " Herbert in the book he's writing 
 backs up his theory with innumerable instances after the 
 manner of Weissmann. But that's what it amounts to, 
 and that's why we sent Macdonald back into the service 
 of the Grand Duke. And that's why Macdonald is going 
 to restore that king to the throne." 
 
 " What king ? " Lady Aldington asked innocently. 
 
 "Oh, I thought you'd be sure to know," Mrs. Pett 
 said. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY ^^ 
 
 " Oh, you silly ass, Anne ! " Mr. Pett said. " Now you 
 have let the cat out of the bag." 
 
 Mrs. Pett pulled her gloves on a little further. " I don't 
 suppose I've done any harm," she said composedly. " I 
 dare say I've done good. And I'm quite sure that none of 
 the parties here will let the matter go any further because 
 I've let it out by a slip." . . 
 
 " I knew all about it already," Kintyre exclaimed 
 amiably. " The Grand Duke told me about it in Count 
 Macdonald's presence yesterday afternoon." 
 
 " Then we can rely upon you," Mrs. Pett said. 
 
 " As for me," Aldington grunted suddenly, " I can't make 
 head or tail of what you are all talking about." 
 
 " Then we can rely on you," Mrs. Pett said pleasantly, 
 as if she were talking to a large schoolboy. 
 
 " Then it's only me," Lady Aldington said, " that you 
 can't rely on." 
 
 " Oh, I'd rely on you if I had to answer for it with my 
 head," Mrs. Pett answered Emily, and Emily said : 
 
 " Now, that's very kind of you, my dear." 
 
 " And why I think I've done some good is this," Mrs. 
 Pett continued. " Count Macdonald is so shy of asking 
 favours of his particular friends — of his really close friends 
 — that I dare say he would never have asked you to help 
 him at all. Now I think you'll ask him yourself how you 
 can help him. And you can be of the very greatest help." 
 
 "I can't be called, you know," Lady Aldington said 
 softly, "a really close friend of Count Macdonald's. I 
 hardly know him." 
 
 Mrs. Pett looked at her gloves. "You're kindred 
 natures," she said. 
 
 "Oh, come," Lady Aldington laughed. "I can't be 
 called chivalrous and self-sacrificing. I never acted nobly 
 on top of an omnibus. I was never on top of an omnibus 
 in my Ufe." 
 
78 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mrs. Pett continued to look at her gloves. Lord 
 Aldington grinned suddenly. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder," Mrs. Pett said, " supposing we 
 could get to the bottom of your heart, if you weren't 
 leading a life of intense self-sacrifice all the time. I don't 
 know about that. But I do know that you will behave 
 nobly one of these days." 
 
 Lord Aldington suddenly burst into a guffaw. But 
 Lady Aldington said : " I hope I shall." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 79 
 
 II 
 
 THE Grand Duke had accompanied the Mac- 
 donalds down to the train at Wiesbaden. 
 Dressed in a heavy tweed and with an immense 
 panama hat, he stood, swinging his walking- 
 stick behind his back and looking up with his enigmatic, 
 heavy smile at Countess Macdonald. All around him, 
 behind his back, was the half-circle of detectives who 
 unobtrusively permitted no one that they did not know 
 to pass between themselves and their imperial ward. 
 The Macdonalds were already in their carriage. 
 
 " Supposing," the Countess said to her husband, " that 
 you let the window down ? I want to talk to Nicholas 
 Alexandrovitch.' ' 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch smiled his perpetual light smile 
 that she found so irritating because she could never under- 
 stand whether he was or wasn't finding her ridiculous. 
 
 " Nicholas Alexandrovitch wants to talk to me, too," 
 she said. 
 
 And then she perceived, passing unconsciously between 
 the ring of detectives, the rather tall figure of a quite 
 EngUsh-looking, fair woman. By a minute stiffening of 
 the lines of Macdonald's eyes, she became instantly aware 
 that Sergius Mihailovitch knew this woman and that he 
 admired her. 
 
 " Who's that ? " she said. 
 
 Macdonald was engaged in struggling with the strap of 
 the large plate-glass window. 
 
8o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " That ? " he said. " Oh, that's Lady Aldington." 
 
 Countess Macdonald just said : " Oh 1 " 
 
 And then behind Lady Aldington she perceived the 
 knickerbockered form of Mr. Pett, whom the detectives 
 regarded with suspicion ; Mrs. Pett, in her ill-fitting costume 
 of white canvas ; Kint3Te, long, tall, and sallow ; and the 
 shapeless figure of Aldington himself, who had a certain 
 resemblance to the Grand Duke. 
 
 " What are the Petts doing with that atrocious woman ? " 
 Countess Macdonald said. 
 
 " I introduced them, you know," Sergius Mihailovitch 
 answered. 
 
 And again his wife said, " Oh ! " 
 
 The Grand Duke evidently did want to talk to Mac- 
 donald's wife, for he was making signs with his heavily 
 gloved hands. 
 
 " Oh, get the window down," the Countess said angrily. 
 " You're unbearably clumsy." 
 
 And just then the large window fell like a guillotine. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you," the Grand Duke said immediately, 
 " that you've left something precious behind you. Not 
 as precious, of course, as Your Excellency's remem- 
 brances . . ." 
 
 " What's all this about ? " the Countess said. 
 
 The chief of the station marched up to His Imperial 
 Highness and, holding his hand stiifly to the brim of his 
 cap, desired to say that it was time for the Nord Express 
 to continue on its way. The Grand Duke, gazing hard at 
 him, did not perceive him. He turned half round instead 
 and beckoned, and a man in a chauffeur's uniform came 
 towards him, bearing a substantial-looking book, like a 
 brick bound in curtain chintz. The Duke balanced it in 
 his large hands. 
 
 "I should present it, you know," he said, "to the 
 British Museum Library." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 8i 
 
 " But, of course, they've got a copy," the Countess 
 said. 
 
 " Oh — but put a label on it : ' This volume was ex- 
 pounded by Her Excellency Countess Macdonald to ' — 
 to me, in fact." 
 
 " But I never had time to expound it to you," the 
 Covmtess said. 
 
 " Couldn't you," His Imperial Highness uttered, " get 
 Macdonald to leave you behind to go on with the ex- 
 position ? " 
 
 The Countess looked hard into the great man's eyes. 
 " Of course I could," she said slowly. 
 
 Behind her back Sergius Mihailovitch grinned suddenly 
 at his master. 
 
 " You've got it now. Imperial Highness," he motioned 
 with his lips in Russian ; and the Grand Duke said sharply 
 to the station-master : 
 
 " The train may proceed." 
 
 The station-master bowed nearly to the ground. 
 
 The Duke looked seriously into Sergius Mihailovitch's 
 eyes. " I wish you," he said, " entire success in both your 
 enterprises. In both." 
 
 " Oh, come I Imperial Highness," Macdonald said 
 gaily, " why not make it all three ? Remember the 
 motor car business." 
 
 The faint flicker of a smile showed in the Duke's square 
 beard. 
 
 " I'm interested in the lampreys of the Don," he said. 
 " I haven't forgotten that you're to write and telegraph 
 if you can or if you can't get them." 
 
 " Imperial Highness has a good memory this morning," 
 Macdonald said. 
 
 " Oh, I'm a regular Bourbon sometimes," the Duke 
 answered. " But the point is that I'm interested in lam- 
 preys. And you're interested in — what was it Kintyre 
 
82 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 said ? — the ovraer of tin and cobalt, But I don't see who's 
 interested in motor cars." 
 
 Macdonald looked gaily at his wife. " Oh, it's Her 
 Excellency who's interested in motor cars," he said. " It's 
 she who wants me to be of use in. the world." 
 
 The Countess looked hard at the Grand Duke. " I do 
 wish you'd sometimes be in earnest, Nicholas Alexandro- 
 vitch," she said. 
 
 The Duke slapped his thick leg with his walking-stick. 
 " Excellency," he said, " I'm tremendously in earnest 
 about the lampreys of the DouT-and as for that excellent 
 fellow your husband, I fancy you'll find him tremendously 
 in earnest about tin and cobalt. So you will probably 
 have to look after the motor cars." 
 
 The train, with its imperceptible movement, was gliding 
 away, and the Grand Duke raised his voice to call again to 
 Sergius Mihailovitch : 
 
 " Good luck, my good fellow, in all your enterprises ! " 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch pulled up the window, 
 
 " You might just as well have left it down," the Countess 
 said. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch answered pleasantly : " If you 
 look at the inscription, you can see that this window is 
 only allowed to be opened in the case of pressing danger." 
 
 " You're the most irritating man I've ever met 1 " his 
 wife said, " You know perfectly well I shall stifle." 
 
 Macdonald stood up and surveyed the luggage rack. 
 " What books are you going to read ? " he said. 
 
 The Countess looked down at the chintz-covered volume 
 in her lap. 
 
 " I shall read this," she announced. 
 
 Macdonald sank into his own comer with a gay satisfac- 
 tion. " Then that's all right," he said. 
 
 " It certainly isn't," his wife answered. " I want all 
 this explained." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 83 
 
 " Well, I'm always here," Macdonald said. 
 
 " I want explained," the Countess uttered slowly, " how 
 you came to know that atrocious woman." 
 
 " Lady Aldington ? " Macdonald raised his eyebrows to 
 ask. " What's she done ? " 
 
 " I was hearing about her from Miss Sutton,'' the 
 Countess said determinedly. " She was the abandoned 
 woman who lived at Harpurhey. She did . . ." 
 
 " But, my dear," Macdonald said, " it was Lady Blagdon 
 who lived at Harpurhey." 
 
 " Of course," his wife answered, " you know all about 
 these hateful creatures. They're the very worst set in 
 England." 
 
 " But really, you know," Macdonald said, " Lady Alding- 
 ton isn't in any set at all that I know of, She holds the 
 receptions for the Liberal Minister of the Fine Arts, The 
 Aldingtons are a great Whig family," 
 
 " I suppose I know more about EngUsh families than you 
 do," the Countess answered. "What are we going to 
 England in such a hurry for ? " 
 
 And then, with his splendid imprudence, Macdonald 
 made the mistake of his life. He had never reaUy learnt 
 that the truth is a dangerous thing. 
 
 " I'm not any longer, you know," he said, " in the Grand 
 Duke's service." 
 
 A great rush of colour ran all over the Countess's cheeks. 
 For a moment her chest heaved in the speechless struggle 
 for words. Then : 
 
 " What are we to live on ? " she said. 
 
 Macdonald laughed. " I'm on my own, as you would 
 say," he answered. " I'm going to be of some use in the 
 world. You've been telling me that that was my duty for 
 the last fifteen years." 
 
 "You were getting on so splendidly with Nicholas 
 Alexandrovitch," the lady answered. 
 
84 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " But you," he encountered her, " were perpetually 
 telling me that I was an idle parasite who did nothing but 
 carry bouquets to Madame Sassonoff." 
 
 " It's useless," his wife said, " to make you understand 
 anything. How did you come to meet Lady Aldington ? " 
 
 " I've met her twice at the opera," Macdonald answered, 
 " and once at the Baroness's." i 
 
 " You know perfectly well," his wife answered, " that 
 I never wanted you to go to the opera. You know per- 
 fectly well that I have to be in bed by ten every night. It's 
 part of the general unfeelingness of your general conduct." 
 
 " But, bless my soul," Macdonald said, " I was in attend- 
 ance. I had my duties." 
 
 " Pack of nonsense ! " the Coimtess answered. " You 
 could have got out of it perfectly well if you'd wanted to. 
 And it shows the sort of woman that that Lady Aldington 
 is, that you should have met her at the Grand Duke's 
 mistresses." 
 
 Macdonald laughed once more. " If only," he said, 
 " you wouldn't think all the while in terms of Putney, 
 S.W." 
 
 " Everyone knows," his wife answered, " that she's his 
 mistress." 
 
 " Everyone knows," Macdonald said, " that fire is the 
 mistress of water. Don't you understand that Madame 
 Sassonoff is the most dangerous of Nicholas Alexandro- 
 vitch's enemies? Don't you imderstand that Nicholas 
 Alexandrovitch has got aU the vices in the world, but that 
 the chief agent of the secret . . . Well, it's no use 
 talking." 
 
 " No, it's no use talking," his wife answered. " If Lady 
 Aldington were a respectable woman she wouldn't call 
 upon the Baroness." 
 
 And just at that moment a gentleman with a blue- 
 shaven face, black eyebrows and a black bow, swayed into 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 85 
 
 the compartment from the corridor and placed a card in 
 the Countess's hand. He did his best to bow, but the 
 shaking of the train threw him almost on to the seat. 
 
 " Her ladyship's compliments," he exclaimed, " and 
 will your ladyship and his lordship come to lunch with her 
 ladyship in her saloon at one o'clock. The train will stop 
 at Rudesheim at five to one, so that it will be steady for 
 your ladyship to walk along the corridors." 
 
 The Countess glared at her husband. Macdonald smiled 
 at the servant. 
 
 " Of course we'll come," he said. " Thank Lady 
 Aldington." 
 
 " I'll come and warn your lordship," the servant 
 answered, " ten minutes before we come to Rudesheim." 
 
 The servant went away, and immediately the lady threw 
 the card almost into Macdonald's face. 
 
 " I shall certainly not go," she said. " Look what's 
 written on that card." 
 
 The card fluttered under the opposite seat. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't go on your knees to it," the Countess 
 exclaimed. " She's written ' Do come,' and underlined 
 the ' Do.' That's what she's written." 
 
 " Well, I suppose she wants to make your acquaintance," 
 Macdonald said. 
 
 " But, don't you see," his wife exclaimed, " that it's an 
 atrocious impertinence ? It's my business to call upon her, 
 not hers to visit me." 
 
 " Oh, come ! . . ." Macdonald said. 
 
 " Mine is the higher title," his wife exclaimed. 
 
 " It's quite a nice point," Macdonald laughed. "Abroad 
 it's perfectly true that EngUsh calling rules are reversed, 
 so that you would call on her if yours was the higher title. 
 But then she's the Duchess of Batalha." 
 
 " Who cares ? " the Countess said, " for these potty 
 foreign titles ? " 
 
86 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Well, who does ? " Maxidonald answered. 
 
 The Countess opened her book and read four lines. " I 
 shall certainly not go," she added. " You can make up 
 your mind to that." 
 
 " Then I must go," Macdonald said, " and say that you 
 are overcome by train sickness." 
 
 " Then what will they think," the lady said, " of a man 
 who leaves his wife when she is ill to go and revel in the 
 luxuries of the smart set ? " 
 
 " I don't suppose," Macdonald said, " that I care, as 
 you would say, a damn for what they think. I should 
 care if you were ill. But you won't be, you know." 
 
 The Countess turned her eyes frigidly down upon her 
 book. 
 
 " I can only say," she commented, " that I disapprove 
 of the whole thing, and there's an end of it." 
 
 Macdonald smiled gaily out of the window at the immense 
 slow reaches of the Rhine. A long silence reigned ; the 
 train, smooth and purposeful, ran on almost without 
 noise. And then, quite suddenly, the Countess began to 
 speak with a wildness of passion. 
 
 " What does it all mean ? " she asked. " I don't under- 
 stand it ! When I first knew you I could influence you. 
 Now it seems that my influence over you has passed away. 
 Why ? What does it all mean ? Why don't you think as 
 I think any more ? It's terrible, all this ! It's killing me." 
 
 Touched by a pathetic — a nearly tragic note in her voice, 
 Macdonald hesitated for a moment. 
 
 " I don't know," he said. " It's a mystery. Or it 
 isn't. But it's no good talking about it." 
 
 " You oi^ht to think as I do," she said. " You did so 
 once. Now you don't. Your whole mind is taken up with 
 vanities . . . with frivolities." 
 
 " They're only the sjmibols, you know," he said gently. 
 
 " But what are they the symbols of ? " she asked, with 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 87 
 
 a desolate rising in her voice. " Only of things that I 
 don't stand for. Only of things that are despicable. Why 
 have you changed ? For you've utterly changed. I know 
 nothing of you now. Why do you shut up all your thoughts 
 from me ? Haven't I always been ready to help you ? " 
 He looked at her with a sudden nervousness. " No," he 
 said at last, " you have never been ready to help me. 
 Never to anything that I wanted. You have wanted to 
 keep, me down to your . . ." 
 
 " But what have you wanted ? " she uttered, with a 
 tragic exasperation. " What more could you have wanted? 
 I have kept a house together for you whilst you have been 
 dissipating your means on disastrous follies. I have 
 struggled . . ." 
 
 " My dear," he said, " it was you who pushed me to these 
 disastrous follies. Or no ! that's not quite fair to you. 
 But you approved of them. I should not have ' dissipated 
 my means ' if the process had not had your approval. I 
 don't throw it up in your face, but don't throw it up in 
 mine." 
 
 " But what are you going to do ? " she asked. " What 
 are we going to live on ? " 
 
 " I am nominated an extra aide-de-camp to the Emperor," 
 he answered ; " there will be two thousand a year for you. 
 I should never have taken the place if I had not had the 
 duty to provide for you." 
 
 " And you," she said sharply, " what do you make out 
 of it ? " 
 
 " Did you ever know me make anything out of any- 
 thing ? " he asked slowly. 
 
 " You're so changed," she answered. " How do I know 
 that you may not be changed in that too ? You are 
 always running about with these dissolute people." 
 
 " I shall make nothing out of it," he commented. " There 
 will be the money for you. And rooms at the Embassy.'. 
 
88 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " And do you think I can live at the Embassy," she 
 asked violently, " in that insanitary place with all those 
 dissolute or idle persons ? " 
 
 " I don't know," he answered. " You can if you elect 
 to. You have the right. But it's generally only regarded 
 as a form of words, and you draw an allowance for lodgings." 
 
 " And what about you ? " she asked fiercely. " You 
 speak as if we had no interests in common." 
 
 " It doesn't matter about me," he said. 
 
 Again she directed one of her long, hard glances at him. 
 " You mean that we are no longer to live together ? " she 
 asked slowly. 
 
 " It's altogether in your hands," he answered. " If you 
 think that your dignity asks for the tribute of my presence, 
 I shall be there." 
 
 " It's impossible that we should go on living together ! " 
 she exclaimed ; and from a faint smile, full of hatred, that 
 was round the comers of her mouth, he knew that she was 
 setting a trap for him. He did not, however, care to 
 temporise, and he replied simply : 
 
 " I think that I must agree with you at last. I have 
 never wanted to, as you know. But I think it has come to 
 that at last. I can't stand these continual discussions. I 
 am at this moment at the end of my tether." 
 
 " You're always sa3dng that," she retorted contempt- 
 uously. " If you were a man instead of what you are, you 
 would show some signs of excitement. I simply don't 
 believe that you are feehng any sort of excitement at all. 
 You are incapable of feeling." 
 
 " I am sitting here and you are insulting me," Macdonald 
 said. " Of course I am quiet. But take it which way you 
 will. Either your insults reach me, in which case you are 
 killing me, or else I am so indifferent to you that you do 
 not exist for me. In either case the inference is the 
 same." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 89 
 
 " You mean that we must part ? " she asked from a dry 
 throat. 
 
 " You've been asking for it for years," he rejoined. 
 
 She said, in so low a voice that it seemed as if she were 
 reflecting upon some distant prospect : 
 
 " You have never spoken to me hke that before." 
 
 " It had to come," he answered. 
 
 And she knew him well enough to recognise that though 
 his voice was as low as her own he was certainly labouring 
 under intense excitement. Indeed, she knew that, with 
 what she called his effeminately excitable nature, he was 
 probably on the verge of being so unmanned as to risk an 
 illness. She didn't therefore raise her voice when she 
 leaned forward rather stiffly to ask : 
 
 " And how, then, are we to live ? " 
 
 " You, of course," he answered, " will live just as you 
 please. There's that money." 
 
 " But you," she asked, " what are you going to live on ? 
 And where ? " 
 
 " I really haven't thought of it," he said. 
 
 " Think of it now," she answered. 
 
 " I have only had time to think of you," he said. 
 
 " I can manage for myself very well," she said. " But 
 I insist on knowing what you intend to do." 
 
 " I'm going," he said, with a slight hesitation, " to 
 manage the London branch of the Resiliens Motor Company 
 I understand there's a room in their offices that I can have. 
 I dare say you can let me have a bed. Or I can buy one. 
 I haven't thought about it more than that." His voice 
 tailed off into irresolution. 
 
 " You know," she said distinctly, " that I have always 
 disapproved of motor cars." 
 
 " I didn't know," he answered. " There are so many 
 things you disapprove of." 
 
 " They are simply a luxury of the idle rich," she said. 
 
90 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Oh, come," he answered. " The company that is 
 employing me seUs as many heavy waggons for goods as it 
 does private cars." 
 
 " I don't approve of it," she repeated definitely. " And 
 you must understand distinctly that if you take this up I 
 shall regard it as a sign that you want to break with me for 
 good." 
 
 " It won't be that," he said Vaguelyi 
 " I shall regard it as that," she answered ; and he slightly 
 opened his hands in a little gesture that said that he could 
 not help it. 
 
 " You've told me again and again," he said, " for 
 years . . . that I ought to be of use in the world. 
 Now I'm going to do it. Besides, I am going to make a 
 living." 
 
 " There are better ways of making a living," she said, 
 and gradually her contemptuousness was growing too 
 strong for her. " Worthier ways than by becoming a 
 parasite of the idle rich. Besides, there is the income you 
 have spoken of from the Russian Government." 
 
 " I don't choose," he replied, " to take an income from 
 my country for doing nothing." 
 
 " But you think I'm contemptible enough to take it ? " 
 she asked bitterly. 
 
 " It's obviously my duty to make you the offer," he 
 answered. " I should prefer you not to take it. But I 
 have no right to ask you to share hardships for the sake of 
 my conscience when we are no longer in sympathy." 
 
 " I certainly should not think of doing so," she answered. 
 And then, as before, she dropped into a long reflection. 
 Suddenly she exclaimed : 
 
 " This woman . . ." and then she stopped again. 
 " There isn't any woman," Macdonald said in a tone of 
 intense weariness. " What has put it into your head that 
 there is a woman ? " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 91 
 
 " It's your idea, then " — she evaded his question — " it's 
 your idea that at Charing Cross we drive off in separate 
 cabs ? I go to Putney and you to wherever your ofi&ces 
 are ? " 
 
 " I haven't any idea at all," he replied. " All I have said 
 is that if you're still of opinion that we can't live together 
 any more . . ." 
 
 " No, I can't stand you," she answered ; " you are 
 maddening to me. Everything you say. Everything you 
 think." 
 
 " Then we may as well drive off in separate cabs," he 
 said. 
 
 She waited for him to say more and at last she asked : 
 " And that's all ? " There was in her tone an extra- 
 ordinary ironic laughter and bitterness. 
 
 " That's all," Macdonald repeated wearily. " If you 
 think that your dignity requires me to live with you, we can 
 occupy the same suite in the Embassy or anywhere else 
 that's fairly well in town. It will not suit my position to 
 go on living in Putney." 
 
 " You know very well," she answered hatefuUy, " that 
 I can't and won't live in town. I will not countenance 
 unsanitary conditions with my presence among them. It 
 would be against my conscience. You are determined to 
 cut yourself off from me by suggesting it." 
 
 " You suggested it yourself, you know," Macdonald 
 said. " I have stood out against the idea for years. It's 
 I that have kept us together." 
 
 " I dare say," she said incredulously. Her tone roused 
 an uncontrollable moment of anger in her husband. 
 
 " But this is intolerable," he said. And his eyes gleamed 
 dangerously. "Do you mean to say you have never 
 suggested that we should separate? Do you dare to 
 
 say it ? " 
 
 " Well, you need not swear at me," she said, " All that 
 
92 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 I am pointing out now is that you are not very eager to 
 retain my society. Of course, when I made those pro- 
 posals before I was only setting a trap for you. I had a 
 right to set a trap for you. You have always deceived 
 me. , . It is impossible that you should have had the 
 ideas you have had lately and have moved in the society 
 you've frequented without becoming deceitful. I can't 
 say that I have foimd you out in any specific lies, but 
 Conservative ideas and the smart set go with it." 
 
 " But how can you," Macdonald asked in a voice that 
 was almost a groan — " how can you use a phraseology that 
 is so intolerably vulgar ? Or how can we live together if 
 you will ? You have surely — haven't you ? — lived for long 
 enough with my friends to know that you can't express 
 these things in the language of the cheap newspapers." 
 
 " You have Conservative ideas, and you live with the 
 smart set now," the Countess said coldly. " You can't 
 get away from that, whatever language I was refined 
 enough to use. And you want to get rid of me now in 
 order to plunge into a whirl of dissipation. Do you suppose 
 I don't know enough of the world to know what your having 
 a room at your office means ? " 
 
 Macdonald really groaned. The train was slowing down 
 and running so close to the bank of the Rhine that only 
 the water was visible from the carriage window. 
 
 " Of course, if it was only a trap," he said, " if you did 
 not really want us to separate, there's an end of the matter. 
 And if you insist upon it, I will manage to live in Putney 
 or one of the other suburbs." 
 
 The train had almost stopped ; the blue-shaven face and 
 the black eyebrows of Lady Aldington's footman appeared 
 in the doorway of the compartment. 
 
 " We're running into Rudesheim, my lord," he said. 
 
 " If you think," the Countess said in her clear level 
 tones, " that I intend to force my society on you when you 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 93 
 
 are hankering after another woman, you are entirely mis- 
 taken. There was a time when I used to think you were a 
 fine man and had a noble character. Sometimes I think 
 now that you only boast of these debaucheries and talk of 
 these women in order to impress me. But if you think 
 that you are entirely mistaken. AU they make me do is 
 to wish to have done with you for good." 
 
 The footman repeated expressionlessly that they were 
 running into Rudesheim. Macdonald was sitting huddled 
 up in his seat. He had no colour at all in his Ups. The 
 footman stood with his face like a wooden mask, as if he 
 were correctly waiting at a table where private matters 
 were being discussed. Upon Macdonald himself his wife's 
 tongue, her mannerisms, the flow of her voice, acted with 
 an enervating physical effect. It seemed at the same time 
 to stop his heart, to set an immense weight upon his skull 
 as if for many nights he had been deprived of sleep, and to 
 render his Hmbs numb and heavy. At the moment he 
 coiild not have trusted himself to raise a hand. 
 
 " You think," his wife's voice droned on, " that you have 
 deceived me about this woman. Do you suppose that I 
 have not any eyes in my head ? Do you suppose that if it 
 had not been for her you would ever have had the courage 
 to tell me that you wanted to separate ? Do you suppose 
 that I do not laiow the shilly-shaUying creature that you 
 are ? Do you suppose that I did not see your eyes fall 
 upon her just now ? Do you suppose that I did not know 
 at once ? What do you men suppose we women are made 
 of ? You will teU me that you have only seen her three 
 times, and that you have told me how you travelled with 
 her in the train ? You wiU say that you have been stricthf 
 truthful, and that I ought to have been deceived ? fl 
 dare say you will tell me that you never so much as wanted 
 to kiss the doU of a creature that it is. And I dare say it 
 is true enough. That is the sort of effeminate creature 
 
94 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 that you are, and you will call it chivalry or honour^J But 
 you cannot take me in : you want to get rid of me "Because 
 of that woman. That is what has given you courage. You 
 would call it strength. . . , Yes, I can see that this 
 servant hears. And why not ? Sooner or later you have 
 to let corrupt creatures hke that into your secrets. They 
 have to do the fetching and carrying of your mean Uves. 
 So why not sooner instead of later ? " 
 
 The train had come to a standstill. 
 
 "This is Rudesheim, my lord," the footman said. 
 " Lunch will be served in five minutes." 
 
 The Countess rose, rigid and precise. 
 
 " Tell your mistress we are coming immediately," she 
 said ; and as the footman disappeared she turned again upon 
 her husband. " I am going to see what sort of a creature 
 has supplanted me," she said. " Did you think I had not 
 the courage ? And as you have said you wanted it, so let 
 it be. We will take separate cabs at Charing Cross, I 
 never want to see your imbecile face again. I never want 
 to hear your imbecile voice speaking to me again. You 
 can write me a formal letter to make business arrangements 
 again, and that will be the end." She trailed between the 
 seats towards the door, Then she stopped to say : " You 
 need not be in that state of idiotic fear. I am not going to 
 make that woman a scene. I can remember that I am a 
 lady. Besides, I have done with you. You are free. But 
 I reserve to myself the right of curiosity. I want to under- 
 stand what sort of painted fool it is that has taken a useless 
 creature hke you to her heart. Or perhaps she has not even 
 taken you to her heart ? I don't ask." 
 
 She turned once more, and then once again seemed to 
 hang over Macdonald, and her eyes were full of large 
 tears : 
 
 " What does it all mean ? " she asked pitifully. " Why 
 have these creatures such power ? They use all sorts of 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 95 
 
 aids to beauty that any eye can see through. They are 
 idle ; they are frivolous ; they have not an idea in their 
 heads. What are they compared to a woman Uke me ? 
 What do you see in them ? How do they attract you ? 
 It's a mystery ; it's all a mystery." She twisted her black- 
 gloved hands painfuUy, and then suddenly she added : 
 " But if you think I want to keep you, you are mightily 
 mistaken. We have spoken our last word. I have done 
 with you, for I despise you. You have broken my faith 
 in man. You have broken my heart. This is my last 
 word." And with her head erect, her silhouette marched 
 down the corridor of the train in the direction that the 
 footman had taken. 
 
96 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 III 
 
 THE train being very late, it was a quarter-past six 
 before they all reached Charing Cross. There was 
 a great crowd and many cries, but Macdonald 
 saw his wife into one cab and promised to send 
 berthings after her by another, as soon as they were through 
 the Customs. She did not speak a word to him ; she didn't 
 even look at him ; but gloomily and rather angularly she 
 seemed to fall back into the hansom and to be wheeled out 
 of sight. 
 
 Macdonald felt in all his limbs an impression of lightness. 
 The weight of years seemed for the minute to fall away from 
 him ; but he had too many things to attend to. He saw 
 Lady Aldington going away up the platform ; Mr. Pett was 
 shouting in his ear ; a porter was asking him for his keys, 
 and appeared to be beseeching him with a quite dispro- 
 portionate anxiety not to go away from the barrier. And 
 even when Macdonald was in his cab it was difficult to find 
 Little Walden Street, all he knew of it being that it was a 
 cul-de-sac approximately behind the Post OflSce in Regent 
 Street. So that, really, he had not thought at all by the 
 time they drew up in a stony place with square btiildings of 
 liver-coloured brick encasing grimly an ugly court. Upon 
 the asphalt were from three to four motor cars standing, 
 like monsters of the slime age, before the open and silent 
 doors of the ugly garages. 
 
 A man in a peaked cap, with rubber overalls, approached 
 Sergius Mihailovitch in the fading light. He had a quiet 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 97 
 
 and grating voice, so that Macdonald considered that they 
 could not be heard by the cabman on his high box. 
 
 " I'd almost given your lordship up," he said. " I'm 
 His Majesty's . . ." 
 
 " Oh, say Mr. Spenlow's chauffeur." 
 
 The chauffeur said : " How, my lord ? " 
 
 " Well, help me in with my things," Macdonald said. 
 
 " In here ? " the chauffeur asked incredulously. 
 
 " If it's the office of the Resiliens Company," Macdonald 
 answered. 
 
 The chauffeur got Macdonald's two portmanteaux down 
 from the hansom, and with an expert air dragged them over 
 the pavement and into the dim doorway of the show-room. 
 Macdonald looked round him in a pause of reflection. The 
 show-room was dusky in the waning Ught, for no reflections 
 of afterglow came from the brown, tall buildings outside, 
 and in this dusk a double procession of motor cars seemed 
 to mount backwards into the positive darkness of the rear, 
 two and two with a sort of aisle between, in the middle of 
 which stood Macdonald and his companion with the baggage 
 at their feet. 
 
 " Now, what hotel shall I drive your lordship to ? " the 
 chauffeur asked. " You've not overmuch time to dress in. 
 His Majesty expects us at eight." 
 
 " I can't be there till nine," Macdonald repUed. " You 
 had better telephone to him. What's your name ? " 
 
 " My name's Salt," the chauffeur answered. 
 
 " Oh, you're the man he can't get on without ? " 
 
 " If your lordship means that His Majesty has told me 
 what the plan is, I am," the man answered. He was small, 
 lean, querulous, and rather dark in aspect. 
 
 " And don't you think His Majesty is a damned fool ? " 
 Macdonald asked. 
 
 " For telling me ? " the man asked in turn. He reflected 
 for a moment. " Yes, I do," he said. " He isn't going 
 
 H 
 
98 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 to lose by it, as it happens. But he might. He's a fool 
 for that." 
 
 " It's satisfactory to learn that he isn't going to lose by 
 it," Macdonald answered. 
 
 " Of course, I'm not going to say that I would lay down 
 my life for the King," the chauifeur began again. " But 
 I'ye recognised that politically as well as practically what 
 I stand for is the same as what he stands for." 
 
 " Well, that's satisfactory, too," Macdonald commented. 
 " You aren't asked to lay down your life. You aren't 
 asked to do any more than your duty, and to hold your 
 tongue about it when it's done." 
 
 " Of course, I'm always ready to oblige as between man 
 and man as long as it's not anything below my place that 
 I'm asked to do. Not that I ever do get asked to do any- 
 thing that's below." 
 
 " You wouldn't be," Macdonald answered. " We're 
 all of us afraid of our chauffeurs. You're a priestly caste. 
 You observed that I did not ask you to take my things 
 out of the cab, but to help me with them. You pulled the 
 portmanteaux, and I carried my kitbags and the wraps." 
 
 " I did not particularly notice it," Mr. Salt said. " It's 
 so much the usual thing." 
 
 Macdonald sat down on the step pf one of the cars. " Let 
 us settle one or two things," he said. " I suppose if all goes 
 well we shall see a good deal of each other just because 
 the King has told you things." 
 
 He added, " I wish he had not, but he has." 
 
 " You won't lose by it," Mr. Salt reassured him. 
 
 " I don't suppose that we shall," Macdonald repUed. 
 " But it makes you more difficult to keep in your place. All 
 you are asked to do is to drive cars." 
 
 " A first-rate mechanic has not any place, you know," 
 Mr. Salt reminded him, " He's alwa5rs just where he 
 stands. By birth I'm as good as Nelson. His father was 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 99 
 
 a clergyman ; mine's a Methodist minister. At present 
 I'm the King of Galizia's tutor." 
 
 " In fact, you're just the sort of chap it's the most diffi- 
 cult to keep in his place," Macdonald said. " The sort 
 of metallic man that Cromwell turned into an Iron- 
 side." 
 
 " Ah," Mr. Salt answered. " But reading the works of 
 Mr. Pett and hearing him talk has made me see that I stand 
 by the King. The skilled mechanic — and you said we 
 were a caste yourself — he has not any place in a levelled- 
 down democracy. It's taken himdreds of centuries to 
 develop us, and we should be sacrificed to unskilled labour 
 if modem tendencies went on. But we run the world. 
 You can't get away from the fact that we run the world. 
 And we aren't going to be levelled down. We're a privi- 
 leged class, and it's the duty of the privileged classes to 
 stand together. That's what Mr. Shaw does not see." 
 
 " Mr. Who ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " Shaw," the chauffeur repeated ; " G.B.S., him who 
 used to write the musical criticisms for the Star, and now 
 writes smartish plays. I'm not saying anything against 
 his plays, but about his power of thinking. Take 'Enery 
 Straker ! I don't mind admitting that I've modelled 
 myself on 'Enery Straker. Such as you see me, he has had 
 a great influence on my manners. But not on my career 
 or my political ideas. Oh no ! I'm not one of your flannel- 
 nightgowned woolly Fabians. Money's been spent on me 
 by way of training. I'm a vested interest as I stand here. 
 Just as much as you are, I am. That's what Mr. Shaw 
 didn't foresee. You may try to set up a democracy by 
 education, but the moment you make a trained class you 
 make a privileged one that's interested in maintaining 
 Society as it is. Take doctors, take priests, take attorneys 
 —they all rise from the same class as myself ; but you can't 
 find a more Conservative or reactionary lot if you look for 
 
100 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 them with a ninety-Diogenes power headlight from now till 
 Michaelmas." 
 
 Macdonald nodded absent-mindedly, uttering with a 
 sort of mechanica,l pohteness the words : " That's good ; 
 that's good." 
 
 The chaiiffeur went on to say that the world had been run 
 a great deal too long for the benefit of the weak and the 
 unfit. That was the wrong readiag of democracy. A man 
 had to make his place, and his place was where he made it ; 
 and he was not — when he was the produce of the develop- 
 ment of thousands of years — to be levelled out of it because 
 of the divine right of some incapable members of the lower 
 classes, the powerless classes, who hadn't any more right 
 than that of having been bom to incompetent fathers by 
 incapable mothers. It wasn't, in Mr. Salt's opinion, 
 because you just happened to have come into the world 
 whining and by keeping up the whiniag that you acquired 
 any rights except to a lethal chamber. We all whined 
 when we came into the world, and the privilege was the 
 property of the man who stopped whining, not of the one 
 who went on till his miserable dying day. That was how 
 he looked at it, thanks very largely to the writing of Mr. 
 Pett in the Daily Herald. They had been hoodwinked too 
 long by people who made themselves powerful by exploiting 
 the whines of the useless in a picturesque way. But they 
 had had to come down to soUd facts, and as far as he was 
 concerned anything that even looked like reaction was 
 going to have his sjmipathy and his support as long as it 
 did not interfere with the rights of skilled mechanics. 
 
 Macdonald, who had been listening vaguely, pulled 
 himself together to say : 
 
 " Oh, you see for yourself how little chance there is of 
 anyone's being able to do that." And then he askeid : 
 " There are two rooms here ? I suppose there is not 
 such a thing as a bed in them ? " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY loi 
 
 Mr. Salt shook his head. 
 
 " There's a table and some of&ce furniture in one," he 
 said. " That's above ground. The other's in the base- 
 ment on the level of the mews behind. But there's nothing 
 in it but some straw." 
 
 " Well, let's look at the room with the straw," Mac- 
 donald said. " I rather think that is going to be the 
 theatre of my dreams to-night. That's a Russian way 
 of saying that it's where I shall sleep." 
 
 " Your lordship likes your joke," the chauffeur said. 
 
 " No, I'm an ideahst," Macdonald said. " That is 
 going to be a sjonbol. We begin the regeneration of the 
 world from some straw in a room on the level of the 
 mews." 
 
 " If your lordship is going to have time to get to your 
 hotel ! . . ." the chauffeur exclaimed. 
 
 " I can't afford hotels," Macdonald answered, " or, if I 
 can to-day, the dark forest of the future alone knows 
 whether I shall be able to the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " I don't imderstand your lordship," Mr. Salt said. 
 
 " Of course you don't," Macdonald answered. " If you 
 did you would be leading this movement, not I. You've 
 got one gift. You're the best chauffeur in Europe, so they 
 say. But, you know, I can drive a car almost as well as 
 you can . And I can say things that you cannot understand. 
 That's why I am the leader." 
 
 " I could say things you couldn't understand," the 
 chauffeur muttered. 
 
 Macdonald stood up. " Oh no, you couldn't," he 
 answered. " Try." 
 
 The chaiiffeur stood puzzled for a moment. 
 
 " I could if the things would come into my head," he 
 ejaculated. 
 
 " But they never do and they never will," Macdonald 
 laughed at him. " You're an aristocrat with only one 
 
102 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 gift. I'm an idealist with fifty." He picked up his 
 kitbags and said : " Come along." 
 
 The shadows of the back of the show-room swallowed 
 them up. 
 
 There were no shadows about the room in the basement 
 on a level with the mews behind. A single drop of electric 
 light at the end of a wire lit it up. The walls were the bare 
 plaster ; on the boards were a few straws from departed 
 packing cases. 
 
 " Your lordship can't sleep here," the chauffeur said in 
 a tone between triumph and shockedness. Macdonald 
 dropped his kitbags on to the ground. He stood smiling 
 round upon the room and soothing Mr. Salt with little 
 motions of his hands. 
 
 " Don't interrupt a general in his meditations on the 
 battlefield," he said. " I shall have to fight with devils 
 here." 
 
 " It's not my idea of comfort," the chauffeur grumbled 
 between his teeth. 
 
 " It wouldn't be," Macdonald answered gaily. 
 
 " It's not fitting ; it's not proper," Mr. Salt protested ; 
 " it's not even sanitary. There's sure to be a smell from 
 the mews." 
 
 " Now," Macdonald said, " can you get me a bed ? Buy 
 one at a shop and bring it here on your car ? " 
 
 " The shops are all shut at this time of night," the 
 chauffeur still grumbled. 
 
 " Now, my good chap," Macdonald said, " if you think 
 you are going to make me do what you think is fitting and 
 proper by being disobliging, I shaU kick you through the 
 door and there's an end of you. And, as you are dying of 
 curiosity, that isn't what I want to do." 
 
 " How do you know I'm dying of curiosity ? " the 
 chauffeur grumbled. 
 
 " It's my business to know men," Macdonald said. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 103 
 
 " And when you speak to me, call me Your Excellency. 
 That's my title. And when you speak of the King, call 
 him Mr. Spenlow. Now obUge me by going into the mews 
 and asking for two btmdles of straw — to make my bed." 
 
 "Your lordship! . . . Your Excellency! ; . ." 
 the man protested. 
 
 " Get out and fetch the straw," Macdonald grumbled 
 amiably. " I know you've taken to me immensely, and 
 you think a nobleman of my rank ought to be protected 
 from himself in the matter of curtains and carpets." 
 
 " Oh, you're too much ! " the man ejaculated. 
 
 " Well, I've broken you in," Macdonald laughed, as the 
 man went irresolutely from the room. 
 
 Macdonald climbed lightly up the circular iron staircase 
 into the office. He fetched down two chairs, a box with 
 nails that was in a tool chest, a hammer, a looking-glass, and 
 a large almanac that showed a blonde woman stretching out 
 her arms yearningly to an approaching automobile. He 
 put a row of eight nails along the wall nearest the door, 
 two nails above the window, and one in the centre of the 
 wall. On this he hung the almanac. The chauffeur was 
 grunting and rustling into the room, bundling behind him 
 through the door a huge mass of straw. He cast it on to 
 the groimd. 
 
 " This almanac," Macdonald said, " is not intended to 
 keep me posted as to the flight of time. And it is not 
 intended to impress you with anything, because, as you 
 have gathered, I affect to disdain your opinion. I've 
 stuck it up there to make a pretty spot of colour and to 
 remind myself that I am not an ascetic. I want to get all 
 the pretty spots of colour that I can. On principle." 
 
 " You've got a danmed sharp tongue. Your Excellency," 
 the man muttered. 
 
 " Normally, I haven't," Macdonald said ; " but I'm just 
 showing how immeasurably I'm your superior." 
 
104 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 The chauffeur grumbled rather beneath his breath : 
 "All men are equals." 
 
 " Now, no more of that antiquated nonsense," Mac- 
 donald said sharply. " No men are equal. You are not 
 mine, and the chap driving the taxi from the next rank 
 isn't yours, and the cab-washer in his garage isn't his, so 
 drop it. Help me to get this room straight." 
 
 But this was almost more than the capacity of Mr. Salt 
 would run to. With his hands hanging by his sides and an 
 expression of half-admiring helplessness, he set to work. 
 Sergius Mihailovitch arranged the two bundles of straw 
 side by side in the comer of the room. Over them he spread 
 one of his rugs, and over the rug his motor-coat. 
 
 " That's my bed," he exclaimed. 
 
 Another rug he hung up before his bare window. " That's 
 a curtain." He undid his vahses and took out suit after 
 suit, which he hung on the nails that he had knocked 
 into the bare walls. One of the siiits was a diplomatic 
 uniform of dark blue, with buttons and with epaulettes 
 of shining gold. " That's how we do it," he said 
 again. 
 
 The chauffeur's bewildered eyes rested on the decorations 
 of the uniform. 
 
 "Oh, come," Macdonald exclaimed, " you've seen some- 
 thing like that before. Come ! Move ! Do you feel up 
 to helping me down with the small table from the ofRce 
 upstairs ? " 
 
 They climbed the corkscrew steps and clumsily managed 
 to get the table down. Macdonald set it against the wall 
 beneath the coloured almanac. 
 
 " Now, here's the furnished room," he exclaimed. 
 " There's a place to wash one's self underneath the stairs, 
 so that's all I want." 
 
 The chauffeur began : " But Your Excellency isn't ?" 
 
 " My Excellency is," Macdonald said. " My Excellency 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 105 
 
 is going to dress for dinner now, and my Excellency is 
 going to sleep here when I come back after dinner." 
 
 He took from a portmanteau some silken underclothing, 
 a dress shirt, a tie-case, and a collar box, and laid them 
 carefully upon the table. 
 
 " Now, tell me about Mr. Spenlow," he said, " whilst I 
 am putting the studs in my shirt." 
 
 " His Majesty— — " the chauffeur began. 
 
 " I've told you to call the King Mr. Spenlow," Mac- 
 don aid said sharply. 
 
 " But it's very difficult to call His Majesty . . ." 
 
 ^' By God ! " Macdonald shouted suddenly, " if you ever 
 call the King anything else but Mr. Spenlow, I will tear 
 the inside out of your throat." And his aspect was so 
 ferocious that Mr. Salt staggered back against the door. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " he said. " I've heard of the British 
 Lion, but protect me from the Russian Bear." 
 
 " That's better," Macdonald commented. " You seem 
 to be coming to some sense of responsibihty. You imder- 
 stand this. This is a matter of hfe and death, and it will 
 be your death that will happen first if there is any 
 bungling." 
 
 " I didn't take on a Ufe-and-death job," the chauffeur 
 grumbled. 
 
 " Well, you're in one," Macdonald retorted. " I didn't 
 want you, but it seems I've got to have you. Now, tell me 
 aU about the habits of the gentleman we've been talking 
 of. You've told me that he's passionately interested in 
 motor cars, and that's a good thing. What about women ? ' ' 
 
 " Women ? " the chauffeur asked stupidly. 
 
 " Yes, women," Macdonald answered impatiently. 
 " Wine, women, and song ! Dissipation ! Don't you 
 vinderstand English ? Hasn't he got the vices proper to 
 his station ? " 
 
 " He's a most respectable young chap," the chauffeur 
 
io6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 said. " I have heard the Queen-Mother say that he never 
 gave her a moment's anxiety." 
 
 Macdonald said : " That makes things very awkward ; " 
 and then he added : " You must call the Queen-Mother 
 
 Mrs. Spenlow ' ' He remained abstracted for a moment, 
 
 then he asked : 
 
 " Isn't there an actress who goes about with him as I 
 ordered ? I am always seeing photographs of you and Mr. 
 Spenlow and Miss Flossie Coward gorug about in a 200 h.p. 
 Panhard ; or are they all fakes ? " 
 
 " Oh, they are genuine enough," the chauffeur answered. 
 " But the King — I mean Mr. Spenlow, positively hates 
 having to have her with him." 
 
 " Doesn't he want to be put back in his confoimded little 
 kingdom ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " If you ask me," the chauffeur answered, " I believe 
 he'd much rather play about with spanners and wrenches 
 to the end of his day." 
 
 " Poor little devil ! " Macdonald said. " He's got to go 
 into the dark forest too." 
 
 " I don'tunderstand Your Excellency," the chauffeur said. 
 
 " It's probable you wouldn't," Macdonald answered. 
 " But I will explain it up to a point. And that point is 
 that if anyone should cross-question you as to Mr. Spenlow's 
 habits, you should represent him as being a thoroughly 
 dissipated young man." 
 
 " But he isn't," the chauffeur expostulated. " I've 
 never known anyone more respectable." 
 
 " I tell you," Macdonald answered, " that the only thing 
 he takes an interest in is rushing about the country in a 
 motor car with an actress at his side. You're always being 
 fined for breaking the speed limit. You're going to have a 
 nasty accident quite soon, owing to Mr. Spenlow forcing you 
 to be reckless. Mr. Spenlow himself won't be quite sober 
 at the time." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 107 
 
 " I've never had what you can call an accident in my 
 life," the chauffeur said sulkily, " and you're quite mistaken 
 in thinking that that gentleman likes fast driving. As a 
 matter of fact, he is a little cowardly, and what really 
 interests him is the engines and the inside of the car. And 
 as for not being sober . . ." 
 
 " My good chap," Macdonald said, " it will be your 
 business in the next three or four days to get fined twice 
 for exceeding the Umit ; and you will have to arrange for 
 a nice httle accident that will bring the names of Mr. 
 Spenlow and Miss Flossie Coward and of myself and some 
 other actress . . ." Macdonald paused suddenly, and 
 then he asked : 
 
 " By-the-by, you haven't got an actress for me this 
 evening ? Someone quite disreputable ? " 
 
 The chauffeur exclaimed : " Your Excellency ! " in 
 tones of panic. 
 
 " Don't you understand anything ? " Macdonald asked. 
 " Don't you understand that Mr. Spenlow and Miss Coward 
 and myself are going to dine in public to-night ? And that 
 it is essential that I should take with me someone who is 
 quite disreputable. Someone who will throw peaches at 
 the head waiter and empty bottles of champagne over Mr. 
 Spenlow ? " 
 
 Mr. Salt's mouth dropped, his eyes took on an appalled 
 glare. 
 
 " Can't you understand anything ? " Macdonald asked, 
 " Can't you see that I have to be the corrupter of Mr. 
 Spenlow's youth and innocence ? Can't you see how the 
 papers have got to be filled with accounts of the desperate 
 misdeeds of Mr. Spenlow and his companions ? I tell you 
 that I'm going to turn him into the most desperate ne'er- 
 do-well that the history of kings can show. This poor 
 young nian hasn't had any kind of a record so far, but I'ni 
 going to give him a most desperate one." 
 
io8. THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 The chauffeur suddenly clutched his fists, and his voice 
 when he spoke was tremulous with emotion. 
 
 " Then all I can say is," he exclaimed, " that I'm not 
 going to have anything to do with it. I'm the son of 
 respectable Methodist parents, and I'm not going to see 
 anyone, whether it's a commoner or a king, wilfully cor- 
 rupted. It's disgraceful, it's disgusting ; I can't stand it, 
 and I won't. This young man, for all he is a king, is as 
 nice and respectable a yoimg man as anyone I ever saw. 
 Give him a couple of spanners and a sparking plug and an 
 old car and some standardised spare parts to play with, 
 and he'll be as quiet and grave and good for the whole 
 afternoon as if he were preparing for the ministry. And you 
 want to take this young man — I tell you, I Uke him for 
 his own sake ... Of course, I know kings have got 
 to be kings, but I won't ... no, I'll be hanged if I 
 wUl. . ." 
 
 And suddenly Mr. Salt blew his nose. 
 
 " There, there," Macdonald said, " you need not cry 
 about it. I really thoUght you would understand me better. 
 But, of course, you haven't got a sense of humour. The 
 steel you deal in doesn't run to that." 
 
 " I teU you, I'll throw up my job ! " Mr. Salt exclaimed. 
 " I will split on your whole show. . . ." 
 
 Macdonald, who was fitting the links into his dress shirt, 
 exclaimed : " There, there ! " soothingly once more. And 
 when he had completed the fitting up of that garment, he 
 looked up at the chauffeur with a friendly and rather 
 childlike smile. 
 
 " It's aU right," he said, " my good chap ; don't let your 
 feelings run away with you. The young man isn't really 
 going to be corrupted. But it's absolutely necessary that 
 he should appear as if he were." 
 
 " I don't see why " Mr. Salt grumbled. 
 
 " Of course you don't," Macdonald answered. " But 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 109 
 
 I'll explain. Don't you understand the president and 
 ministers of the Galizian Republic have got their eyes all 
 the time on Mr. Spenlow ? Now, exactly what we don't 
 want is that they should hear that he's engrossed in tools 
 and engineering." 
 
 " I don't see why not," the chauffeur said. " You 
 couldn't have anything more respectable for a king to do." 
 
 " But they don't want a king, my dear chap," Macdonald 
 said. " And for him to be taken up in that sort of work is 
 just the sort of thing that will make them afraid that he's 
 the sort of king to plan a counter-revolution." 
 
 " But he isn't planning a coimter-revolution at all," the 
 chaufeur objected. 
 
 " No ! We, his devoted servants, are planning it for 
 him," Macdonald continued. " And what the president 
 and the ministers of the Galizian Republic want is that he 
 should be a dissipated little scoundrel, with nothing in his 
 head but wine and women and song and breaking the speed 
 limit." 
 
 " I don't see why we should give the republicans what 
 they want," Mr. Salt once more objected. 
 
 " We aren't going to, you know," Macdonald said. 
 " We're only going to pretend to. All the dissipation will 
 be only a put-up job." 
 
 A sudden light seemed to strike in upon Mr. Salt. 
 
 " I see, I see," he said eagerly. " You only want to 
 hoodwink these republicans. You want to make them think 
 Mr. Spenlow is an idle young fool in order to put them off 
 the scent." 
 
 " It's extraordinary how intelligent you are, Mr. Salt," 
 Macdonald said. ' ' And you see, giving Mr. Spenlow this 
 dashing reputation will serve a double purpose. It will 
 not only put the Galizian Government off the scent, but it 
 will make Mr. Spenlow popular with the CSaJizian people. 
 Really, they kicked him off the throne because he was such 
 
no THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 a milksop. That's what it really amounted to. You see, 
 they're a nation of sportsmen. They like bull-fights and 
 cock-fights and any sort of row. They'd Uke breaking 
 speed limits if they had any kind of a road that a motor can 
 run on. Only they haven't." 
 
 "They must be rather a nasty kind of a people," Mr. 
 Salt said. 
 
 "That makes it all the more beautiful," Macdonald 
 said. 
 
 " I don't understand," Mr. Salt answered. 
 
 " Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face," Macdonald 
 exclaimed gaily. " You see, the Galizians are thoroughly 
 sick of the republican government. They thought they 
 were going to have some fun, but they find they're being 
 governed by twelve people, each one as solemn and dull as 
 a Methodist minister," 
 
 " I am the son of a Methodist minister myself," Mr. Salt 
 said gloomily. 
 
 " Precisely," Macdonald encountered him. " So you 
 know how dull it is to be governed by one of them. Think 
 of your Sunda5rs at home, and then think of being governed 
 by twelve at once." 
 
 " WeU, I give you the Stmdays at home," Mr. Salt 
 conceded. 
 
 " The point is," Macdonald said, " that it's all a matter 
 of roads, really. The Galizians will take their king back 
 with the actresses and motor car because of his dashing 
 record ! He won't really be dashing, but he'll start out to 
 make roads. He'll pretend that the roads are meant for 
 exceeding the speed limit on, and help them to get more 
 quickly to the bull-fights and the cock-^hts and the dagger- 
 fights and all the other jolly rows. But all the time 
 insidiously the roads will be spreading the . . . the 
 blessings of civilisation. Why, in twenty years' time the 
 whole Galizian nation will be a population of skilled 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY iii 
 
 > 
 mechanics. I should not wonder," Macdonald concluded, 
 
 " if they didn't ask you to become their prime minister." 
 
 " It sounds rather sensible," Mr. Salt said. " But you 
 don't seriously mean to say that revolutions turn upon such 
 little things as that ? " 
 
 " Oh, come, come," Macdonald said, " you're much too 
 experienced a man not to know what it is that wins the great 
 heart of the people. The heart of another is a dark forest, 
 it's true ; but the heart of a people is a child's plaything. 
 You can turn it right or left with any catchword. Why, 
 if Mr. Spenlow could win the Derby, or kill a bull in the 
 bull-ring, his descendants would be safe upon the throne 
 of Galizia for the next thousand years ! " 
 
 " Mr. Spenlow couldn't do either," the chauffeur said 
 decidedly. 
 
 " Of course he couldn't," Macdonald answered. " So 
 we have got to do the riext best thing for him. Just be off 
 now, while I dress, and tell Mr. Spenlow that I will be with 
 him and Miss Coward at nine o'clock in the Long Room at 
 the Ritz, and I'll do my best to bring a lady with me." 
 
 Mr. Salt, relapsing into the efficient chauffeur, said : 
 " Yes, Your Excellency,^' and opened the door. 
 
 " Oh, and Salt," Macdonald added, " in the mean time, 
 just think of a nice artistic accident that will make a 
 maximum of smash with a minimum of danger to Mr. 
 Spenlow and myself and two ladies." 
 
 Again Mr. Salt said : " Yes, Your Excellency, I'll do my 
 best." 
 
112 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 IV 
 
 IN the cellar-like room Macdonald set about dressing 
 himself for diraier. But before he did so he took a 
 look round the mews into which his door opened. 
 It was full of hansom cabs getting ready fornight work, 
 and it communicated with Regent Street by a narrow 
 passage running under a tall shop. Upon the whole, the 
 premises were exactly what Macdonald needed. He wished, 
 upon the one hand, to present to the world the aspect of 
 a needy and debauched adventurer who had got hold of a 
 young and very wealthy exiled sovereign and was driving 
 him very speedily to the dogs. On the other hand, he 
 wished to be able to hold interviews with a large number 
 of wealthy and influential people in such a manner as in no 
 way to attract the suspicions of the Galizian Government. 
 The Resiliens Motor Cars Company, of which he had got 
 himself named general manager, was a perfectly genuine 
 affair, of which the largest shareholder was Mr. Edward U. 
 Dexter, who had promised to find half the money for the 
 Galizian counter-revolution. Mr. Dexter was an American 
 financier whose home was in Vienna, where Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch had met him at a ball of the American Embassy. Mr. 
 Dexter himself was rich, but not fabulously rich. He had 
 made a good deal of money by cornering such httle con- 
 sidered drugs as turmeric, which is a principal ingredient 
 of curry powder, or such little considered articles as soda- 
 water sj^hons. By the latter exploit — ^he had bought up 
 the world supply for a year, and had raised the price of 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 113 
 
 each syphon by one-half a cent or one farthing or two cen- 
 times or three pfennigs, as the case might be — he had made 
 just a quarter of a million sterling. 
 
 It was in this modest and imobtrusiTC way that Mr. 
 Dexter made his bread. It was never his ambition to be 
 the king of anything — neither a steel nor a pork king, nor 
 yet even a tobacco king. But his secret ambition certainly 
 was to marry his daughter to an EngHsh peer. He had, 
 however, found English peers rather difficult to get hold 
 of in Vienna or New York. Austrian and German nobles 
 did not appeal to him. Though an American, he was 
 sufficiently Anglo-Saxon to see that it is only the gold of 
 British coronets that is really genuine twenty-four carat 
 metal, though he was beginning to think that he might 
 have to content himself with a French marquis. At the 
 present moment, the comer in syphons having come to its 
 end, Mr. Dexter had a good deal of loose capital in hand, 
 and he had come to London to see whether it would not be 
 possible to purchase for his daughter at least an Enghsh 
 viscoimt. It was none oi his money that he intended to 
 put into Macdonald's scheme, but he was the European 
 agent for at least two United States monarchs who had their 
 eye on the copper that was to be found in the centre of the 
 repubHc of GaUzia, and if Mr. Dexter gave it as his opinion 
 that this was a good gamble, the insignificant sum of eight 
 million sterhng would be found at once. He would be 
 able to draw a cheque for it and be perfectly certain that 
 the two American magnates would meet it when it came 
 home. But as against this sum Macdonald had to raise 
 a certain amount of money on his side in order to prove his 
 bona fides. The actual amount did not very much matter. 
 The present speculation was that Sergius Mihailovitch 
 should raise eight milhon sterling against Mr. Dexter's 
 foiity million dollars. But Mr. Dexter was not going to be 
 exacting in this matter. There was plenty of money 
 
 I 
 
114 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 available, and Mr. Dexter was going to be quite contented 
 with the actual sight of twelve and a half million dollars in 
 the hands of Macdonald and the Queen-Mother. 
 
 Sergius MihaUovitch, however, didn't know that he 
 hadn't got to raise the larger sum, and, whilst in his 
 brilliantly lit cellar he got himself into his dress clothes, he 
 laughed brilliantly to himself at the thought of that 
 immoderate sum of money. It was like a colossal joke. 
 By taking a good deal of trouble he might be able to raise 
 £500 of his own, and he couldn't at that moment see where 
 to go to put his hands upon another half-crown. He hadn't 
 so far got any associates. He himself was almost the entire 
 conspiracy, with the exception of a Gahzian marquis called 
 Da Pinta, who was grand chamberlain to the exiled king, 
 and who had had all his Gahzian estates confiscated at the 
 revolution. The Queen-Mother allowed him £120 a year 
 as a salary. 
 
 The Queen-Mother herself, formerly the Duchess Eulalia 
 de Bourbon, was certEiinly not going to put a penny into 
 the enterprise, and she was not going to allow her son to put 
 a halfpenny. She was quite comfortable where she was, 
 with a large town house in Lowndes Square and Breston 
 Castle in Buckinghamshire, as well as £150,000 a year 
 safely invested aU in British consols. She had never known 
 anything Hke such a feeling of peace and security in Gahzia. 
 And she was not going to sacrifice a penny of it in order to 
 return to that dismal country. Macdonald and his plans 
 she regarded with a benevolent neutrality. If Sergius 
 Mihailovitch could put the king back on the throne, she 
 would be remarkably pleased, for it would mean a certain 
 increase of income, and even if they were forced once 
 more to flee in an onmibus from the dirty little palace of 
 Flores, the capital of Galizia, she would probably have 
 contrived even before that time to have added something 
 considerable to their capital. But the royal lady was 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 115 
 
 perfectly determined to retain intact No 72, Lowndes 
 Square, Breston Castle, and the comfortable sum of money 
 in consols. Besides, the Queen-Mother was a thorough 
 Londoner. UntU her marriage with the late king she had 
 always hved with her father, the Due de Bourbon, in Port- 
 man Square ; and for years after her accession to the throne 
 of Galizia, she had not been able to sleep for want of the 
 soimd of the buses running down Baker Street. She didn't 
 want anything better, really, than to go to mass every 
 morning in the Jesuits' Church at Spanish Place, and to 
 spend every afternoon in her drawing-room with three old 
 French laies and a couple of young Enghsh priests. So 
 Macdonald, fastening his tie, laughed to think how he was 
 setting out upon a high adventure. 
 
 It had begun three months before, when he had gone to 
 Vienna to conduct the gipsy girl to the Grand Duke, who 
 had been at that time in Moscow. Macdonald had spent 
 two successive evenings in the Cafe Regentz because it 
 had not been the season in Vienna, and he had not been able 
 to find a soul that he knew in the city. On the first evening 
 he had made the acquaintance of the Marquis da Pinta, 
 who had sat at the table opposite him, feeUng iU and solitary. 
 The Marquis da Pinta had been sent to Vienna to take out 
 of pawn a number of the Galizian crown jewels that the 
 Queen-Mother had pledged as soon as the revolution seemed 
 probable. 
 
 On the second evening Macdonald had got into conversa- 
 tion with Dexter, whom he knew slightly, and who was 
 detained in that city by the winding-up of the affairs of 
 his soda-water syphon comer. The Marquis da Pinta had 
 put the idea of the counter-revolution into Macdonald's 
 head, and Macdonald in turn had passed it on to Mr. 
 Dexter. 
 
 Probably nothing would have come of it had Mr. Dexter 
 not read in the New York Herald that a biilliant dinner had 
 
ii6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 been given in Nauheim by the Russian Grand Duke, upon 
 whom he had remembered to have heard Macdonald say 
 that he was an attendant. At this dinner the Herald had 
 reported that there were present the Duke of Kint37re, 
 Lord Bilsington, Viscount Kingston, the Hon. Cecil Buller, 
 and Macdonald himself. Mr. Dexter had immediately 
 made his wife and daughter pack their trunks, and by the 
 next morning they were in Wiesbaden. 
 
 The Grand Duke had good-naturedly received Mr, 
 Dexter with much cordiahty because he passed as a friend 
 of Macdonald's, and this had given Mr. Dexter great satis- 
 faction. Moreover, Macdonald had been able to introduce 
 him to Viscount Kingston and Mr. Buller. He had not been 
 able to bring him in contact with either the Duke or Lord 
 Bilsington, for at that time Sergius Mihailovitch had not 
 known either of these gentlemen. The Herald's reporter 
 had been mistaken in saying that Macdonald was present 
 at the Grand Duke's dinner. At the last moment he had 
 been detained because of an attack of nerves on the part 
 of the Countess his wife. 
 
 Thus Sergius Mihailovitch laughed over his evening tie 
 at the thought of his gallant Uttle band of adventurers. 
 There were exactly three of them by now — himself, the 
 Marquis da Pinta, a little, miserable, yellow Gahzian who 
 suffered aU the time from fits of malaria, and shivered 
 perpetually until his teeth ached. And there was also by 
 now Mr. Salt, the King's chauffeur. Those three were 
 going to set a king on his throne, and at the thought it 
 seemed to Sergius Mihailovitch that that was the happiest 
 moment of his life. He wondered what other ragged com- 
 panions he was going to pick up for this journey, and he 
 was thoroughly glad that his bed that night was going to 
 be some straw in the comer of the room. It added to the 
 gay irresponsibility of the expedition. 
 
 It wanted twenty minutes of nine, and Macdonald put 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 117 
 
 on his coat and waistcoat, took a black cape from a nail, 
 clapped open his opera-hat, and let himself out into the 
 mews. The cabs had all driven off. In the dark passage 
 leading to Regent Street he made out an expensively 
 dressed woman standing doing something to her hair 
 beneath her hat. As Macdonald passed her, her parasol, 
 which had been leaning against the wall, slipped to the 
 ground with a rattle that re-echoed in the dark vaulting of 
 the passage. She made a quick instinctive movement to 
 stop its fall, and so, at the same moment, her reticule of 
 gilded Unks fell on to the pavement and a large coil of hair 
 on to her shoulder. Macdonald recovered both the umbrella 
 and the reticule, and held them out amiably towards her. 
 
 " Oh, do hold them for a minute ! " she said in a childish 
 voice. " I have been tr5ang to do up my hair for the last 
 five minutes, and those things are always falling down." 
 She spoke German with a strong Viennese accent. 
 
 Macdonald remained balancing the things upon his hands 
 for a fuU five minutes, whilst industriously she stuck hair- 
 pins into her hair. She appeared to be young, ample, and 
 with a certain bravura in her gestures and in the tilt of her 
 large hat. And her hair was extraordinary in amount. If 
 Macdonald suspected that its brilliance might be due to 
 some such agent as that called Peroxide he couldn't doubt, 
 on account of its obvious weight and vividness, that it 
 was really attached to her person. She appeared to pay 
 him no particular attention, and at last he said amiably : 
 
 " I've got to get, you know, to dinner some time to-night." 
 
 " You can always take a taxi," she answered pleasantly. 
 " You gentlemen are never reaUy in a hurry. I could tell 
 you were a gentleman from the way you sauntered along." 
 
 From her voice she appeared to be a mere child, and 
 Macdonald answered jokingly : 
 
 " You ought to have said that you could teU I was a 
 gentleman from the kind way I picked up your parasol." 
 
ii8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DXJMPTY 
 
 " A waiter would have done that just as well," she 
 answered ; " that is what waiters are made for. I am 
 always dropping my things, and waiters are always picking 
 them up." 
 
 They walked together along the dark passage and into 
 the glare of Regent Street. The girl was humming : 
 
 " Mein Herz das ist ein Bienenhaus . . ." 
 
 In Regent Street she said, " Gute Nacht," and turned, 
 rather lingeringly, to walk along the pavement. 
 
 " Wait a minute," Macdonald said. 
 
 In the full glare of the London night her appearance was 
 perfectly satisfactory. There could be no doubt as to her 
 youth and Uttle as to her irresponsibility. 
 
 "Do you think," Macdonald asked, " that you could 
 throw a peach at a head waiter ? You appear to know a 
 great deal about waiters." 
 
 " I could throw anything at anybody," she said, " but 
 I should not like to hurt a head waiter's feelings. My 
 father was a head waiter in Vienna." 
 
 " Oh, of course it will be made worth the head waiter's 
 while," Macdonald said. 
 
 " Then he will probably like it," she answered gravely. 
 
 " I am sure he'll like it," Macdonald corroborated ; and 
 he added, " And could you pour a glass of champagne over 
 the head of a gentleman who will be at dinner ? " 
 
 " I have never done it, but I have seen it done," she 
 answered. 
 
 There couldn't, at that moment, be any doubt that she 
 was a personage of extreme beauty. She was very fair, 
 very large, and she had obviously any amount of spirit if 
 she appeared to have no sense of humour. 
 
 "This is very fortunate," Macdonald said to himself. 
 " I accept it as an omen." 
 
 " It isn't very difficult," she was continuing. . . , 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 119 
 
 " To accept it as an omen ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " No ! To pour a glass of champagne over a gentleman's 
 head," she answered. 
 
 " Then you'd better," Macdonald continued, " come and 
 have dinner with me at the Ritz with Miss Flossie Coward." 
 
 " At the Ritz ! " she exclaimed ; " and with Miss Flossie 
 Coward ! Oh, my God ! " 
 
 And then Macdonald saw that her eyes positively filled 
 with tears. 
 
 " No, I can't do it," she said. " I would have given my 
 life to dine at the Ritz and to have spoken to Miss Flossie 
 Coward. I have seen her face on a hundred thousand 
 postcards, and she rides about in a motor car with a real 
 king." 
 
 " Oh, well," Macdonald said, " you needn't bother if 
 you aren't strictly respectable. No one is, you know ; 
 and you won't be asked any questions at the door." 
 
 Her lips quivered — ^large and red, they really quivered. 
 " But I can't go home to-night," she said, " without 
 taking i2. They wiU turn me into the streets if I don't." 
 
 " Hasn't it occurred to you," Macdonald asked, " that 
 I might possibly give you £2 ? " 
 
 " No," she answered. " I don't think you would have 
 thought of it. You are too respectful. Respectful gentle- 
 men never think of giving one money." 
 
 " Well, there is something in that ; " and he lifted his 
 finger to stop a taxi-cab. 
 
 " Come along," he said, "get in ; " and reluctantly she 
 yielded to the temptation. 
 
 In the dark recesses of the cab, with its slight odour of 
 petrol, she said with an accent of fear : 
 
 " But you haven't promised to give me anything." 
 " Oh, that's understood," Macdonald answered. " I'll 
 tell you what I'll do. If you throw the peach at the head 
 waiter I'll give you a five-pound note, and if you pour the 
 
120 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 champagne over the King's head artistically I'U give you 
 another five-poimd note. And if the whole row is really 
 brilUant, you shaU have a third," 
 
 Suddenly she threw her arms round his neek and kissed 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! " she exclaimed. " With 
 three himdred marks I shall be able to get back to Hamburg 
 agsin. Oh, I want to get back to Hamburg ! " 
 
 Her kisses were fresh and agreeable, but Macdonald 
 pushed her gently off him. 
 
 " My dear child," he said, " you really shouldn't dis- 
 arrange one's hair. A man doesn't Uke having his hair 
 disarranged before dinner, and as I've got to be a corrupter 
 of kingly youth and innocence I had taken a great deal of 
 trouble to make my hair smooth to-night. If you don't 
 do it again I'U promise you this. Make this evening a real 
 success of scandal, and I'll pack you off to Hamburg and 
 gjlve you a nice Uttle sum to go on with when you get there." 
 
 "I'U, scream like seven tigresses if you want it," she 
 said ; and then she added : " But if you're always so 
 generous to me, perhaps I shan't want to go back to Ham- 
 burg at all." 
 
 "■That is as it chances," Macdonald said. " I dare say 
 I can find a use for you. But we shall be a queer crowd of 
 adventurers," he added. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 121 
 
 THE young King was playing spillikins with such 
 industry and attention that he did not notice 
 when Macdonald and the young lady were brought 
 up to his table through the crowd of diners. In 
 the brilliant diffused light of the great hall he sat bending 
 forward over the large pile of wooden toothpicks that he 
 had emptied on to the tablecloth — a rather dark, sulky- 
 looking boy of eighteen, with no back to his head, a high 
 nose, and an immense lower jaw. Miss Flossie Coward, a 
 brunette with an oval face and small white teeth, which 
 she showed all the time in a fixed and rather painful smile 
 — Miss Coward had taught the King this game to keep him 
 in a good temper whilst they waited for Macdonald. She 
 had also lent him a hairpin, with which he was engaged in 
 removing the toothpicks one from above the other. The 
 King's head was bent very much on one side and his jaw 
 hung down, his tongue following the motions of the point 
 of his hairpin. Miss Coward thought he was the most 
 thoroughly disagreeable boy she had ever come across, and 
 he exceedingly disliked Miss Coward, for she had no con- 
 versation and could do nothing in the world but smUe. 
 From other tables they were being regarded by the Duchess 
 of Richmond and Mr. Williams of Waterbury, Va. ; by 
 the president of the Royal Academy, who had with him 
 the French Minister of Fine Arts and a party ; and by the 
 reporter of the Daily Herald, to whom Macdonald had 
 contrived to have it conveyed that something piquant 
 
122 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 was certain to happen in the Long Room that evening. 
 Miss Coward said to the King : 
 
 " This must be Count Macdonald and his friend." 
 
 But the King only frowned and bent his head lower down 
 over the toothpicks, and when the lady touched his shoulder 
 he nudged her energetically with his elbow and grunted 
 violently. 
 
 Macdonald sat down opposite this royal personage and 
 placed his companion in face of Miss Coward. The King, 
 looking up, said sharply to the head waiter : 
 
 " Don't you put anything on^he table until I've finished 
 my game." 
 
 The two young ladies began immediately to talk as if 
 they had known each other all their lives. It appeared that 
 Miss Elsa di Pradella had been an actress in Hamburg. 
 There did not appear to be any hght part that she had not 
 played, though her age was seventeen. She had played 
 soubrettes, principal boys ; she had danced in a pas de 
 quatre : she could even, she declared in broken English, 
 do the splits. This Miss Coward found it difficult to beUeve, 
 for Miss Coward had never done anything but skip about 
 languidly in what is known as musical comedy. Miss di 
 PradeUa, however, explained how you were taught to do 
 the splits. You stood upon two chairs, and they were 
 gradually drawn apart . . . The King continued 
 engrossed with his toothpicks. Behind him stood the head 
 waiter bearing a tray. The shaded lights shone down, the 
 conversation went up in a steady humming buzz from all 
 the many tables. In the distance a soft band was playing 
 somewhere, and, seeing that his three young people were 
 all enjoying themselves, Macdonald permitted himself to 
 slip into a reverie. 
 
 There were all these pleasant sights, there were all these 
 pleasant sounds, the light was pleasanter than the light 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 123 
 
 of the sun itself ; and Sergius Mihailovitch's idea of 
 heaven was of a place where there was light, and always 
 more light, diffused and warm. It was a scene of innumer- 
 able delicate contacts, of innumerable and delicate sym- 
 pathies. He couldn't accuse himself of any longing for mere 
 comfort. What he was after was more than anything a sort 
 of asceticism — an asceticism of sheer efficiency. There were 
 places where you could eat more and possibly eat better ; 
 there were places where you could find better wines, talk 
 louder, lounge with more abandon, or unbutton to any 
 extent. But that certainly was not what he was looking 
 for. 
 
 He was forced to regard himself — if he was to regard 
 himself as anything at aU — as something of a crusader in 
 life. After all, he was trying to key things up — to key up 
 the whole world. He was setting out upon a desperate 
 adventure. He was trying not so much to put back the 
 hands of the clock as to retain for the world something 
 that the world already possessed. It wasn't the mere 
 setting up again in a ridiculous little republic of a ridiculous 
 little monarchy ; it was a question of proving to the world 
 that certain things were good, and that there was enough 
 to go round. 
 
 For himself, he knew perfectly well that it was a question 
 of his own private predilections ; but behind him he had 
 Mr. Pett, who was the prophet of a democracy that would 
 build itself up and not pull other persons down. Mr. 
 Pett said that this was economically possible, and Sergius 
 Mihailovitch was ready to take Mr. Pett on trust for the 
 economic side of things. 
 
 Mr. Pett, as the basis of his political economy, held to 
 the fact that this was the age of machines. All previous 
 democratic theorists had taken, as it were, for the basis of 
 their republics the figure of the single-hand worker. All 
 states in the past were supposed to be run for the benefit 
 
124 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 of some hypothetic man wielding some quite definite 
 implement — a spade, a hoe, or the pickaxe. This individual 
 was, as it were, the unit of coinage of all the former state 
 currencies. 
 
 But Mr. Pett pointed out that, in the age in which we 
 lived, such an individual could no longer be regarded as a 
 proper imit. It was and it would remain a machine age. 
 The man who still worked with an implement was either an 
 incapable survival or a man so skilled above the common as 
 to be an artist. To all intents and purposes the spade was 
 as much an artist's tool nowadays as was the brush. You 
 would no longer dig a field ; nowhere, save in the most 
 backward of agricultural communities, would you even use 
 a horse-plough to a field. No, you used an immense 
 machine that could turn over a hundred acres in the day. 
 The spade, then, remained the tool of the most difficult 
 feats of the gardener, or of the market gardener. But the 
 cultivation of the earth in its broadness was given over to 
 the skilled mechanic — to the man who could drive, tend, 
 repair, and understand these immense machines. So it 
 was with hoeing, with weaving, with mining, with the 
 making of bricks, the baking of bread, the milking of cows. 
 And the odd thing was, according to Mr. Pett, that though 
 everyone knew that these things were so, there was no one 
 who had yet taken into account how immensely these 
 things had altered the aspect of the social problem. 
 
 It was as antiquated to legislate for the single sweated 
 worker as it would be to estimate your naval expenditure 
 upon the lines of the three-deckers of Nelson's date. No, 
 what we had to do was to go in for a social policy that dis- 
 regarded expenditure altogether, and disregarded alto- 
 gether the vicissitudes of the individual. It wasn't any 
 longer the statesman's business to take into account a 
 picturesque and idealised blacksmith with his brawny arms, 
 his sleeves rolled up, resting an immense hanuner upon a 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 125 
 
 small anvil. The blacksmith had altogether disappeared 
 by now. You couldn't tell with certainty where to go to 
 find him lingering. What, then, was the use of considering 
 him, even in your most Utopian dreams ? It was hke 
 trying to make the ichthyosaurus happy. What you had 
 to do, according to Mr. Pett, was to soHdify the happiness 
 of those who were already happy, and Uttle by little to 
 bring all the rest into line. As Sergius Mihailovitch and 
 as Mr. Pett could remember, in their boyhoods the mere 
 possession of a watch by a boy, even of the wealthiest 
 classes, was sufficient to mark him off from, to let him appear 
 amongst all his brother schoolboys, as an exception — 
 as an aristocrat. Now there was no schoolboy who did 
 not possess a watch. And that was the work of machines. 
 And again and again Mr. Pett had returned to the charge. 
 It wasn't our business to puU down, but to level up. 
 
 Macdonald himself was contentedly aware that his own 
 views were less extended than this. What he saw was the 
 pleasantnesses, and these he desired to maintain. He 
 desired to maintain them simply because they were 
 pleasant to him to contemplate, just as the paintings of 
 Rembrandt were pleasant or the music of Dehbes. It 
 wasn't that he desired great possessions, but that it was 
 comfortable to him to be in a world where great possessions 
 existed here and there. It wasn't that he had any personal 
 ambitions, but that he liked to think that greatness was 
 a possibility. It wasn't that he desired the society of 
 the fine, the noble or the cultivated, for of his own will he 
 was setting but upon a long venture in the close society of 
 an egregious American, an obvious prostitute, a disagree- 
 a;ble and foolish king, a foolish chauffeur, an unwashed 
 Galizian, and a semi-imbecile actress. They were an odd 
 band to stand for any ideal or for any high adventure. 
 But Macdonald knew enough of the world, of history, and 
 of the fate of kings and peoples to know that they were 
 
126 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 about on a level with the figures of most idealistic move- 
 ments. They were probably not a bit the better or a bit 
 the worse than the supporters of Joan of Arc, of Robes- 
 pierre, of Washington, of Garibaldi, of Napoleon III. or 
 of Bismarck, just as they were not a bit worse than the 
 supporters of Orsini the conspirator, or Cauchon who burnt 
 the Maid of Orleans, of Benedict Arnold the traitor, of 
 Walker the fihbuster, or of all the innumerable spies, 
 unknown traitors, or forgotten idealists whose one crime 
 was their unsuccess. He didn't want more capable 
 associates, he did not ask for larger resources, he considered 
 that fate would undo him if he had all the battle-ships 
 of an empire at his back. Fate could imdo him by some 
 little thing — by something as little as the malignancy of 
 his wife or the breaking of a piston-rod. In the end, the 
 only thing was the fineness of the adventure, the spirit 
 in which the task was undertaken. 
 
 He was aware that Miss di PradeUa, who had been 
 laughing with Miss Coward, had risen from his side. She 
 had leaned her parasol against the table ; it had fallen to 
 the ground, and true to her prophecy, a waiter had sprung 
 to retrieve it. She was standing in the space between the 
 tables, looking rather flower-like in her pink dress, and 
 laughing without any self-consciousness at all, at Miss 
 Coward. Sergius Mihailovitch had not the least idea 
 of what was going on. Suddenly she lifted her skirts 
 just above her ankles and slowly she subsided until she 
 appeared to have sunk into the red velvet of the carpet. 
 
 There was a buzz of laughter, of applause, of reprehension. 
 Miss di PradeUa looked up at Miss Coward's face with an 
 expression of laughter and of childish triumph. She was 
 " doing the splits," victoriously and with a splendid 
 unconsciousness of the place she was in. 
 
 Half a dozen men stood up in their places to look at her, 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 127 
 
 the head waiter had an uncertain air. One of her feet had 
 pushed against the table-leg, utterly upsetting the King's 
 pile of toothpicks. He swore with a sudden passion, and 
 then, looking down at the smiling girl, exclaimed animatedly : 
 
 " I say I How perfectly ripping ! How does she manage 
 to do it ? " 
 
 And immediately he became quite animated. 
 
 The head waiter gingerly assisted the girl to rise, and 
 she came back laughing and smiling to Macdonald's side. 
 
 " I hope I have done you credit," she said. 
 
 " You couldn't have done anything better," Macdonald 
 answered. " You're worth your weight in gold. I think 
 I can let you off throwing the peach at the waiter and 
 pouring the champagne over the King's head. You've 
 been infinitely more artistic." 
 
 " Oh, but you'll give me the fifteen pounds ? " Miss 
 di Pradella said, with a sudden dismay. 
 
 " I should rather hke her to pour the champagne over 
 my head," the King exclaimed, " I shoidd think it would 
 be jolly ripping." 
 
 " Oh, you can aU do exactly as you like," Macdonald 
 said. " And you can all have as much money as you want. 
 The evening is quite a success." 
 
 For Macdonald had observed that the reporter of the 
 Daily Herald had snapshotted Miss di Pradella upon the 
 groimd and the King with his toothpicks. 
 
 But if it never came to throwing peaches, the King and 
 the young lady were throwing pieces of bread at each other 
 across the table, and even Miss Coward was so moved by 
 the gaiety of the occasion that she imitated, in her best 
 musical comedy manner, the crowing of a cock. This 
 was her only accomplishment. 
 
 They finished up the evening in a box at the Empire, 
 where there were already Mr. Edward U. Dexter and the 
 
128 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Marquis da Pinta. Macdonald was a little tired with his 
 long journey, and the American annoyed him intensely. 
 Moreover, Da Pinta, if he hadn't anything at all to say, 
 annoyed him almost as much. The Galizian was too 
 extravagantly dirty, and an old diplomatic uniform that 
 he had put on because he was going to be in attendance 
 upon the King was altogether too shabby to be bearable. 
 It gave Da Pinta the air of being a forlornly dilapidated 
 waiter at a German railway restaurant. It was, however, 
 Mr. Dexter who was really trying. He was normally a 
 loquacious man, but his first contact with a real king turned 
 him into a positive geyser of moral conversation. He was 
 a tall, fresh-coloured man, with silver-grey hair, and an 
 exceedingly healthy complexion. He was, of course, an 
 Anglo-maniac, and because he was going to be in attend- 
 ance upon a king, he had put on a Windsor uniform. 
 And because he desired to be as English as possible he had 
 grown slight, grey side-whiskers, like those of a barrister. 
 Thus, with his blue swallow-tailed coat, his white waistcoat, 
 from which there depended an enormous fob chain with 
 many seals, Mr. Dexter presented in a singular degree the 
 aspect of a John Bull, so that Seigius Mihailovitch could 
 not have said whether he resembled a music-hall singer or 
 a walking advertisement for somebody's coaching tours. 
 His voice had not so much the American accent as the 
 American quahty of highness, persistence, and monotony. 
 It went on and on and on, and at every fifth word Mr. 
 Dexter said : " Your Majesty." 
 
 Macdonald really needed to be quiet and, for the matter 
 of that, he really wanted to look at the ballet. But all the 
 while Mr. Dexter's voice droned. His theme was the high 
 morality of the American trust system. It was, said 
 Mr. Dexter, beneficent in every department in which it 
 dealt. It seemed to render petroleum celestial and 
 cheap ; beef a means of saving your soul, and inexpensive. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 129 
 
 From pork the trust system seemed to have eradicated 
 trichinosis, whilst bringing it within the range of the poorest 
 pocket. And when it came to railways, in which for the 
 moment Mr. Dexter was interested, there seemed to be no 
 end to the glorious visions which in the United States they 
 called up. To the remotest wildernesses Mr. Dexter's rail- 
 ways were going to carry not only ploughs but innumer- 
 able Bibles ; not only settlers but unity, concord, peace, 
 fraternity, democracy, Christian love, flannel blankets, and 
 the hot-air system of heating houses. Mr. Dexter positively 
 spoke of broad plains, waving with golden wheat, where 
 before the naked Indian had chased his prey. He spoke 
 of churches springing up in the wilderness, and of psalms 
 resoimding where before only the icy wind could be heard 
 screaming round granite rocks. And positively he spoke 
 of teeming populations. And the ultimate \'ision that 
 seemed to underlie all these images was that of Mr. Dexter 
 with a seraphic countenance, the benefactor of this smiUng 
 region, ascending slowly to heaven whilst the bells rang 
 from the steeples and the teeming populations upon their 
 knees followed his apotheosis with tear-filled eyes. 
 
 " And it is these blessings I desire to be the means of 
 spreading throughout Your Majesty's unhappy country," 
 Mr. Dexter shouted in the young King's ear. His Majesty 
 sat forward in the box, with the American behind him. 
 There was a vacuous smile upon the King's face. He 
 couldn't imagine what was happening to him ; he couldn't 
 understand a word of the American's florid EngUsh. But 
 from time to time he made faces at Miss di Pradella, who 
 grinned ecstatically whenever he did so. She thought him 
 a most agreeable child, for she had no idea at all of his 
 kingly quality. And once the King put in her mouth, in 
 full view of the audience, one of the chocolates with which 
 Mr. Dexter had filled the box. And just as Mr. Dexter was 
 beginning to turn his attention to the King's unhappy' 
 
 K 
 
130 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMFIY 
 
 country. Miss di Pradella made signs to His Majesty that 
 she wanted to throw a chocolate into his mouth. The 
 King let his huge underjaw fall open. Mr. Dexter paused 
 for a moment ; the orchestra played its loudest ; upon the 
 stage the fuU strength of the corps de baUet were marching 
 round under scarlet, green, and mauve garlands, in the 
 midst of blazes of purple, blue, and orange lights. The 
 unfortunate Da Pinta groaned miserably, and held his 
 dirty head in both his dirty hands. The English climate 
 caused him to have an almost perpetual and quite unbear- 
 able toothache, and at that moment his pangs were worse 
 than they had ever been. Miss Coward was smiling fixedly 
 at the stage, her level teeth remaining visible all the time. 
 And then. Miss di PradeUa's chocolate having fallen 
 into the King's white waistcoat pocket, Mr. Dexter judged 
 the moment opportune to repeat at the top of his voice : 
 
 "It is these blessings that I desire to be the means of 
 spreading throughout Your Majesty's vmhappy country." 
 Macdonald sprang violently up. He was shaking all 
 over with exasperation. 
 
 " God damn you ! " he really hissed. " Go and shout 
 your confounded information in Trafalgar Square, if you 
 want us all to be hanged." 
 
 Mr. Dexter looked appalled. " Really, your Excel- 
 lency " he was beginning with an aspect of anger. 
 
 " I tell you," Macdonald said, " that if you ever mention 
 this affair again I will kick you neck and crop out of the 
 whole thing, and you will never get a chance of speaking 
 to a king again in your life." 
 
 A great deal of the complacency went out of Mr. Dexter's 
 manner ; it was as if he were an inflated toy John Bull, 
 and had been pricked with a small pin. 
 
 " I am open to admit that I have been imprudent," he 
 said. " I hadn't realised the seriousness of it all. I 
 apologise fully." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 131 
 
 " Then don't do it again," Macdonald exclaimed. " I'll 
 come and see you to-monow morning and let you know if 
 I can take you on again." 
 
 A really great rage possessed him. Mr. Dexter was 
 panic-stricken ; he was even a little pale, and there was 
 no doubt about his contrition. But Macdonald hurried 
 his own little contingent out of the box, and his rage was 
 extraordinarily increased by the fact that Mr. Dexter, in 
 his bright blue suit, and the Marquis da Pinta, in his shabby 
 black with tarnished silver epaulettes and silver buttons, 
 escorted them apologetically down the brilliant stairs and 
 into the more brilliant Ught of the porch. 
 
 Macdonald took leave of no one, but, pushing his way 
 through the illuminated crowd that blocked all those pave- 
 ments of pleasure, he went solitarily away. He was 
 hardly thinking, he was just cursing, and it was as if each 
 footstep that he took was a separate stamp of rage. It 
 appeared to him that he had been outraged, rendered 
 ridiculous, and intolerably fatigued. He had crossed over 
 the Circus, and was walking fast along the Quadrangle 
 when he had a sense of a sort of pink companionship. 
 And there indeed was Miss di Pradella, swinging along 
 easily beside him. He stopped short and said irritably : 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 She had a little air of abashment and unhappiness. " I 
 want my fifteen pounds," she said. 
 
 He felt nervously in his pockets. " I haven't got any 
 money," he exclaimed. " Come to-morrow for it." 
 
 " But I must have it to-night," she answered. 
 
 Macdonald said : " Oh, hell ! Can't you trust me ? " 
 And then he laughed. " No, of course, you can't trust 
 anybody — I understand." 
 
 She did not contradict him, though she added, as a sort 
 of instigation, " If I don't take money home to-night I 
 shall be turned into the streets." 
 
132 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 And then Macdonald regained his good temper. " Oh, 
 well," he said, " you're probably worse off than I am. 
 Come on, and you shall see how I hve." 
 " But the money ? " Miss di Pradella exclaimed. 
 " Oh, I have got thousands of pounds at home," Mac- 
 donald said. " And you shall have as much as you want 
 if you're a good girl." 
 
 He felt as if he were telling fairy tales to a child. And, 
 for the remainder of the short transit, he interested himself 
 in *iier commonplace history, which she gave up. to his 
 questioning as if she were describing a railway journey, 
 dispassionately. 
 
 She had been bom in Vienna. She had joined a troupe of 
 travelling actors. She had been a general utility girl at 
 fifteen shilUngs a month with her keep. Then in Hamburg 
 the company had failed ; a girl-friend in London had 
 written that she could find her excellently paid work. 
 
 " But I don't hke the life," she said. " I have been here 
 a fortnight, and I want to go back to Hamburg and be an 
 actress again. When you have paid for your flat and every- 
 thing here, it is too expensive." 
 
 "You want to go back to Hamburg ? " Macdonald asked. 
 " Oh yes," she answered open-mindedly, " unless I 
 could find something better to do here." 
 
 They were passing again under the narrow tunnel where 
 they had first met. Macdonald stood still. 
 
 " Now supposing," he said, " I set you up in a flat and 
 paid all your expenses ? " 
 
 " I should like it very much," she said without enthu- 
 siasm. " Would you pay for my washing ? I hke washing. 
 Lots and lots of hnen." 
 
 " Oh, I pay for everything," Macdonald answered. 
 He was vaguely aware that a woman with a deep black 
 veil was watching them from the end of the passage. Her 
 figure in the shadow seemed dimly famihar to him. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 133 
 
 " Of course I'd set you up respectably," he said, " and 
 look after you. You could have proper dancing lessons. 
 But come along. We can talk about that to-morrow." 
 
 They passed the dark figure in the dark shadow and 
 turned to the right in the mews, that was Ht by an old 
 yellow gas lamp. 
 
 " It's very quiet here," Macdonald said ; and he unlocked 
 his door and threw it open. " Come along in." 
 
 He switched on the brilUant lamp. And then suddenly 
 he exclaimed : "By God ! that was my wife ! " 
 
 And he ran back out of the door again as quickly as he 
 could. But the dark figure was gone. 
 
 It wasn't to be seen on the broad pavements of Regent 
 Street, though he followed for some minutes several sohtary 
 ladies in black. Then he gave it up and returned to Miss 
 di Pradella. 
 
 In the brilliant illumination she was sitting on the table, 
 where his shirt had been laid out. She was swinging her 
 legs and, having taken out of her reticule a novelette of 
 the cheapest kind, she was reading with engrossment. All 
 round the walls hung Macdonald's garments on their nails. 
 But to Macdonald's surprise, in place of his bed of straw 
 there stood a shiny black and brass bedstead, the sheets 
 and blankets being covered with an eiderdown quilt of an 
 astounding, vermihon brightness. There was even a square 
 of carpet on the floor. And upon the pillow was pinned a 
 square of paper. Macdonald crossed to it, and before Miss 
 di Pradella had come out of her romance he read the words : 
 
 " With the comphments of Mr. Edgar T. Salt, Chauffeur 
 to H.M. the King of Galizia." 
 
 This was in copperplate ; but beneath it were pencilled 
 the words : 
 
 " To show that I am some use. N.B. — There is a hot 
 bottle in the bed." 
 
 Macdonald said : " Well, well, it's a queer world ! " 
 
134 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Miss di Pradella looked up from her book. "I'll get 
 you the money now," he said. And he drew out from a 
 vaUse a leather case containing bank notes. He counted 
 three into the girl's hand. 
 
 " I shan't give you twenty," he said, " because you'd 
 probably only be extravagant, and there is no need for 
 that if I'm going to look after you." 
 
 She slipped slowly down from the table and looked at 
 him reproachfully and seriously. 
 
 " You had better give me another," she said, " because 
 you're a married man." 
 
 " But what's the connection ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " You had better give me all the twenty pounds," she 
 repeated, " because I shall go back to Hamburg to-morrow, 
 I've never come between a married man and his wife, and 
 I never will." 
 
 " Well, it is an extraordinary old dark forest of a world," 
 Macdonald said. " Who would have suspected that all 
 these virtues and benevolences were hidden in its depths ? 
 We're an extraordinarily high-minded set of people, it 
 seems to me." 
 
 " I don't imderstand you," Miss di Pradella said ; " and 
 this is a very fimny place." 
 
 "There, there," Macdonald said comfortingly; "of 
 course I seem too good to be true. But then so does Mr. 
 Salt, and so do you." 
 
 " No, I'm not good," she said. 
 
 " Well, get along home, and pay your bills," he replied, 
 " It's all right. You shall have your flat and your washing 
 — oceans and oceans of washing ! And you shan't come 
 between anybody and anything." 
 
 ' Is that true ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, upon my word of honour," Macdonald answered. 
 " Now get along." 
 And suddenly she once more threw her arms round his neck. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 135 
 
 " Du bist herzensgut," she whispered in his ear. 
 
 " Oh, go away ! " Macdonald said cheerfully. " But I 
 am glad you've recognised that, all the same." 
 
 When Miss di Pradella had gone, he sat down and wrote 
 to his wife that he wasn't carrying on a vulgar intrigue with 
 the girl, but that it was part of the business in which he 
 was engaged. Then he went out and posted the letter. He 
 quite thought that his Countess would beUeve him. 
 
 In the brilUant light he lay gazing for a long time at the 
 bright almanac on the bare wall. A spot of high colour, 
 he thought that the lady it showed, with the green laurel 
 wreath in her hair, stretching out her arms to an approach- 
 ing automobile, resembled distantly Lady Aldington. 
 
 " Well ! " he exclaimed, " you wouldn't say that this 
 blazing place was a dark forest. But it is, all the same." 
 
 Then he turned out the light. 
 
136 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 VI 
 
 IN spite ,of agitated letters of invitation from that 
 gentleman, it was fully a week before Macdonald 
 called upon Mr. Dexter. And it was a very tiresome 
 week for him. He had to take the measure of the 
 GaUzian exiled court. And it took him a long time to 
 reahse that that court really hadn't any measure at all. 
 The immense rambling house in Lowndes Square was 
 exceedingly untidy, and Macdonald was given the nm of 
 it in a way that seemed to him to show a lack of any reason- 
 able precaution. An English butler usually opened the 
 door to him, and then there appeared to be an entire absence 
 of any other servants. On his first visit Macdonald really 
 was ushered by some sort of under-footman with a silver 
 chain round his neck into the drawing-room, where there 
 sat the Queen-Mother, three old French duchesses, and two 
 young English priests. But after that first visit Macdonald 
 seemed to be turned loose in the large house. No one knew 
 where the King was. The Marquis da Pinta generally had 
 the toothache so badly that he could give no information. 
 If Macdonald went into the room immediately on the right 
 of the entrance, he would find the rather gloomy dining- 
 room untidy with the remains of meals generally upon the 
 table. Behind this was a room that someone seemed to 
 have begun to arrange as a bedroom. It contained at 
 least an immense bedstead that was a real forest of twisted 
 mahogany pillars. Whilst, on the floor, with their faces 
 to the walls, were a number of pictures. On the left of the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 137 
 
 hall there was a large room, the entire floor of which was 
 covered with books, all deep in dust. This the Queen- 
 Mother once mentioned as the library. Apparently it was 
 the butler's business to see that Her Majesty had a dining- 
 room in which, at irregular intervals, she had meals of 
 some sort ; that she had the large drawing-room in which 
 to sit with the three duchesses and the two priests ; and 
 no doubt she had a bedroom. One of these days, appar- 
 ently, they were going to give state dinners and begin the 
 business of semi-royal entertaining. But, although they 
 had been in England nearly ten months, Macdonald could 
 not discover that they had done anything more than 
 receive a number of callers. It might have been considered 
 that the household was going through a period of protracted 
 mourning, only Macdonald was quite sure that there wasn't 
 any one in the house with sufficient energy to have given 
 any such order. 
 
 On the Sunday — Macdonald having arrived . in London 
 on Saturday — there could not have been any talk of busi- 
 ness. The Queen-Mother during Macdonald's formal call 
 talked only of the sermon she had heard, of the English 
 climate, and of the persecution that the religious orders 
 were undergoing in France. And Macdonald spent the 
 rest of the afternoon in arranging for the well-being of 
 Miss di Pradella. On the Monday, when Macdonald came 
 in from a protracted motor ride along the river by Kingston 
 and back to the Surrey hills, in the course of which they 
 were three times stopped for exceeding the speed Umit, 
 having dropped the two young ladies at their respective 
 addresses, the King and Macdonald returned to Lowndes 
 Square. They found the drawing-room in possession of 
 an English princess and her husband, together with two 
 or three other ladies. The royal personage told a good 
 many entertaining stories of her experience in making tours 
 in Canada, India, and the Straits Settlements. This was 
 
138 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 quite agreeable, but it did not lead up to any business 
 conversation. Macdonald spent the evening in taking poor 
 Da Pinta to a new dentist, whona they knocked up in the 
 midst of an evening party that he was giving. On Tuesday 
 the Queen-Mother was in retreat in preparation for the 
 feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. On Wednesday, 
 being that feast itself, she was out the whole day paying a 
 round of calls and dining at the Spanish Embassy. On 
 Thursday the house was full of Brazilian notabiUties, and 
 just before dinner the Queen-Mother hurried off to take 
 her share in the ceremony of perpetual adoration at the 
 Brompton Oratory. 
 
 The King himself Macdonald had entirely at his own 
 disposal. There was never any difficulty about finding 
 him. If he wasn't at Mr. Salt's garage, Macdonald had 
 only to telephone to his own office, and the King would be 
 certain to be there or halfway between those two places. 
 Upon the whole, Macdonald found him to improve upon 
 acquaintance. He certainly hadn't any vices at all, just 
 as he was entirely undeveloped. He reminded Macdonald 
 fairly exactly of the boys of fourteen that he had known 
 when he was at school at Harrow. And the extraordinary 
 dullness which must have distinguished his upbringing 
 hitherto was shown in the avid curiosity with which he 
 explored any and every kind of machine. But, indeed, he 
 appeared to know absolutely nothing at all, so that it 
 astonished him beyond measure when, having run out of 
 petrol, near Reigate, Macdonald suggested to the King 
 that he should go into a local garage and purchase a can ; 
 for the King positively did not know how you bought things 
 over the counter. But, on the other hand, he was quite 
 pleased to acquire knowledge, and he displayed almost as 
 much curiosity as to the workings of the British Constitu- 
 tion and the elements of political economy as he had done 
 with regard to the inside contents of the new bonnet of the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 139 
 
 latest car supplied by the Resiliens Company. Probably 
 this was because all these things had about them some- 
 thing mechanical. And once he had discovered that 
 money would buy things, he asked quite timidly to be 
 allowed to purchase a cheap American clock, in order to 
 pull it into pieces. This he did on the homeward road, 
 and he was quite as happy as he was when he was pinching 
 Miss di Pradella's arm to make her scream. 
 
 For his part he was entirely ready to agree to any of 
 Macdonald's schemes for a future government of the 
 kingdom of Galizia. He agreed to anything with all the 
 more readiness since he took not the least interest in the 
 matter. But since the Queen-Mother must obviously 
 remain as Regent for several years to come, the King's 
 acquiescence was of no value to Macdonald. It was on 
 the Friday morning that Macdonald really took Da Pinta 
 to task. The new dentist having much relieved his pain, 
 that nobleman, who now suffered only from malaria, was 
 able to take a comparatively intelligent interest in the 
 counter-revolution. And Macdonald was able to get him 
 to see that it was absolutely indispensable that he should 
 have a business interview with the Queen-Mother. 
 
 The Queen-Mother had the strongest possible objection. 
 The festivities of the week being at an end, the normal 
 calm had descended on the royal house, and that afternoon 
 Her Majesty was seated in her drawing-room with only 
 two of the French duchesses. But she had three priests. 
 
 She had represented to Da Pinta that she could not 
 possibly leave her guests to have a private interview with 
 anybody. But the Marquis was able to counter that objec- 
 tion by suggesting that, as the drawing-room was eighty 
 feet deep, there was nothing to prevent Her Majesty's 
 withdrawing with Macdonald into one of the windows, 
 where they would be entirely out of earshot of the tea- 
 party, which the King might honour with his presence. 
 
140 THE N EW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Thus, at last, Macdonald found himself face to face with 
 the royal lady, whose countenance showed every sign of 
 bad temper. 
 
 " Your Excellency," she said, " I know nothing at all 
 about these matters. I have told you already many times 
 that I leave them entirely to yourself and to the excellent 
 Da Pinta." 
 
 Macdonald, who was upon perfectly familiar ground as 
 soon as it came to persuading dilatory royal persons to 
 take important steps, immediately lost himself in a flood 
 of apologies. It was abominable of himself, he said, so to 
 inconvenience Her Majesty, but nothing but the extreme 
 urgency of the moment and the necessity of having the 
 benefit of Her Majesty's wisdom, experience, and advice 
 would have emboldened him to withdraw Her Majesty 
 from her charming circle of amiable guests. . . . 
 
 With her head slightly upon one side, the Queen listened 
 whilst Macdonald expatiated on the subject of her own 
 merits and sagacity. Her pendulous, whitish features 
 with the heavy eyes, the white eyebrows, and the deep 
 folds in the cheeks relaxed little by little beneath the well- 
 trained flattery of this amiable and charming young man. 
 At last, with a motherly and condescending gesture of the 
 hand, she exclaimed : 
 
 " Well, well, what is it you want me to do ? " 
 
 Her Majesty seemed always to be dressed in rather shabby 
 and rather untidy black. But, as if in revenge, her broad 
 bosom appeared to be defended by an armour of diamonds 
 set in silver, and her gouty white fingers were covered with 
 rings with large jewels. And there was about the heavy 
 lines of her face such a potentiality of ill humour that she 
 might very weU be classed as royal. It was as if, though 
 she could not trouble you in anything material — as if, 
 though she could no longer order you to execution or confine 
 you in oubliettes, she could nevertheless extraordinarily 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 141 
 
 worry you by one or two words of scorn, supposing, of 
 course, that the opinion of her circle mattered at all to 
 yourself. And, indeed, she was really not at all a disagree- 
 able woman, though she loved money, ease, and deference. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch drew from his breast pocket a long 
 document upon parchment. 
 
 " I am certainly not going to read anything," the Queen 
 said. 
 
 " It is only necessary," Macdonald answered pleasantly, 
 " that Your Majesty should sign and seal it, Of course 
 Your Majesty may be signing and sealing away your entire 
 fortune. But it is not for me to object to that." 
 
 Sleepily the Queen-Mother beckoned towards her Da 
 Pinta, who was watching them anxiously from the tea- 
 table. And Da Pinta came towards them, his whole untidy 
 personality stiffened and his shoulders shrugging up to 
 his ears. 
 
 " What does this document contain ? " the Queen- 
 Mother asked. " You have read it ? " 
 
 Da Pinta bowed very deeply and very stiffly. " Excel- 
 lent Majesty," he exclaimed, " it contains the new constitu- 
 tion of the kingdom of Galizia. The provisions of this 
 constitution . . ." 
 
 " Pass the constitution," the Queen-Mother said. 
 " Only I warn you that if I find that in practice it works 
 out as anything disrespectful to myself, I shall make my 
 son abdicate at once." 
 
 " Excellent Majesty," Da Pinta protested, "is it to be 
 imagined that I, who have sanctioned this constitution in 
 your name, shoidd allow to pass anything that in practice 
 could appear to be disrespectful to Your Majesty ? " 
 
 " I do not think you would," the " Queen-Mother said. 
 " What else is in the document ? " 
 
 " That, Your Majesty," Da Pinta said, " confers upon 
 this gentleman, the Count Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald, 
 
142 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 one of the aides-de-camp of His Imperial Majesty of Russia 
 and a Commander of the First Class of the Order of Alex- 
 ander II . . ." 
 
 The Queen-Mother looked at Sergius Mihailovitch with 
 a sleepy interest. 
 
 " So you have got the Order of Alexander II ? " she 
 said. " That is very respectable. Of course I confer upon 
 you anything that you desire." 
 
 " But Your Majesty had better hear," Da Pinta said. 
 And he pulled out from his pocket a very old and shabby 
 spectacle case, from which he took out a pair of glasses. 
 He began to read short-sightedly. 
 
 " Your Majesty confers upon Count Macdonald and 
 myself the supreme command of all forces, whether by 
 land or sea, whether ecclesiastical or financial, of the 
 Galizian counter-revolution." 
 
 " I do not know about the financial control," the Queen 
 said. 
 
 " It means," the Marquis said, " only the control of 
 paying out money. Your Excellent Majesty may, of course, 
 at any time pay anything that Your Majesty wishes." 
 
 " I certainly wish to pay nothing," the Queen-Mother 
 exclaimed. " Not a single penny ! Pass all powers that 
 I confer on you, too. — Da Pinta, you look extraordinarily 
 comic in your spectacles." 
 
 Da Pinta said : " For the rest of the document I should 
 like His Majesty to hear what it is." 
 
 The King had come in and was holding over his hands, 
 as he stood beside the distant tea-table, a skein of wool 
 that the Duchesse de Creil, a very old woman, was winding 
 into a ball. 
 
 " His Majesty," Da Pinta said, " has already studied 
 and sanctioned the constitution, but it is well that he should 
 hear of the concessions of Crown lands that have to be 
 made." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 143 
 
 " Well, go and fetch him," the Queen said. 
 
 Da Pinta appeared to be becoming more and more busi- 
 ness-like. He no longer drooped so much, his moustache 
 appeared to grow spiky ; his beard stuck out more bravely. 
 And it was with positive briskness that he walked down the 
 long I'oom towards the King. 
 
 " That poor, faithful Da Pinta," the Queen said to Mac- 
 donald ; "do you see how he is becoming alive at the 
 thought of regaining his confiscated land ? " 
 
 Still brisk. Da Pinta returned, clicking his heels as he 
 wallced, and behind the yoimg King slouched along with 
 his hands deep in his pockets. 
 
 " These are the concessions," Da Pinta said ; and he 
 began once more to read. 
 
 " Your Majesties confer upon the Count Macdonald and 
 myself all such portion of the Crown lands in the province 
 of Galegas as shall be found to contain any minerals or any 
 oil of the kind known as petroleum. These minerals and 
 this oil shall be worked by such persons as the Count 
 Macdonald and myself shall agree to. One-tenth of the 
 gross profits of such mines and oil wells shall be the royalty 
 to be paid by such persons to the Galizian Crown. Dunng 
 the first ten years of these workings one-half of these 
 royalties shall be diverted to the repayment of the adven- 
 turers in the scheme of putting Your Majesties again upon 
 the throne. But this repayment shall not continue for 
 more than ten years from the day upon which Your Majes- 
 ties shall be proclaimed, whether or no the amount repaid 
 shall exceed or fall short of the sums advanced by the 
 adventurers. Count Macdonald and the Marquis da Pinta 
 in no case to receive any more than the sums personally 
 advanced by them." 
 
 The . Queen-Mother said : " Wait ; " and then she 
 appeared to reflect for several moments. 
 
 " No, I do not understand it," she said at last. " I do 
 
144 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 not understand what profit Count Macdonald will make out 
 of this enterprise." 
 
 " Oh, there will be plenty of profit for me," Macdonald 
 said. " Your Majesty need not worry about that." 
 
 " It is precisely about that I do worry," the Queen said. 
 
 " I do not hke people to make profits that I cannot see, 
 because they may be very big ones. And if there are very 
 big profits, I think it is the right of the royal house to share 
 them." 
 
 Macdonald laughed : " Then let it be put in the bond," 
 he said, " that the royal house shall have six-sevenths of all 
 the profits that I make out of this adventure." 
 
 " I think that is very proper," the Queen-Mother said. 
 " Da Pinta, see that that is added to this document." 
 
 Da Pinta looked first at the Queen-Mother and then at 
 Sergius Mihailovitch. 
 
 " This appears to me to be nonsense," he grumbled. " It 
 is expressly stipulated that Co\mt Macdonald is to make no 
 profits, and six-sevenths of nothing is nothing." 
 
 The Queen-Mother waved her fat, begemmed hand 
 towards the ground in a gesture of command. 
 
 " Put it in the document," she said, " we are well satis- 
 fied with the rest of it. It is an excellent constitution that 
 will be beneficent ahke to the people and the sovereign." 
 
 " But Your Majesty has not read the document," Da 
 Pinta muttered. 
 
 " My excellent Da Pinta," the Queen said, " you are 
 veiy stupid. If we are satisfied that the contents of a 
 document are satisfactory, then . . ." Her Majesty 
 wavered for a moment because she had nothing whatever 
 in her head. " Then," she continued with a new start, 
 " we are satisfied." And she looked almost triumphantly 
 out of her sleepy eyes at Da Pinta. " Besides," she ejacu- 
 lated, " you yourself, my excellent Da Pinta, have assured 
 me that this constitution will be excellent for our people. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 145 
 
 Am I to understand, then, that you withdraw? Or, 
 perhaps, have you too not read this document ? " 
 
 " Excellent Majesty," Da Pinta stuttered, " I took it 
 down with my own hand from the dictation of Count 
 Macdonald and of a Sefior Pett." 
 
 " Then you are acquainted with it ? " the Queen asked. 
 
 " How could I be otherwise ? " Da Pinta asked in return. 
 
 " And you think it will be excellent for the people of 
 His Majesty the King and myself ? " 
 
 " It will be admirable," Da Pinta said. 
 
 " Then what more could you desire ? " the Queen asked 
 triumphantly. " I think it would be admirable, and you 
 agree with me. My dear Da Pinta, I do not understand 
 why you make all these objections. Is it because it is 
 stipulated in the bond that you will make no profits ? 
 My faithful friend, can you not rely upon the well-known 
 generosity of our house ? Besides, your estates will be 
 returned to you." 
 
 The excellent Da Pinta, who enjoyed an income of jfi20 
 a year by the generosity of Her Majesty, set his heels 
 together and, with a stiff bow, said that if he could not 
 rely upon Her Majesty's generosity no one in the world 
 could. 
 
 " Then," the Queen said triumphantly, " I still more do 
 not understand why you have made all these objections 
 to our sanctioning this project. Can it be, my faithful 
 friend, that you have become avaricious in your old age ? 
 That I do not wish to believe. And yet you object to there 
 being inserted in this bond a clause giving to the royal house 
 a small share of the undoubtedly immense profits that 
 Count Macdonald will make out of this enterprise. What, 
 then, am I to believe ? Da Pinta ! Almost you force 
 me to imagine that you expect secretly to receive from 
 Count Macdonald that share of the profits— six-sevenths, 
 and surely that is little enough — ^you desire to divert into 
 
146 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 your own pockets that share which should fall to the 
 royal house. My dear Da Pinta, this saddens me very 
 much ; for if I cannot trust you, whom can I trust ? " 
 
 Fire glowed in Da Pinta's dark brown eyes. He stamped 
 his feet. 
 
 " But this is imbecile ! " he exclaimed. " Madam, 
 there wiU be no profits, so it would be the act of a madman 
 to put in a clause about profits." 
 
 " Da Pinta, you forget yourself," the Queen said, " Your 
 sufferings have made you mad, so we pardon you." 
 
 Da Pinta rolled his eyes despairingly upon Macdonald. 
 
 "Your Excellency," he exclaimed passionately,; "will 
 you decide whether it is I that am mad or this siUy old 
 woman ? " 
 
 The Queen had folded her arms, and was complacently 
 tapping her left elbow with the fat fingers of her right hand. 
 
 " Poor Da Pinta ! " she exclaimed. " Assuredly we 
 shall have to have you put into a strait-jacket. . . , 
 But I say that assuredly I will not put my name to this 
 document unless the clause about the profits is added." 
 
 " And I say," Da Pinta exclaimed, " that I will never 
 add it." 
 
 With a face of deep seriousness Macdonald turned to the 
 Queen. 
 
 " I vidll add it myself," he said. " It is obvious that 
 Your Maj esty is entirely in the right. Certainly six-sevenths 
 of my profits shall go to the royal house." 
 
 The Queen directed a glance of triumph to Da Pinta. 
 But that nobleman once more burst out : 
 
 " But if there are no profits, how can there at the same 
 time be six-sevenths of the profits ? " 
 
 " My dear chap," Macdonald said to him in Enghsh, but 
 speaking so fast that the Queen did not well understand 
 him, " if there were no madness in this sort of adventure 
 there would be no adventure." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 147 
 
 " What's that ? What's that ? " the Queen exclaimed. 
 " I do not Uke this whispering." 
 
 " Your Majesty," Macdonald said, " I could not very 
 well ask the Marquis to mend his manners at the top of my 
 voice." 
 
 At this point the King, who had been trying aU the while 
 to catch a large blue-bottle that noisily evaded his fingers 
 on the window-pane — the King turned round and uttered 
 the words : 
 
 " I say, look here ! " 
 
 But the Queen went on : "I ask Your Excellency, 
 though you as an interested party cannot be expected to 
 return an impartial answer . . ." 
 
 Again the King exclaimed : " I say, look here ! " 
 
 But the Queen continued : " I do not expect you to 
 return an impartial answer. AU the same, I ask you, 
 could any one's attitude — any royal person's attitude — 
 have been more correct than mine has been all through 
 this interview ? For I have two duties : one towards 
 the people of Gahzia, and the other towards the royal 
 house." And the Queen looked with heavy eyes at all 
 the three who stood before her. " In the course of these 
 tiresome negotiations," she continued, " I have in the first 
 place safeguarded the interests of a beloved people, and in 
 the second I have insisted on securing the interests of the 
 royal house against adventurers. . . ." 
 
 And then suddenly the young King burst out in English : 
 
 " I say, look here ! This is all bally rot. I won't have 
 that beastly clause put into the silly document. I won't 
 have Macdonald insulted, and that's an end of it. He's 
 a friend of mine, and if either of you insult him you insult 
 me. But I'll put a clause in to say that Macdonald shall 
 be made a Duke because he is the best friend I have. And 
 Miss di Pradella shall be a Marchioness because she is a 
 jolly girl, and Da Pinta shall have the Golden Fleece, and 
 
148 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 I'll do my best to get both Macdonald and Da Pinta the 
 Garter. So that's an end of it. . . . Put all that I 
 have said into the bond, Da Pinta, and let us have no more 
 talking. For I think it's our sheer duty to say that if 
 Macdonald, who is a gentleman, refuses to make any 
 profit, it's our duty not to want any share of the profits. 
 If I'm going to be a king, I am going to be a king, and I 
 can't have anybody — ^not even Count Macdonald — ^being 
 . . . What's that silly phrase you used at Kingston, 
 Mac ? ... Oh yes, I can't have anybody being plus 
 royale que le roi. Put it all in. Da Pinta, as I have said. 
 And then, for God's sake, get the signing and sealing over. 
 I can't stop here all day. I've got more important things 
 to do than this nonsense." 
 
 And the King turned once more to the large blue-bottle 
 and the window-pane. Outside, his new car was shining 
 in the sun, and he made a gesture to Mr. Salt, who, in his 
 mackintosh, was looking up at the house. 
 
 " Now that was a very silly speech," the Queen-Mother 
 said. " Who wants anybody to be plus royale que le roi ? 
 You would almost think that my son suspected me of being 
 selfish. But that, of course, is unthinkable. . . . Well, 
 what do we do next ? " 
 
 A sudden jab of toothache went through Da Pinta's 
 head, and he groaned lamentably. 
 
 " Yes, what the devil do we do next ? " he cried. 
 
 " Oh, give Her Majesty the pen. and light a little candle 
 for the seahng-wax," Macdonald exclaimed patiently. 
 " There is really nothing to be done except to sign and to 
 seal. After all, all the other things can be put into some 
 other document." 
 
 " Of course, of course," the Queen said. " How foolish 
 you have been. Da Pinta, to impede us with all these 
 objections 1 Of course, we must put all the rest into another 
 document. I think your sufferings have made you mad." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 149 
 
 " But this is only what we all wanted from the be- 
 ginning," Da Pinta gnimbled. 
 
 " Of course it is," the Queen said. " Now be silent I 
 Where is there a pen ? " 
 
 Between two of the windows there was a little table 
 that had upon it many silver objects. To this Da Pinta 
 rather sulkily proceeded. He lit a little candle that sent 
 a golden glow on to the facets of crystal ink-pots and on to 
 the roughened surfaces of chiselled silver seal-holders, so 
 that all the table resembled a small altar. 
 
 " Your Majesty signs first," he said to the King. " And 
 Your Excellent Majesty second ; then I sign as witness, 
 and seal as Great Chancellor of the Kingdom ; then Count 
 Macdonald ..." 
 
 " HaUo ! Where is it ? " the King said. He came from 
 the window, and, his tongue rolling round his lips, he signed 
 his name. " Now I can go." 
 
 " No, Your Majesty must wait to affix the seal," Da 
 Pinta said. 
 
 " Oh, cut it short ! " the King grumbled. 
 
 Da Pinta set the sealing-wax in the little candle and, 
 drop by drop, let the wax, hke drops of blood, fall on to 
 the parchment. He worked the wax round and rotmd. 
 
 " And this is history ! " Macdonald uttered pleasantly 
 to himself. 
 
 The long room was getting a httle dark. In the back- 
 ground one of the duchesses by the tea-table had gone 
 to sleep, the old Duchesse de Creil was knitting fast. Two 
 of the priests were talking together ; the third had curious 
 eyes fixed on the royal group by the window. The King 
 sealed, the Queen signed, a great, fat, stupid-looking 
 woman with pendulous cheeks of a papery white. At the 
 second seal Da Pinta burnt his fingers, and he began to 
 suck them and to stamp his feet. But there was at least 
 the semblance of a decorous silence. 
 
150 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " And in the end," Macdonald exclaimed, " no doubt 
 all historic scenes at the heart of them were much like 
 this. Napoleon I was tortured by internal cramps when 
 he gave up his sword on the Bellerophon. Napoleon III 
 read one of the stupidest novels in the English language 
 all through the night before his abdiction. Without doubt, 
 Caesar was chiefly concerned in keeping his feet dry when 
 he crossed the Rubicon ; and no doubt Alexander, when he 
 sighed for new worl ds to conquer, was only hungry. . . " 
 
 "Now I suppose," the Queen exclaimed, "you will 
 allow me to finish my tea in peace. I consider that I 
 have been much too good-humoured." And going towards 
 the tea-table she held up one of her fat hands for Mac- 
 donald to kiss. He did so with one knee bent, and, 
 graciously, she sailed on towards the two duchesses and 
 the three priests. The King had already run out of the 
 room, and they heard from outside the long buzz of the 
 immensely powerful engine. It gave three great crashes, 
 and then they heard its noise fade into distance. Mac- 
 donald went near the table and bent over Da Pinta, who 
 was signing his name with elaborate flourishes and great 
 care. 
 
 " Where does the romance of all this come in ? " he 
 asked gaily. 
 
 " Romance ? " Da Pinta grumbled. " That detestable 
 woman will make me spit out all my teeth one of these 
 days ! I tell you she is unbearable." 
 
 Macdonald sat himself slowly down at the little table 
 and picked up a quill. 
 
 " And loyalty ? " he asked, " and patriotism ? Where 
 do they come in ? " 
 
 " Loyalty ! Patriotism ! I am sure I don't know," Da 
 Pinta exclaimed dismally. " It is all just a blague. It 
 would be better to be a peasant of the Gallegos district, 
 lying in the sun with his bit of goat's cheese and his 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 151 
 
 wine-skin, and his plough ox breathing down the back 
 of his neck. They have no troubles. . . ." 
 
 " Oh, come," Macdonald said, " that's a very common- 
 place unphilosophic way of looking at it. Remember that 
 you are the saviour of your country, and that your name 
 will be inscribed in letters of gold upon the Galizian roll of 
 glory." 
 
 Da Pinta only spat as if he had in his mouth little frag- 
 ments of tobacco from the end of a cigar. 
 
 " You talk like a child of ten." 
 
 "That's because my heart is pure," Macdonald laughed. 
 Then he signed his name. 
 
PART III 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 155 
 
 IT was in other ways a very busy time for Sergius 
 Mihailovitch, for, having taken stock of his position, 
 as it were between two breaths, it had occurred to 
 him that, for his daily bread, he might just as well 
 rely on the fact that he was chief manager of the ResiUens 
 Motor Car Company. He was quite aware that all that 
 was expected of him was his name on the prospectus of the 
 company, and he was quite aware that his name was not 
 worth the 800 guineas that he was at Uberty to draw from 
 the company. 
 
 He hadn't at first had the least idea of drawing it, but 
 on Monday, after signing Gahzian bonds, there had been 
 a meeting of the board of the company. He hadn't indeed 
 intended even to attend this board meeting, but there was 
 a Mr. Lawson, who was not only sub-manager, but also 
 the secretary of the company. Mr. Lawson had previously 
 occupied a post with a British firm. He had quarrelled 
 with the manager of the firm, and having been for eighteen 
 months, as he called it, " out of a shop," he had been forced 
 to accept a position with this American affair. This had 
 been a sad blow to his patriotism, for Mr. Lawson, whilst 
 he had been in his former position, had spent much time 
 in telling customers that all these American machines were 
 made of meat tins, joined together with hairpins. He 
 had spent so much time at it, and had worked himself up 
 into such enthusiasms of patriotism, that he felt himself 
 singularly subdued now that it was his duty to his 
 
156 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 employers exactly to give his former self the lie. He had 
 been used to say : 
 
 "Don't buy one of these cheap and nasty American 
 affairs. You'll find yourself sitting in the road one day, 
 with bits of scrap-iron all round you, if you do." 
 
 Now he had to say : 
 
 " What's the good of bolstering up these lazy British 
 firms ? You pay twice as much for one of their cars as 
 for one of ours, and the same quality. And why ? Because 
 they are over-capitalised and wastefuUy managed. You 
 aren't pajang for a better, but only putting a premium on 
 bad management. Why ! only look at the finish of our 
 bodies ! " 
 
 So that as yet the words did not come very glibly from 
 Mr. Lawson's tongue. He had only been at the job a 
 fortnight, and the mere organising of the ofifices and getting 
 the show-rooms in order had taken nearly all the time. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch had seen him quite often ; he had 
 spoken to him twice. For Mr. Lawson was always to be 
 seen running about with a sheaf of papers in one hand and 
 a foot-rule in the other — a rather small man, with a stiffish 
 brown moustache and worried brown eyes. 
 
 Once he had come to Macdonald and asked him if he 
 would mind having the receiver of the private telephone 
 from the works at Willesden set up in the passage beside 
 Macdonald's bedroom. And once again he had come to 
 Macdonald in the office to ask whether he might bring his 
 papers into Macdonald's room, and explained that his own 
 office on the other side of the show-room was too dark to 
 write in, and one of the fuses of the electric light had blown 
 out. He had to draw an advertisement for all the weekly 
 papers, and the boy was waiting for the copy. 
 
 Macdonald said : " Oh, come in ; " and the small 
 depressed man set down on Macdonald's desk his quill 
 pen, his camel's-hair brushes, and his little pot of sepia 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 157 
 
 ink. With extreme industry he had begun ruling black 
 lines upon a square of paper. He had gummed on a little 
 half-tone reproduction of a motor car. Beneath it he had 
 begim to write with shiny sepia : 
 
 "THE RESILIENS! EASY, ECONOMICAL RESI- 
 LIENT. YOU WANT ONE ! " 
 
 He looked at Macdonald, who stood over him. His face 
 had a httle depressed and weary air. 
 
 " That's not much good as an ad. ; but what can we do ? " 
 
 " It looks very pretty to me," said Macdonald. " What 
 more do you want ? " 
 
 " Oh, you want startling facts for an advertisement," 
 Mr. Lawson answered. " But what are we to do ? For 
 there isn't even a single member of the aristocracy who has 
 bought one of the things. There is no one on this side of 
 the water to look after this sort of job. I am not the man 
 for this, even if I had the time. It's heart-breaking, how 
 these Yankees manage things ! I don't know why they 
 wanted to set up in England at all. There is no one for me 
 to apply to for instruction. The board is nothing but old 
 women. As for Mr. Dexter, he can't tell the difference 
 between a wired tyre and the hot-box of a railway engine." 
 
 His whole manner expressed so much dejection that 
 Macdonald felt forced to say kindly : 
 
 " Oh, come, cheer up ! Ought not I to provide you with 
 startling facts ? " 
 
 Mr. Lawson said " You " in a tone that was an odd 
 mixture of contempt for Sergius Mihailovitch the idler, 
 and of admiration for him as an aristocrat. 
 
 " Well," Macdonald said, " I am supposed to be the 
 general manager. What have I got these expensively 
 furnished rooms for ? " 
 
 " Oh, you're too much of a swell," Mr. Lawson said. 
 
158 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Your title is only on the prospectus to rope in small 
 investors. You aren't supposed to do any of the practical 
 work." 
 
 " That seems rather hard on the small investors," Mac- 
 donald said. " I suppose they expect me to do something 
 for my money." 
 
 " It's rather hard on them," he got his answer. " But 
 that's the way it's done." 
 
 " It's the way it oughtn't to be done," Macdonald said. 
 
 " Well, you can't alter it," Mr. Lawson said gloomily ; 
 and he rang the bell and told the commissionaire to send 
 in the boy who had come for the copy from the advertise- 
 ment agents. 
 
 " Wait a minute," Macdonald said. " Tell the boy to 
 wait. Let's have a little talk about this." 
 
 He stood reflecting for a moment, and then he sat down 
 at the large desk opposite Mr. Lawson. 
 
 ■' None of this seems to me to be right at all," he said. 
 " Here am I, who am not expected to do anything at all, 
 and I have this large, fine room." 
 
 The walls of Macdonald's office were panelled in the 
 American fashion with dark green tulip wood. Upon the 
 right side of the room stood a Chippendale bureau. Upon 
 the panelling itself there hung facsimile reproductions of 
 Rembrandt's " Knight in Armour," Romney's " Lady 
 Hamilton," Gainsborough's " Blue Boy," and Van Dyck's 
 " Charles I " with the large white charger. All these 
 pictures were in heavy gold frames. There were in the 
 room three deep leather armchairs, and against the walls 
 a dozen Chippendale dining-chairs with seats of red leather. 
 The table in the centre was long enough to seat sixteen 
 people, and it was of black bog oak. 
 
 Mr. Lawson also looked round upon this gentleman's 
 dining-room. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that's the Yankee way of doing 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 159 
 
 business. I've seen their oii&ces in Chicago — just hke this. 
 And no business doing except getting the money out of 
 small investors. It's all swank, and a decent man hke me 
 oughtn't to be set to work at a job Hke this. They don't 
 mean to do any business here." 
 
 " Oh, weU," Macdonald said, " you might just as well 
 say that a decent man hke me oughtn't to be in a job like 
 this." 
 
 " I'll say it if you hke," Mr. Lawson echoed him. 
 
 Again Macdonald reflected. " The car is a good car, 
 isn't it ? " he asked. " In fact,. I know it is." 
 
 " Oh, it's a ripping good car," Mr. Lawson corroborated, 
 " and dirt cheap at the money, whichever quahty you buy. 
 The mere standardisation of the parts would make it an 
 absolute boon to anybody who can only afford one car. 
 Why, if you hve ia a place like Ashford and your differential 
 goes wrong, all you have to do is to wire up to us, and you'll 
 get a temporary spare part by the next passenger train. 
 Any other firm in the country would take a fortnight put- 
 ting your car straight, and all the time you'd have to be 
 without its services." 
 
 " Well, then," Macdonald said cheerfully, " if the car is 
 all right, all we've got to do in the interests of the small 
 shareholders is to put the other things right." 
 
 " You can't do it," Mr. Lawson repeated. But his tone 
 was slightly less despondent, and he added : " Of course 
 you could do something. But it would not be worth your 
 while to try." 
 
 "Ah, well, let's see," Macdonald said. "Let's review 
 the whole situation. It may not be worth my while, but 
 it's extraordinarily interesting. Besides, there are the 
 smaU investors to consider. Are there many of them ? " 
 
 " A great many," Mr. Lawson said. " The people who 
 have got this thing in hand have an extraordinary faculty 
 of getting money from poor people. You'd have thought 
 
i6o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 it couldn't be done with motors nowadays, but they have 
 done it. Nearly all the money in the show comes from 
 quite poor people, who can't aiford to lose a penny. If you 
 like to put it that way, the amoimt of energy they have 
 put into extracting money from the poorer pubhc is exactly 
 the counterpart of what they want on the side of selling 
 what they ought to sell. We shan't sell anything at all. 
 How can we ? There is only me and two chaps to haul the 
 cars about in the show-room, and a couple of chauffeurs 
 to take customers for rides. And there's nobody else at 
 all, except the typewriter." 
 
 "Well, we'll see about that," Macdonald said. "Of 
 course, I am extraordinarily innocent. I ought to have 
 seen that an oily Pharisee Uke Mr. Edward U. Dexter 
 wasn't the sort of person to do anything but swindle quite 
 poor investors. He couldn't be trying to sell an honest 
 article. He talks too much about being an instrument for 
 the benefit of humanity. . . . But now, supposing we 
 look at the advertisement. I am not an expert, but I'll 
 just consider myself a member of the public to whom we 
 appeal. Supposing you put, in little italics, under your 
 large black letters . . .? But here, let me . . ." 
 
 And Macdonald took the sheet of paper from Mr. Lawson. 
 He wrote beneath the words : " You want one," in small 
 copper-plate letters the additional words : 
 
 " We have only been selling m this country one fortnight, 
 but aheady H.M. the King of Galizia has run one of our 
 cars three thousand miles without a hint of engine or 
 tyre trouble, while H.M. has been summoned three times 
 for exceeding the speed Hmit. These facts talk ! " 
 
 Mr. Lawson surveyed this announcement with a critical 
 eye. 
 
 " It's better, of course," he said ; " but— it's open to 
 objections. It looks as if we favoured unlawfulness." 
 
 " Well, we do — don't we ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY i6i 
 
 " Of course we do," Mr. Lawson conceded ; " but we 
 mustn't say so." 
 
 " Oh, you're too extraordinarily English," Macdonald 
 laughed. " We can issue another advertisement next week 
 to say how shocked we are that the King should ever have 
 done such a thing. That will put us right. Because, of 
 course, we are shocked." 
 
 Mr. Lawson looked at Macdonald with misgiving. 
 
 " But how wiU H.M. like it ? " he said. 
 
 " Oh, I'll take the responsibility of that," Macdonald 
 answered. " And while we're about it, just do this." He 
 took once more the advertisement, and made two little 
 round blots of ink, one beyond each end of the reproductions 
 of the motor car. Under one he wrote : 
 
 " By special appointment to H.M. the King of Gahzia." 
 
 " Oughtn't we to say the ex-King ? " Mr. Lawson asked. 
 
 " Oh, I'U take the responsibility of that, too," Macdonald 
 said. And he wrote beneath the other blot : 
 
 " By special appointment to H.I.M. the Grand Duke 
 Nicholas Alexandrovitch of Russia . . ." 
 
 " I have the right to confer that appointment myself," 
 he added. " Of course, it will cost a couple of hundred 
 pounds. But I suppose somebody wiU pay it." 
 
 " But we can't put that in until the expenditure is sanc- 
 tioned by the board," Mr. Lawson objected. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! " Macdonald said. " I'll pay it myself 
 if anybody makes any objection." 
 
 " Oh, but that's impossible," Mr. Lawson said. " I 
 can't really sanction that. You could never run a company 
 on those lines. It has never been done." 
 
 " My dear chap," Macdonald said, " what's the objection ? 
 If my conscience calls on me to spend £200 on the company 
 for the good of the widows and orphans that the company 
 is trying to swindle . . . what's the objection ? " 
 
 " But it's not business-like," Mr. Lawson objected. 
 
 M 
 
i62 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Such a thing has never been heard of. As the secretary 
 to the company, it's my duty to protest." 
 
 " It's going to be done now," Macdonald said with an 
 amiable firmness. " Just you get that advertisement, as 
 I have drafted it, off to the agents at once. I suppose they 
 can get engraved blocks of the arms of Galizia and of the 
 Grand Duke ? " 
 
 " I suppose they can," Mr. Lawson said ; " but it all 
 seems to me to be very immoral. There is something queer 
 about it all. It's not thoroughly scrupulous." 
 
 " You mean it's too scrupulous," Macdonald said. 
 " That's why it disturbs your English conscience. But 
 I have got to do something to justify my having these fine 
 rooms, whilst you have only got a sort of a dog kennel on 
 the other side of the show-room, and you do all the work." 
 " Oh, that's all right," Mr. Lawson said, " because I am 
 only an employee, and you're a nobleman." 
 " Only a foreign one," Macdonald said. 
 " Oh, you behave exactly as if you were an Enghsh peer," 
 Mr. Lawson sighed as he began once more to redraft his 
 advertisement. 
 
 " Now, I thought I behaved a little better than that," 
 Macdonald laughed. 
 " I don't know," Mr. Lawson said, " it's all so queer." 
 Nevertheless, ten minutes later Macdonald heard him 
 telUng the advertisement agent's young man in tones of 
 the most business-hke ferocity that there would be hell to 
 pay if the agents did not get out blocks with the arms of 
 Galizia and the Grand Dulce in time for sixteen weekly 
 papers and eleven daihes on Thursday. 
 
 And on Thursday itself, happening to see Sergius 
 Mihailovitch going out of the show-room, he said rather 
 timidly : 
 
 " Isn't your Excellency going to attend the board 
 meeting ? It's going on now." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 163 
 
 And Macdonald found that the board meeting was going 
 on in his own room. Upon the black oak table eight 
 blotting pads and eight shining pewter inkstands had been 
 arranged, and round the table itself sat seven elderly 
 gentlemen. One of them said to Mr. Lawson : 
 
 " Now, Mr. Secretary, it's quite time we got begun." 
 And he looked at his watch. 
 
 But Mr. Dexter, looking more English than ever in a suit 
 of pepper-and-salt tweed, cut away into long tails so that 
 it resembled a gamekeeper's suit — Mr. Dexter threw the 
 whole assembly into confusion by exclaiming : 
 
 " God bless my soul I Let me introduce Count Mac- 
 donald to you all." And Macdonald made the acquaint- 
 ance of Major-General ADiusen, an elderly gentleman with 
 mutton-chop whiskers ; of Sir Archibald Cull, a very old 
 gentleman with a white beard ; of the Hon. Mr. Samuel 
 Isaacstein, a middle-aged gentleman with mutton-chop 
 whiskers and double chin ; of two gentlemen whose names 
 he could not catch ; and of another gentleman whose real 
 name was Bryant, but who was always addressed as Mr. 
 Roy because he represented the firm of Roy, Roy, and 
 Pringle, the solicitors to the company. 
 
 They all engaged in a great deal of desultory conversa- 
 tion, and Mr. Dexter talked a great deal of what the 
 American railway system might do for the benighted coim- 
 try of Russia — the conversation having turned upon that 
 kingdom because of Sergius Mihailovitch's origin. All the 
 time Mr. Lawson sat at the top left-hand comer of the 
 table, silent and depressed, looking down at the papers 
 spread on the table before him. Suddenly Mr. Isaac- 
 stein pulled out a fat gold watch. 
 
 " Really, Mr. Secretary," he exclaimed, " it's time you 
 read the minutes of the last meeting. Time is money, 
 you know." 
 
 The son of a British peer, Mr. Isaacstein spoke the 
 
i64 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 English language with a strong German accent. He had 
 indeed been bom and educated at Frankfurt on the Main. 
 
 They all took their places round the board of black oak, 
 and, turning their faces towards Mr. Lawson, they b^an 
 to play with quill pens in the inkstands before them. Then 
 Sir Archibald Cull, who sat at the head of the table, said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, the business before the meeting " 
 
 But one of the unidentified gentlemen interrupted : 
 
 " Surely we've forgotten the minutes of the last meeting ? " 
 
 And Sir Archibald, without appearing disturbed, said : 
 " Mr. Secretary, will you read the minutes of the last 
 meeting ? " 
 
 Mr. Lawson began to read out : " The Resiliens Motor 
 Car Company of Great Britain and Ireland, Limited. 
 Board Meeting at the company's offices on September ist. 
 Present, Sir Archibald Cull, Major-General Alhusen . . ." 
 
 A decorous silence reigned ; they might have been in 
 church, all these gentlemen so pink-fleshed, so white 
 whiskered, and Sergius Mihailovitch felt descend upon 
 him a deep calm, an unrivalled satisfaction. He was in 
 the midst of a really British manifestation. Here was the 
 solidity, the orderly routine, the practical knowledge of 
 how to conduct public or commercial affairs. 
 
 He was sitting between Major-General Alhusen and Mr. 
 Isaacstein. The secretary continued reading the minutes. 
 Suddenly the Major-General said in a low voice : 
 
 " It's going to rain. I've got a twinge of gout in my right 
 big toe." 
 
 Sir Archibald said from the end of the table : " It 
 can't be going to rain, the glass is going up." 
 
 " It's going to rain," the General repeated obstinately. 
 " My great toe is better than your glass." 
 
 " I made the glass myself," Sir Archibald said. 
 
 " Well, it was God made my toe," the General said. " I 
 guess He's better at making things than you." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 165 
 
 All the while the secretary's voice continued in a restful 
 undertone. Mr. Dexter turned his head to one of the 
 unidentified gentlemen beside him. He began to talk. 
 Sergius Mihailovitch caught the words : 
 
 "... Added three and three-quarter million acres 
 of wheat to the world's supply of wheatland." 
 
 Mr. Isaacstein said huskily, " You should take Flox 
 for the gout. General. I always takes Flox mineself " 
 
 The General paid no attention to him. He shouted at 
 Sir Archibald : 
 
 " I'll bet you two to one in monkeys that it rains before 
 twenty-four hours are over." 
 
 Mr. Lawson passed a sheet of paper to Sir Archibald, 
 who exclaimed: "You know I never bet," whilst he 
 signed his name without reading the paper. 
 
 Mr. Lawson passed the paper to the Major-General, who 
 signed it whilst he was listening to one of the imknown 
 gentlemen opposite. The unknown gentleman opposite 
 was suggesting that AUiusen should take out a weather 
 policy at Lloyds. Alhusen pushed the paper on to Mac- 
 donald. . . . 
 
 " But what am I to do with it ? " Macdonald asked him. 
 
 " Do with it ? " the General exclaimed, as if he were 
 trj^ing to talk courteously to an idiot. " Sign it, of 
 course 1 " 
 
 " But I don't know what it is," Macdonald said. 
 
 " Oh, sign it, sign it 1 " the General said. Then he 
 called to the gentleman across the table : 
 
 " Lloyds won't insure against a certainty, and when my 
 toe aches " 
 
 " Gentlemen," Sir Archibald exclaimed from the top of 
 the table, " the business before the meeting is the raising 
 of a further capital sum of . . ." 
 
 Mr. Lawson took down his words rapidly. No one esle 
 paid him any attention. 
 
^diitt^a^^y^ 
 
 i66 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mr. Isaacstein pulled the paper out of Macdonald's 
 hand. " You don't sign it," he said. " You weren't 
 present at the last meeting." He signed himself and threw 
 the paper across the table. He winked largely at Mac- 
 donald and chuckled. 
 
 Everybody was talking at once about a by-election in 
 Worcestershire. One of the imnamed gentleman had got 
 hold of the new prospectus of the company which had been 
 drafted by Messrs. Roy & Roy. He wanted to know what 
 was meant by the term " good will " in that document, 
 and he made some light pencil markings. Sir Archibald 
 exclaimed that " good will " meant the stock, buildings, 
 and fixtures. Mr. Lawson explained that it did not mean 
 the stock, buildings, and fixtures. The gentleman who 
 was known as Mr. Roy, but whose real name was Mr. 
 Bryant, quietly took the document from the unnamed 
 gentleman and rubbed out the pencil marks with a piece 
 of india-rubber. 
 
 Sir Archibald exclaimed : " Gentlemen, the proposal to 
 raise new capital is carried unanimously. As there is no 
 other business before the meeting this meeting is now 
 adjourned . . ." 
 
 The unidentified gentleman said that Sir Archibald 
 ought to have used the words " at an end " instead of 
 " adjourned." But every one was on their feet. Mr. 
 Isaacstein clapped Macdonald on the shoulder. 
 
 " That's how it's done, me boy ! " he exclaimed. He 
 winked once more and, pulling out his fat watch, he hurried 
 away. 
 
 Sir Archibald and the General took their high hats from 
 Macdonald's bureau. Each of the high hats had a deep 
 mourning-band. They each said : " Good day, gentle- 
 men," and walked out side by side. The two unidentified 
 gentlemen took their high hats from off the red seats of 
 Chippendale chairs against the wall. Each of their high 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 167 
 
 hats had a mourning band not quite so deep. They each 
 said : " Good day, gentlemen," and left the room. Mr. 
 Roy, whose real name was Bryant, gathered all his papers 
 into a black bag and took his bowler hat from the table 
 before him. He left the room without saying " Good 
 day," for his mind was already deeply occupied with a 
 case that he had to attend immediately at the Law Courts. 
 Mr. Lawson was gathering up his own papers and the 
 blotting paper of all the other gentlemen. He appeared 
 to be very tired, and was grumbHng to himself. 
 
 Macdonald approached Mr. Dexter, who was standing 
 in a British attitude before the fireplace, his two hands 
 upon his hinder thighs. He smiled benevolently at 
 Macdonald. 
 
 " A good day's work," he said. " Shall we go and have 
 limch, and talk over our own httle affairs ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't lunch with you," Macdonald said. 
 "I've kept the King of Galizia waiting for us all this time. 
 But just tell me one thing . . . Shall I be expected 
 to sign the minutes of the next meeting ? " 
 
 " Of course you will," Mr. Dexter said, with a British 
 breeziness. " Of course ; of course we all shall." 
 
 " I didn't imderstand a single word," Macdonald said. 
 
 " Of course not, of course not," Mr. Dexter answered. 
 " We none of us did. But it's all right." 
 
 " You mean," Macdonald asked, " that the money will 
 come out of the pockets of the small investors just as 
 well, whether we understand it or not ? " 
 
 " And when are we really to discuss our own little affair? " 
 Mr. Dexter evaded Macdonald's question. 
 
 " I don't know," Macdonald said. " I am very busy. 
 I've got the concession from the King and the Queen- 
 Mother properly signed and sealed. But I can't say when 
 I shall have time to talk it over. I'm not much in the 
 humour at this moment." 
 
i68 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Oh, come ! " Mr. Dexter exclaimed. " Come, come ! " 
 
 Mr. Lawson, who had gathered up all his blotting paper, 
 approached Macdonald noiselessly. 
 
 " I should much like," he said, " to have a word with 
 Your Excellency before Your Excellency leaves the room. 
 It's not a matter connected with the company, but I 
 beUeve it's rather urgent." 
 
 Mr. Dexter began to tiptoe towards the door. " I'll go 
 and speak a word or two to His Majesty," he said, " whilst 
 you're having your private interview." 
 
 He was almost out of the door in his eagerness. But 
 Macdonald called out to him : ■; 
 
 " It won't be any use, you know, your trying to get 
 concessions out of the King behind my back. The King 
 is still a minor." 
 
 Mr. Dexter stood still as if he had been struck a hard 
 blow in the chest. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," Macdonald said. "I know you 
 aren't trying to go behind my back. I know your eagerness 
 is really due only to your desire to hck the dust off a king's 
 boots." 
 
 Mr. Dexter's lips moved inarticulately. 
 
 " There, there ! " Macdonald exclaimed ; " that is only 
 my nasty humour. If you would like it, I shall have the 
 greatest pleasure in taking you and your daughter for a 
 run with the King and myself and the ladies. We can 
 lunch somewhere by the river. It will be very pleasant." 
 
 A high smile irradiated Mr. Dexter's cheeks. 
 
 " That will be delightful ! " he said ; and he hastened 
 through the door, leaving a sort of glow of gratitude behind 
 him. 
 
 " How you do treat Mr. Dexter ! " Mr. Lawson said. 
 " What a polished irony you have ! I try to think of 
 things to say like that, but they never come into my 
 head.' 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 169 
 
 Macdonald was stamping his feet and swearing violently. 
 His eyes blazed, and all his hair became ruffled. 
 
 " It's the most damnable business," he said. " Oh, it's 
 damnable 1 " 
 
 " There, there ! " Mr. Lawson tried to soothe him. 
 " The meeting was quite regular. There wasn't anything 
 out of order. I can understand what you feel at the 
 thought of the small investors. I always feel it myself 
 when I am reporting these meetings. I always have to 
 have a good glass of port afterwards. I'm going to have 
 one now. Shall I fetch you one ? " 
 
 " Yes, do ! " Macdonald said. " What's that ? " 
 
 They heard the sound of Mr. Dexter's voice raised very 
 high. 
 
 " Mamie," it exclaimed, " get into your smartest motor- 
 coat and take a taxi here as quick as hell ! You're going 
 to lunch with the King." 
 
 " It's Mr. Dexter talking through the telephone," Mr. 
 Lawson said. 
 
 Macdonald exclaimed : " Oh, damnation ! Oh, dam- 
 nation ! " And he made hurriedly, round the table, 
 towards the door ; but Mr. Lawson stood gently in front 
 of him. 
 
 " I wotildn't go out just yet," he said. " Not till you've 
 had your glass of port and feel better." 
 
 Macdonald ran his hand down his forehead. " Perhaps 
 you're right," he said. " But just go out — do me the 
 favour to go out and ask the ladies in the King's car if 
 they'd mind going to lunch at the Savoy alone. Tell them 
 that the King and I have got business together. You 
 understand ? Get them out of the car before Miss Dexter 
 can get here. Let them have the new sixteen h.p., and 
 Darr to drive them for the afternoon." 
 Mr. Lawson looked rather stupidly at Macdonald. 
 " Don't you understand ? " Macdonald asked. " I 
 
170 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 can't have Miss Dexter driving about in public with those 
 women. I thought even Mr. Dexter would shy at the invi- 
 tation. But he's such a damned snob that he hasn't. 
 And I'm in a hole ! " 
 
 Mr. Lawson hurried from the room. And Macdonald 
 remained walking up and down agitatedly, and exclaiming 
 to himself : 
 
 " I'm no good for this sort of thing," he said. " I 
 oughtn't to have to do with fools. What's the matter 
 with me ? I'm no good. I'm as bad as a woman ! What 
 would it matter to me if that odious American swindler's 
 silly Uttle daughter did come in contact with the other 
 two ? It wouldn't matter a curse." 
 
 But he continued to walk up and down, tall, thin, and 
 fair, with his hair in disorder. 
 
 " Decidedly," he said, " there's a soft spot in me. You'd 
 say there was a screw loose too. It's not my business to 
 keep the world in order. . . ." 
 
 Mr. Lawson came quietly back with a large tumblerful 
 of dark liquid in his hand. 
 
 " There, drink that," he said, " there is nothing like it. 
 You'll feel better at once. It's from the cellar of my 
 grandfather, who was the Bishop of Richmond." 
 
 Macdonald drank off the whole glass at a draught. 
 
 " Oh, you oughtn't to have done that," Mr. Lawson said 
 reproachfully. " You'U have missed all the flavour, and 
 I have only got three dozen left." 
 
 " Oh, my poor dear chap ! " Macdonald said. 
 
 " Oh, it's all right ! " Lawson answered " Perhaps 
 you'll join me in a bottle when your nerves are more at 
 leisure. But it's all, all right. The ladies are quite ready 
 to go to the Savoy, and Darr has got the sixteen h.p. out 
 already. There, you can hear the engines. . . ." 
 
 Macdonald sighed with relief. 
 
 " But aren't those ladies quite respectable ? " Mr. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 171 
 
 Lawson asked, with an innocent wonder in his brown eyes. 
 " They're dressed hke young duchesses." 
 
 " Respectable as your grandmother I " Macdonald 
 grumbled. 
 
 " Oh, but my grandmother was quite respectable," Mr. 
 Lawson said, with an innocent and amazed protest. " She 
 was the wife of the bishop." 
 
 And then Macdonald burst into a fit of laughter. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said at last, " those yoxmg ladies are 
 perfectly respectable. But it's their profession to be 
 suspected of immorality. They're like inverted bishop's 
 wives. They've got to live on their reputations. But, of 
 course, I didn't mean anything against your grandmother. 
 It was a silly schoolboy phrase that I learnt at Harrow." 
 
 "Oh, that's aU right," Mr. Lawson said. "But it's 
 very interesting to hear your theory about hving on repu- 
 tations, and I'm awfully glad you're feeling better, 
 because . . ." 
 
 " Because what ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 Mr. Lawson stuttered rather nervously. " Now, don't 
 get upset again," he said, " because it's a thing that might 
 happen to all of us. It has happened to all of us. And, 
 of course, if those ladies aren't quite respectable it explains 
 it all. At first I thought it was debt . . ." 
 
 " But what the deuce is it ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " Now, don't get angry ! " Mr. Lawson said. " But 
 there's a man . . ." 
 
 " A man ! " Macdonald repeated. 
 
 " Yes, waiting ! There is a man waiting in Little 
 Walden Street. And there's another waiting outside your 
 door in the mews. They're waiting for you. At least, 
 they've been asking Darr and the commissionaire questions 
 about you. And they have each of them separately given 
 Darr and the commissionaire a sovereign to hold their 
 tongues." 
 
172 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Again Sergius Mihailovitch relieved the little man's 
 feeling by bursting into laughter. 
 
 " Then they aren't baiUffs," Mr. Lawson said. " Only 
 detectives ? I thought they were bailiffs." 
 
 " Oh, you'll find this neighbourhood buzzing with 
 detectives," Macdonald said. " It's all right, it's exactly 
 what I want. I should have been extremely disappointed 
 if they hadn't turned up." 
 
 " But what are Darr and the commissionaire to say to 
 them ? " Mr. Lawson asked. " They both came to me 
 and told me at once, and they said they would say anjrthing 
 in the world you wanted, because you're a real gentleman ! " 
 
 " What a lot of kindness of heart there is in the world ! " 
 Macdonald said. " It's perfectly astonishing ! Let them 
 just say the exact disreputable truth. The more disre- 
 putable they make it the better it will suit me. I'm an 
 idle, dissipated, bankrupt adventurer, you understand." 
 
 " But we all know," Mr. Lawson said, with an accent of 
 hero-worship, "that you're one of the best famiUes in 
 Europe." 
 
 " My dear chap," Macdonald said, " I'm only telling 
 you what to tell the detectives." 
 
 " But," Mr. Lawson said, " are they to tell both detec- 
 tives the same thing ? For they're employed by two 
 different firms. The commissionaire, who knows a thing 
 or two, says that one comes from Nash's in Conduit Street, 
 and the other from May's of Baker Street." 
 
 " Oh, I think he must be mistaken," Macdonald said, 
 " for there's only one Government that would want to 
 watch me. My own Government might. But they always 
 employ detectives of their own— most drunken Russians." 
 
 " Well," Mr. Lawson said, " the commissionaire was 
 positive that there were two from two separate firms." 
 
 " Then I suppose they want to be extra sure," Macdonald 
 said gaily. 
 
THE TSTEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 173 
 
 He took his motor cap and spectacles from a drawer in 
 the bureau and ran through the show-room. Miss Dexter 
 was sitting in the car beside the King. Her father was 
 beaming opposite her. As Macdonald got in beside Mr. 
 Dexter he perceived a fat and florid man, with large boots 
 and an egregious umbrella, hiding behind the taxi-cab that 
 had brought Miss Dexter. And when they drove off he 
 perceived this individual speak hurriedly to the driver 
 of the taxi and bolt into the cab. It followed them. 
 
 " Now, this will cost the Galizian Government a pretty 
 penny for cab fares," Macdonald said gaily. 
 
174 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 II 
 
 IT was upon the whole a pleasant run ; but because 
 they had started so late they could not get, even 
 with the smartest driving of Mr. Salt, any further 
 than Richmond. They lunched, therefore, in a 
 little hotel overlooking the Terrace and the wide view of 
 the Thames that, through a fine, Indian summer haze, 
 showed here and there only Uke large loops and sickles of 
 pale silver. It was quite a pleasant Uttle domestic occa- 
 sion, and it was rendered the more pleasant because, every 
 time that Mr. Dexter began to talk about the higher morality 
 of trusts, his daughter said, in a Uttle grating invalid's 
 voice : 
 
 "Do shut down. Popper. You make my poor head 
 ache." 
 
 So that all they really had to talk about was the view, 
 the history of Richmond, the real Cheshire cheese and the 
 roast fowls, and the manners and customs of old-fashioned 
 English hotels. The occasion struck Miss Dexter as real 
 quaint just as the waiter who waited on them h"ad real 
 cunning old whiskers. This Miss Dexter was a little, pale, 
 quite old-fashioned American girl. There was nothing 
 whatever about her that was smart ; even her smile was 
 the smile of an invalid, and her brown eyes had in their 
 irises the shadow of what she called her headaches. And, 
 indeed, her headaches were the strongest characteristic of 
 her frail being. So that when she said to her father that 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 173 
 
 he must shut down Mr. Dexter became silent with an air 
 of consideration that seemed to be the only thing about 
 him that did not lack dignity. And when she said to 
 Macdonald : 
 
 " Mr. Count, you've got a real lovely voice ; it's just 
 grateful to my poor ears," Macdonald could not but feel 
 extremely pleased. 
 
 And even the King behaved hke a good boy. For one 
 thing, he was interested in the resihence of some new 
 puncture-preventing liquid that Mr. Salt had put into the 
 tyre. For another, he was quite interested in the history 
 of England as Macdonald related it, in its connection 
 with the landscape beneath their eyes. The poor boy had 
 never heard either any history or any fairy tales, and 
 Macdonald really contrived to let him see historical figures, 
 like the princes and princesses of fairy tales, walking about 
 amongst the falling leaves of the broad Terrace with the 
 very still view, in the breathless air, the whitish haze and 
 the mellow sunlight of the late autumn afternoon. And 
 he really liked Macdonald, so that when Miss Dexter, on 
 their rising from the table, said : 
 
 " I guess I've got to thank you, Mr. Count, for the vurry 
 happiest lunch of my whole life," the King brought out, 
 with an English schoolboy's blundering enthusiasm : 
 
 " Oh, he's a thundering good fellow, is old Mac, a right 
 down thundering good feUow ! " For, actually, the only 
 person who had been really kind to him since the death of 
 his father the late King had been an English groom in the 
 stables of the Palace at Flores. So that his EngUsh as well 
 as his manners might very weU have been those of any 
 young English duke who had passed the greater part of 
 his time in his father's stable. The poor young King had 
 really loved Jenkins the groom. He had learnt of him 
 ethics, morals and a rough-and-ready stable honesty. And 
 this affection he had transferred to Sergius Mihailovitch ; 
 
176 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 for Mr. Salt was too filled with the enigmatic coldness 
 of the skilled mechanic to be loved, however immensely 
 you might admire him. 
 
 The yoimg people went down into the car, but Mr. 
 Dexter stayed behind to try to pay his share of the biU. 
 Whilst Macdonald was gathering up the loose silver from 
 amongst the pieces of bread on the tablecloth, the American 
 began : 
 
 " Now, couldn't Your Excellency take the opportunity 
 of five minutes' discussion of our little plan ? " 
 
 " My dear chap," Sergius Mihailovitch said, " I've 
 told you before, this thing is much too dangerous to be 
 discussed in public places. . . . There is a chap— a 
 florid, fat chap, whom you will see sitting in the bar below 
 as we pass. And that man is a detective. He has followed 
 us from Little Walden Street, and he'll follow us back. 
 If we ever do discuss this thing, it'll be in a time and place 
 selected by myself." 
 
 Mr. Dexter had become vastly more eager over " their 
 little affair " during the course of that morning's ride. 
 His own motives were so inextricably mixed that he 
 couldn't in the least have unravelled them himself. For 
 one thing, he really imagined that he was anxious to spread 
 the blessings of American civilisation into a benighted 
 kingdom. For another, he really wanted to put his Ameri- 
 can correspondents, the two United States monarchs, into 
 a soft thing ; and he really considered that the oil-bearing 
 regions of the Gallegos district of that benighted kingdom 
 were exceedingly valuable, so that he would gain immediate 
 prestige and position in the syndicate that included the 
 two millionaires, himself, and one of the United States 
 secretaries of State — he would gain that prestige if, at a 
 cheap rate, he could obtain the concession of those oil- 
 bearing lands. He was also much impressed by the negli- 
 gence which Macdonald showed towards the King ; he was 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 177 
 
 still more impressed by the affection that the King had 
 shown to Sergius Mihailovitch. He had some faint idea 
 that whilst they were standing there his daughter might 
 be making inroads into the affection of the King himself. 
 And he felt more than anything an intense desire to keep 
 friendly with Macdonald, since that morning for the first 
 time in several years he had seen his Mamie show a little 
 colour in her cheeks and a little light in her eyes. To do 
 that again, to have it done for him continually, Mr. Dexter, 
 with his high colour, his side whiskers and his pepper-and- 
 salt suit — Mr. Dexter would have sacrificed all the other 
 motives of this life, for he loved his daughter with an in- 
 tense and dog-hke passion. So that he really turned pale 
 when he repeated, appalledly, Macdonald's words. 
 
 "If we ever discuss the thing . . . what do you 
 mean by that ? Isn't it settled that we do ? " 
 
 "I don't know," Macdonald said. "To be perfectly 
 candid, I disliked your business methods of this morning 
 immensely. I don't know that I should be justified in 
 imposing such a system as yours may be upon any country 
 that I'm interested in. To tell you the exact truth, I 
 think your whole methods are without any heart at all, and 
 I don't know just exactly what safeguards I can devise 
 against you. I'm thinking the matter out, and when I feel 
 settled in my mind I'll make an appointment with you." 
 " But, good God ! " Mr. Dexter ejaculated. 
 " I really can't talk.about it," Sergius Mihailovitch cut 
 him short. 
 
 " But my methods—" Mr. Dexter said. " Do you mean 
 to impugn my honesty ? " 
 
 " My dear chap," Macdonald said, " I shouldn't mean to 
 impugn the honesty of the Redskins who scalped your 
 ancestors, whoever they were. I shouldn't mean to impugn 
 the honesty of Judas Iscariot ; but there are methods I 
 like and methods I dislike. I'm a crank, you know." 
 
 N 
 
178 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " But if you want safeguards " Mr. Dexter stammered 
 
 . . . " I'm not used to being called Judas Iscariot. 
 . . . But I'll let you have any safeguards you want. I 
 should have thought I had explained sufficiently to you 
 how beneficently the system of combines really acts. But 
 I'll let you have all the safeguards, as you call it, that you 
 want." 
 
 " I certainly expect you to do so," Macdonald said. 
 " But the point is, that I want to think out what those 
 safeguards are to be. I can't conceal from myself that the 
 whole of history has been a fight between your sort of men 
 and my sort of men. And I want to make myself, and 
 anybody who depends on me, as safe as I can before I go 
 into partnership with you." And then Macdonald smiled 
 amiably. " You see, I don't want to be rude to you, but 
 it's the lamb going into partnership with the tiger, when all 
 is said and done." 
 
 " Upon my word. Your Excellency ! " Mr. Dexter said, 
 and he recovered some of his lost breeziness, " that really 
 is a most fanciful simile 1 " 
 
 " All similes are, you know," Macdonald said ; " the 
 point is, how far they come near expressing the necessary 
 truth. ..." 
 
 They fotmd the King lying imdemeath the body of the 
 automobile in the road. Miss Dexter was holding his cap, 
 his goggles, his pocket handkerchief, two spanners, and a 
 httle oil-can. She was even smiling faintly. 
 
 " I guess I was never an oiler and cleaner before," she 
 said. 
 
 Mr. Salt, who had been paying his own biU, came out 
 from the hotel door. They all got into the car. And 
 immediately afterwards, with an aspect of hurry, the fat 
 and florid man ran down the steps and bolted into his 
 taxi-cab. When he was comfortably following them into 
 Richmond Park gates, he was unfortunately turned back 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 179 
 
 by the keeper because hired vehicles are not permitted 
 
 to use those roads. 
 And on their way back it suddenly occurred to Macdonald 
 
 to say : 
 " By Jove, I'll take you to call on my wife at Putney 1 " 
 It had occurred to him that, not having received any 
 
 answer from the Countess, it was his duty to go and see, 
 
 at least, how she was. 
 
 Countess Macdonald herself opened for them the door 
 of a small villa standing well on the road towards Wimbledon 
 Common. She had been washing her hair, and was drying 
 it in the sun of the back garden, so that she had a towel 
 with a red border over her shoulders, and her hair itself 
 was loosely dripping down her back. In her left hand she 
 held a brush and comb. 
 
 " We've just looked in to see how you are," Macdonald 
 said pleasantly. They were all of them on the door-step, 
 for it had taken some time to get the door opened. He 
 added : 
 
 " This is Miss Dexter, this is the King of GaUzia, this is 
 Mr. Dexter." 
 
 The Countess surveyed Mr. Dexter with indifference, the 
 King with a glance of contempt. To Miss Dexter she gave 
 a look of keen scrutiny, which died down at once into 
 indifference. Then she looked at Macdonald with what he 
 knew was intended to be a meaning glance, though what it 
 meant he could not exactly tell, for he imagined that she 
 ought to be feeling particularly friendly towards him. He 
 stretched out his hand in her direction, and she put her own 
 behind her back. 
 
 " Don't touch me," she said. " I don't want to be 
 poUuted." 
 
 No one except Macdonald really understood this speech, 
 and he continued to smile friendlily. She was standing 
 
i8o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 full in the doorway, an erect figure in a sulphur-coloured 
 garment that they all took to be a dressing-gown. But 
 suddenly she withdrew into the passage. 
 
 " You can all come in if you want to," she said. " But 
 I don't know what you expect to get in this house." 
 
 It was Mr. Dexter who came to the rescue rather 
 astonishingly. 
 
 " Well, I guess we want a cup of tea," he said ; and 
 without a word the Countess marched right down the 
 passage in front of them. They came out in a back garden 
 which, though it was narrow, was extremely long. 
 Between two apple-trees a hammock was slung, and beside 
 it was a cane chair. The Countess marched straight to the 
 hammock and sat down in it, swinging her legs. She 
 pointed to the cane chair. 
 
 " You can sit there," she said to Miss Dexter. " If you 
 want tea, Sergius Mihailovitch can get it for you. My 
 servant is out." 
 
 Mr. Dexter suddenly fell upon the King like a refreshed 
 lion : 
 
 " If Your Majesty wiU just walk apart with me to be 
 out of earshot of my daughter's headache," he said, " I'll 
 explain to you what I was saying about the overhead trolley 
 system. I guess the ladies will not wish to hear it." 
 
 And he walked off the poor young man down the long 
 path beneath the apple-trees. Macdonald Ungered for a 
 moment beside the hammock. He had some vague idea 
 of trj^ng to discover how he had managed to displease his 
 wife, and he was very much afraid that the Countess would 
 insult Miss Dexter. And suddenly Miss Dexter broke out : 
 
 " Oh, Countess, I think it's perfectly quaint and cunning' 
 how you live here ! And I just love your husbajid. I 
 think he's the lovehest man I ever met." 
 
 The Countess swallowed in her throat and looked down 
 at her hair brush. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY i8i 
 
 " He's just the kindest, most thoughtful, most attentive 
 man I've ever met," Miss Mamie continued, " and I think 
 it must be just heaven for you to live with him 1 " 
 
 And suddenly the Countess looked kindly at Miss Dexter, 
 " My dear child," she said, " you must be very young." 
 
 " I'm just nineteen," Miss Dexter replied. " I was bom 
 in Buffalo, New York. And I've hved aU my life in Vienna, 
 where you don't see much of gentlemen. But I hope I'll 
 see a great deal of you, and that you'll teach me to be less 
 ignorant." 
 
 Macdonald walked quietly away over the grass and into 
 the kitchen. He Ut the gas-stove, boiled the kettle, found 
 the tea, the cups and saucers, the sugar basin, and the 
 tray. He had some difficulty in finding the milk, which 
 was in a can outside the kitchen window, where it had 
 been placed by the millanan. When he reached the 
 garden again, carrying the tray, he found beneath the 
 apple-trees Lady Aldington and the Duke of Kint5rre. 
 The Duke was bending over Miss Dexter, and Lady Alding- 
 ton seemed to be talking intimately to the Countess 
 Macdonald. But they all ceased their conversation upon 
 the appearance of Macdonald. 
 
 Kintyre and Lady Aldington explained that they had 
 run down to call on the Countess. Mr. Dexter was still 
 walking the King up and down the path at the end of the 
 garden. . . . 
 
i82 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 III 
 
 IT wasn't, however, for nearly a week that Mac- 
 donald could bring himself to have his business 
 interview with Mr. Dexter, and this was as much 
 as anything because of the bewildering muddle in 
 which he felt himself to stand. He could not reaUy get at 
 any main point of his immediate career. All he knew 
 was that an extraordinary number of people seemed to want 
 him to do an extraordinary number of things. Thus, Miss 
 Dexter insisted that he should go shopping with her. She 
 did not appear to know a single lady in England. Lady 
 Aldington sent him a card for an At Home. On the top of 
 the card there was written : " Dr. Farquhar will speak on 
 the nationaUsation of Scottish railways. You remember 
 Dr. Farquhar ? " 
 
 Miss di Pradella also insisted on being taken to Hampton 
 Court. He couldn't make out why she should want to be 
 taken to Hampton Court. She didn't appear to know 
 anything about the place. She wouldn't let either the 
 King or Miss Coward accompany them, and she insisted 
 on dropping Sergius Mihailovitch at an inn called the 
 Rainbow, whilst she herself was driven to another pubhc 
 house called the Swan. When she came back she exhibited 
 every sign of distress. It appeared that there had been at 
 the Swan tea-garden an elderly waiter called Niemkonski. 
 Some years before, Mr. Niemkonski had lent Miss di 
 Pradella's father twenty-five poimds. This had never been 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 183 
 
 repaid, and Miss di Pradella had learnt that Mr. Niemkonski 
 was now in very poor circumstances. He was, moreover, 
 the only Viennese that Miss di Pradella knew in London. 
 And she had heard, at the Swan tea-garden, that two days 
 before Mr. Niemkonski had been knocked down by a motor 
 car just outside the Swan, and that he was somewhere in 
 some hospital. She insisted that they must go and find him. 
 She said that Mr. Niemkonski had claims upon her honour. 
 She spoke as if she were an aristocrat of ancient lineage. 
 
 It was a great nuisance to Macdonald. The waiter with 
 the broken leg had a wife and three children in a back 
 street in Eahng. These also had to be found and provided 
 for. The two younger children were boys at school, but 
 the eldest was a girl of fifteen, who was taking cheap dancing 
 lessons. Macdonald promised that he would try to find 
 her a place in the ballet of the Talavera Theatre. It was 
 all really a great nuisance, because Macdonald had made 
 an appointment with Mr. Pett for five o'clock at his office, 
 and Lady Aldington's At Home was at nine. He realised 
 that he was practically saddled with the fate of the entire 
 Niemkonski family by the time he did arrive in Little 
 Walden Street at seven-thirty. 
 
 Mr. Pett and Mrs. Pett, too, were waiting for him in the 
 large room that contained the black oak table and the 
 Chippendale chairs. Miss di Pradella herself was quite 
 free of the place, and dropped herself into a deep armchair 
 and began to eat pralines. Mr. Pett was exceedingly angry 
 with Sergius Mihailovitch. He contrived by means of 
 effective cockney hints to convey the idea that Sergius 
 Mihailovitch had been trjnng to edge him out of any 
 control of the GaHzian counter-revolution. This was all 
 the more unreasonable in that for the last week Mr. Pett 
 had been laid up with a chill on the Uver. He had indeed 
 been so ill with it that although Macdonald had tried to 
 see him daily, the doctors had not allowed it. 
 
i84 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 He stood before the Chippendale bureau, swinging an 
 oak stick behind his legs. He was dressed in rather an 
 elaborate black tail suit and carried a top-hat ; but he was 
 wearing a blue flannel shirt, and his black eyes had what 
 in London is called a nasty expression. He exclaimed 
 violaitly : 
 
 " Look here^ you, I'm the chief person in this expedition, 
 and don't you forget it ! It's I that started the scientific 
 reactionary movement in the world. And if you do any- 
 thing, it's because you are my puppet. Understand ? " 
 
 Macdonald took out from the drawer of his bureau the 
 deed of agreement with the Queen-Mother and the King. 
 
 " You'll see if you read this that the terms you dictated 
 have been adhered to exactly," he said. 
 
 Mr. Pett fell vehemently upon the document as if it had 
 been a halfpenny evening paper from which he desired to 
 gather the result of the Boat Race. 
 
 " There is nothing in it," he said, " about my having 
 dictated these terms." 
 
 Macdonald took a pen from the bureau. " I'll write it 
 in the end," he said, "and sign it before a commissioner 
 of oath." 
 
 Mr. Pett reddened beneath his fury. He swallowed in his 
 throat, grunted xmdev his black and pendulous moustache, 
 and began seriously to read the document. 
 
 Macdonald turned to Mrs. Pett, who was asking Miss di 
 PradeUa what she had seen at Hampton Court. Mrs. 
 Pett appeared rather astonished when that young lady 
 denied having seen either the Raphaels and Van Dycks or 
 the Orangery, the Dutch Garden or the celebrated vine. 
 
 " I must say," Mrs. Pett commented to Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch, " that you don't appear to be much of a guide for 
 foreigners. You've shown this young lady nothing at aU." 
 And in painful and conscientious German she began to 
 promise JVliss di PradeUa tjiat she would herself take that 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 185 
 
 young lady to Hampton Court, and explain to her the true 
 significance of that place of gardens, decapitated queens, 
 and long picture galleries. 
 
 Macdonald explained that they had been upon an errand 
 of mercy and that accounted for their long delay. He 
 expressed himself as being overwhelmed with contrition. 
 
 " Yes," Mrs. Pett said seriously, " it is rather a pity. 
 We have been waiting for aU of two hours and a half." 
 
 And at hearing that Sergius Mihailovitch really became 
 overwhelmed. 
 
 " Oh, it does not matter about me," Mrs. Pett said softly. 
 
 " I can wait for ever, but " and by signifying her 
 
 wishes with her eyes, Mrs. Pett withdrew Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch to the extreme end of the room, where they sat down 
 upon two chairs side by side against the wall. 
 
 " It's going to be a very troublesome business," she said. 
 " If you only could bring yourself always to be punctual 
 in an appointment with Herbert ! And if only you could 
 make it fall out that nothing at aU is done without Herbert's 
 being present, that would make it much easier." 
 
 She looked at the ground rather apprehensively. Then 
 she continued at last : 
 
 " You know Herbert well enough. As long as he is 
 employed he is as reasonable and cheerful as a child. 
 And, you know, he is nearly as disinterested as you are. 
 But keeping him waiting is dreadful. You don't know what 
 it's been like. I thought he would do you some personal 
 violence." 
 
 " Just because he imagined that I was trying to jockey 
 him out of his share of the credit ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " Just about that," Mrs. Pett said. " You see, he has 
 got the brain of the imaginative writer although he only 
 writes serious books. When he is kept waiting with 
 nothing to do, his brain always gets to work, and it 
 always gets to work upon suspicions, I tell you whilst 
 
i86 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 we've been sitting here he's been imagining that you and 
 the King and the Queen-Mother, with troops and all the 
 rest of it, had sailed off to Galizia, and that you were going 
 to get yourself nominated Emperor of the Peninsula." 
 
 " But surely," Macdonald said, " he knows me well 
 enough . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Pett put her little appealing hand gently upon his, 
 
 " It's really very serious," she said, " Just consider ! 
 Just before you came in he had gone to the telephone to 
 'phone the whole story to the Daily Herald — all about 
 everything : you, and the Queen-Mother, and the King, 
 and Mr. Dexter, and the Russian battleship he believed 
 you had gone off in." 
 
 " But that would have ruined everything," Macdonald 
 said. " If the paper had published , . ." 
 
 " My dear ! " Mrs. Pett said, " my dear Sergius, my dear 
 friend, that's what I am so afraid will stiU happen. That's 
 why I so much wish that we weren't in this thing at aD. 
 Don't you vmderstand that Herbert does not want an5rthing 
 out of it except that you should acknowledge that he is fit 
 to manage everything ? " 
 
 " Well, of course I acknowledge it," Macdonald said. 
 
 " Oh, but can you acknowledge it enough ? " she con- 
 tinued, with her Uttle air of misgiving. " You'll have to 
 have it always in your mind. Do you know, I beUeve I 
 know what wiU happen. One day Herbert will ask for 
 something absolutely ridiculous. He will want to be 
 GeneraHssimo of the GaUzian forces or Archbishop of 
 Batalha. He won't want to be it, that is to say, but he will 
 ask for the nomination. And you will start with surprise, 
 or you will try to prove to him that because he isn't a 
 priest he can't possibly be made an archbishop. And 
 then, whenever that happens, the fat will be in the fire ; 
 and if he doesn't do something horrible against you person- 
 ally, he'll do something that will ruin your whole scheme." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 187 
 
 " Oh, come," Macdonald said, " I think you're a httle 
 nervous and run down ; but of course I'll keep in mind 
 what you say. If he wants to be GaUzian nominee for 
 Pope, he shall be nominated." 
 
 " Of course you understand," Mrs. Pett said, " he'll 
 back out of the nomination when once it is made. He's 
 going to back out of something to-day ; he will sigh that 
 he feels it will damage him as writer to take up any other 
 work. But what he will really mean is that he is not after 
 anything at all for himself. Only, for goodness' sake, 
 give him everything that he wants 1 " 
 
 " Oh, I'll give him the moon," Macdonald smiled. He 
 and Mrs. Pett had been very good friends for many years. 
 
 " Of course," Mrs. Pett said rather sadly, " everything 
 has changed in our relationships. Years ago, when Herbert 
 was an Anarchist and you gave up all your money to him 
 to administer, it was easy. And when he was a SociaUst 
 and you did the same thing, it was just as easy. But now 
 you're doing the administering, and he has to run in double 
 harness with you. It's almost as if — he feels it as if you 
 had some sort of control over him. It was all very simple 
 once, but now it's very complicated." 
 
 "Yes, everything is compHcated," Macdonald said. 
 " When I look back on any of my former phases — whether 
 it was Houndsditch, or Putney, or even at Wiesbaden with 
 the Grand Duke, it looks like the simplest life in the world. 
 Now I simply don't know where I am. And it goes on 
 growing. Yesterday I seemed to be independent and in 
 a country cottage ; to-day I simply don't know where my 
 responsibilities begin and end. To-day I have picked up a 
 waiter called Niemkonski and a hungry family. And, 
 upon my soul, when it's aU over and done with, I don't 
 beUeve I've got ten pounds in the bank. Besides, I've 
 got to go to Lady Aldington's some time to-night and am 
 not dressed yet." 
 
i88 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Oh, we are all going to Lady Aldington's," Mrs. Pett 
 said. " And we aren't dressed. We aren't going to be." 
 
 Macdonald looked at her questioningly. 
 
 " Oh, that's Herbert's idea of to-day," she continued. 
 " He says he won't go into the halls of the great and pre- 
 tend that he has forgotten his humble origin. That's why 
 he has put on a blue shirt with a black coat. You know 
 Herbert." 
 
 " Oh, I know Herbert," Macdonald laughed. " At any 
 rate, he's quite serene now." 
 
 Mr. Pett had thrown the document on to the black 
 oak table. He was smiling complacently down upon it. 
 He looked across at them, and suddenly he called from the 
 end of the room : 
 
 " That's a famous piece of work. You couldn't have got 
 anyone to do better than me. And you'll see it wiU work 
 out to a ' t.' I'll bet this will be the model constitution for 
 all the kings that ever get restored to their thrones after 
 this. And that is mine." 
 
 " Well, you'd better copjnight it at once," Macdonald 
 called back to him. 
 
 " Oh, blow all that ! " Mr. Pett answered. He looked at 
 the table and blushed uneasily all over his face. " You 
 don't suppose," he said, and he shuffled his feet, " that I 
 was in earnest when I said that I wanted any of the credit 
 of the thing. I am an author, that's what I am. This 
 kind of business is only recreation for me." 
 
 Macdonald was approaching him slowly along the table 
 to get at some more papers that were in the bureau behind 
 Mr. Pett's back. 
 
 " At any rate," he said, " the whole credit of the central 
 idea is yours. It took your scientific, economic mind to 
 originate that." 
 
 Mr. Pett shuffled still more with his feet and became 
 more and more modestly crimson. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 189 
 
 " Oh, rot ! " he mumbled so that his words were hardly 
 distinguishable. " The original idea was put into my head 
 by a chap called Vincent. He was the Daily Herald's 
 correspondent at Flores. And one day he happened to 
 say to me at the club that any Gahzian might be bought 
 for eight and fourpence — eight thousand picados and by 
 remitting his taxes for a year. . . . That gave me the. 
 idea of the whole thing. From that to calculating the 
 population of GaHzia and multiplying it by eight and 
 fourpence was a perfectly simple matter. The population 
 of Galizia is three milUon, and three milhon times eight and 
 fourpence is, roughly speaking, one million five hundred 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 " Still," Macdonald said, a little indistinctly over the 
 papers in the drawer that he had pulled out, " it was 
 certainly your idea — to bribe the whole population." 
 Macdonald was glad that he was able to keep his face 
 averted. It wasn't the sort of idea he would himself have 
 been glad to have. But Mr. Pett immediately became 
 animated. 
 
 " Yes, it is splendid," he said. " It's altogether one of 
 the most splendid ideas that ever came into a man's head. 
 It's simply that of Columbus and the egg. Taking the 
 ordinary household of Gahzia at five persons and account- 
 ing for the precious few who won't want to be bribed, it 
 means that every head of the house will get about three 
 pounds ten, and as living only costs them about seven 
 pounds a year per family, that means that the whole of 
 Galizia wiU live free for six months. In addition, we remit 
 all direct taxation for the first two years of the new reign. 
 Don't you see it means the Golden Age for GaHzia ? " 
 
 And Mr. Pett grinned a little, unscrupulous cockney grin 
 as if he had succeeded in cheating successfully at a game 
 of cards played for beans. But immediately his manner 
 changed to one of truculent morality. 
 
igo THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Mind you," he blared out threateningly, though at no 
 one in particular, " this thing is perfectly moral. Abso- 
 lutely ! Mind that ! . . . The business of the state is 
 to provide for the material happiness of its people. That's 
 all a state can do, and the only way it can do it is by means 
 of economics. Our scheme is perfectly moral because it's 
 perfectly sound economically. It may not be picturesque. 
 That's not my business as an economist. We give a starved 
 people six months of peace and plenty and two years of 
 reHef from the burden of taxation in order to recover from 
 times of disturbance. During those two years we develop 
 the enormous mineral resources of the kingdom, which have 
 never been developed because there has never been a period 
 of two undisturbed years in the history of GaHzia. That's 
 perfectly sound. If the republican ministry could do any- 
 thing nearly as good for the country it would not be moral 
 to displace them. But the republican ministry cannot. 
 It can't estabUsh confidence. It can't maintain peace. 
 It can't find capital. We can." 
 
 " Oh, it's aU right, Pett," Macdonald said cheerfully and 
 with a soothing manner, " you aren't addressing a public 
 meeting. We all know that." 
 
 He approached Mr. Pett from behind with his papers. 
 Mr. Pett began once more to blush. 
 
 " Of course I know I'm not addressing a pubUc meeting," 
 he said, " but it does no harm to restate these first prin- 
 ciples. It makes the grotmd feel firmer under my feet. 
 You don't seem to see that all this is a great responsibiUty 
 for me. You don't seem to see how serious it all is. Besides," 
 he added, with a new access of aggressiveness, " I know 
 that in your damned aristocratic silliness you sneer at my 
 scheme because it isn't picturesque. And the more often 
 you hear that it's sound, moral, and beneficent to an 
 oppressed people, the more often you get jolly well snubbed 
 in your silly pride." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 191 
 
 Mr. Pett's voice had become high and shrill with a sort of 
 impish malice, but he dropped it again to pleasanter tones 
 in order to exclaim : " Besides, it's all rot to say that I 
 deserve all the credit of the thing. It isn't true, and it is 
 putting too great a responsibihty upon me. It was I that 
 worked out the idea — but with me it was purely theoretic. 
 . . . A sort of a game. It was you, Macdonald, who 
 thought of putting it into practice. So you ought to have 
 all the practical credit. I only got an idea from a man 
 called Vincent. You're going to do it." 
 
 " Well, since we are making confessions," Macdonald 
 said pleasantly, " I don't mind confessing that I got my 
 idea from a man called Austin Evans. Austin Evans is an 
 American-Welsh filibuster when he isn't a sensational 
 joumaUst. He came up one day to me in my club and 
 asked me if I wouldn't join an expedition that was going to 
 steal ivory from the King of the Nigombi. He had got 
 together one hundred and fifty British and American 
 desperados, and they were going to make a raid from 
 Rhodesian territory. If the poor old king tried to resist 
 them, they would declare that he had attacked them by 
 armed force. And the Chartered Company were all ready 
 to annex Nigombi. That is how the British Empire 
 grows." 
 
 " Oh, we know all about that," Mr. Pett said ; " for the 
 matter of that I know Austin Evans a little fat, fiery 
 chap." 
 
 " But," Macdonald continued, " the point was that when 
 I didn't consent to go with him to Central Africa, Austin 
 Evans offered for fifty thousand pounds to make me 
 president of any smaU South American Repubhc with a 
 seacoast that I might point out on the map. For that sum 
 he was going to hire a battleship, fiU it with English des- 
 perados, and threaten to blow any seaport capital off the 
 map of South America." 
 
192 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " But you aren't going to trust a little, Ij^ing black- 
 guard like Austin Evans ? " Mr. Pett said contemptuously. 
 
 " Oh, I'm not going to trust him," Macdonald answered, 
 " but I'm going to thank him for giving me an idea. It's 
 the idea of the younger son and the armed black sheep of 
 this peaceful country. For you can say what you like, 
 my Pett, we shan't get hold of Flores without some sort 
 of pretence at an armed threat." 
 
 " Oh, you can have your silly old battleship if you want 
 it," Mr. Pett grumbled amiably. " It's a useless expense, 
 but rU sanction it. I know you must get the picturesque 
 element into this show by hook or by crook. You're the 
 spoiled child of this particular dark forest that I've made so 
 damned clear to you." 
 
 " If you wouldn't mind not talking so much," Mac- 
 donald said, " and if you would just look over these papers I 
 — they contain the approximate figures for the cost of practi- 
 cally everything, and as you have entire financial control 
 I want you to sanction every item." 
 
 With an astonishing want of loquacity Mr. Pett exclaimed 
 only, " All right." He caught hold of the large bundle of 
 papers that Macdonald held out to him, and he crushed 
 them into one or other of the pockets of his black coat. 
 
 " You've got to remember," he exclaimed fragmen- 
 tarily, " that I'm a thinker. An economist . . . Um 
 — um . . . not a book-keeper." And then he called 
 out : 
 
 " Come along, Anne ! We've got to go and eat and go 
 on to Lady Aldington's." He disappeared from the room 
 with the sudden scufHe of an alarmed rabbit, and they heard 
 him dropping his top-hat and swearing amongst the 
 automobiles in the garage. 
 
 Macdonald had all along been aware that Mrs. Pett was 
 conversing in undertones with Miss di Pradella, just as he 
 knew very well that she was keeping a careful ear for 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 193 
 
 everything that passed between himself and Mr. Pett. 
 And now both these ladies approached him. . . . 
 
 " I'm going," Mrs. Pett said, " to take this young lady 
 to Lady Aldington's after we've had a little simple supper 
 together." 
 Macdonald uttered a rather appalled " But — r-" 
 
 Mrs. Pett continued : " Oh, it's all right ; all sorts of 
 people go to Lady Aldington's, and we take whom we Uke. 
 And it will be an education for Miss di Pradella. Educa- 
 tion is always an excellent thing." 
 
 Macdonald said : " Well, well." He could not see that 
 any particular harm could come of it And the two ladies 
 followed Mr. Pett. 
 
 Miss di Pradella was smiling radiantly for no particular 
 reason. Macdonald had never discovered in her the 
 faintest trace of a desire foi social advancement. She 
 never seemed to want to know anybody or to talk to any- 
 body, but she spent hours of perfect contentment in poring 
 over her clean washing. 
 
 Macdonald descended into his basement and began to 
 dress. But he had not been at it for more than five minutes 
 when Mr. Pett ran into the room. His hair was very dis- 
 hevelled, and he began to pull papers out of his pocket and 
 to throw them on to the bed. 
 
 "Look here, Macdonald," heexclaimed, "I am a scientist ! 
 A profound thinker needing tranquil conditions and 
 leisure! I can't take up the financial control of this 
 thing. I really can't. It would take too much of my 
 time." 
 
 Macdonald said : " Well, well." 
 
 " I feel like a swine," Mr. Pett said, " throwing all this 
 new responsibility and work upon you. But I really can't 
 do it. I reaUy can't." 
 
 Macdonald said : " All right. Leave the papers on the 
 
 bed." 
 
 o 
 
194 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 And Mr. Pett went away. Macdonald continued his 
 dressing. He had got into his shirt and trousers when once 
 more Mr. Pett entered : 
 
 " Look here, Macdonald," he said, and he began to 
 stammer painfully : "I feel like a swine — a. mean hound. 
 But about the money. I can't raise it." 
 
 " What money ? " Macdonald asked. 
 
 " The money for the expedition," Mr. Pett stammered. 
 " I promised to raise half of it from my friends." 
 
 In the first flush and arrogant glory of his new idea for 
 a revolution Mr. Pett had enthusiastically undertaken to 
 raise at least half the money that would be needed. In his 
 capacity as a joumaUst writing upon social matters and 
 attracting a great deal of attention, Mr. Pett had met not 
 only a great many political peers, but a great many very 
 rich men. And because he always lectured them with 
 great arrogance whilst they Ustened to him with the greatest 
 respect, Mr. Pett imagined that he was reaUy intimate with 
 men who controlled miUions and milhons of money. But 
 upon his approaching Lord Egdon the banker, and the 
 Hon. Samuel Isaacstein, who was one of the directors of 
 the Resihens Company as well as Mr. Hutt, the director 
 of the Great Southern Railway, Mr. Pett had been received 
 with such a blank polite and attentive inattention that his 
 whole acute soul had become panic-stricken. He had 
 realised because the attitude of all these distinguished men 
 had been so similar, although they were each of them so 
 entirely indifferent — ^he had realised that not one of all the 
 wealthy and eminent men that he knew would have anything 
 to do with the speculation that he was proposing. It was 
 this panic that had made him iU. That had made him 
 desire to spoil the whole scheme by exposing it in the 
 Daily Herald. If he could not raise the money the thing 
 was going to be a failure. He could not see how Macdonald 
 was going to do it, for he regarded Macdonald with an 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 195 
 
 intellectual contempt. And Mr. Pett thought he could not 
 afford to be connected with failures. He had wanted to 
 pull out of it altogether ; he had wanted to smash it, to 
 ruin it. But that was only panic. The sight of Mac- 
 donald's cheerful and cool smile, the sight of the documents ; 
 the news that Mr. Dexter was anxious to provide half the 
 money ; — all these things had restored to Mr. Pett almost 
 all his original keenness. More particularly he was de- 
 lighted with the view of his own scheme for the constitution 
 of Galizia, carefully engrossed in a legal hand with the fat, 
 red royal seals attached to it. This was his own fineness 
 that he saw before him. And there had remained only the 
 one mortifying thing — the confession he had to make that 
 he had been unable to raise the money. 
 
 " I can't do it," he said. " I could if I weren't a philo- 
 sopher before everything. But I have my duty to my age. 
 I've been thinking it over. It wouldn't be right for me to 
 distract my attention. Of course, I'll give you some letters 
 of introduction." 
 
 " Oh, it's all right," Macdonald said. " I'll attend to 
 the money. Don't bother." 
 
 And Mr. Pett went away with deep peace in his soul. 
 Whilst Macdonald continued his dressing, he read in a 
 hurry several letters that he had found upon his return. 
 Four were invitations ; there were letters ordering cars ; 
 one was from a firm of soUcitors whose name he did not 
 know asking him to make an appointment to discuss a 
 matter which they did not specify ; and the last was a pohte 
 intimation from his bank that his account was overdrawn 
 by the sum of eleven shilhngs and threepence. This was 
 very worrying, because he had to provide for Miss di 
 Pradella's expenses next morning and he was very much 
 hurried to get to Lady Aldington's, whilst he hadn't in his 
 pocket enough money to pay for a cab. He walked to 
 Leicester House. 
 
196 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Lady Aldington gave him just one glance from amongst 
 a great group of diversely attired persons. She did not 
 smile, but her eyes rested seriously upon his. He did not 
 get a word with her. Instead he heard the whole of 
 Dr. Farquhar's speech on the Nationalisation of Scottish 
 Railways. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 197 
 
 IV 
 
 KINTYRE had dropped a gold cigar case in the 
 garden at Countess Macdonald's. But it wasn't 
 for two days that he remembered about it. And 
 then he remembered with extreme clearness. He 
 had just been going to take a cigar when the Countess had 
 swung herself out of the hammock to pour some milk into 
 Lady Aldington's tea. The cigar case had slipped out oi 
 his hand just as he sprang forward — for at times, when he 
 felt the situation to demand it, he could behave with all the 
 rigid politeness of a foreigner. He had spnmg forward to 
 relieve the Countess of her milk jug, and the cigar case had 
 slipped from his fingers into the grass. The grass was quite 
 long, being in seed, and Kintyre's operations with the milk 
 jug having taken a minute or so, he had forgotten all about 
 the cigar case in watching attentively what he considered 
 to be the interesting position. 
 
 He could not get out of his head the idea that his cousin 
 and Macdonald were what he called " au mieux," for before 
 his succession to the title, Kintyre had passed the greater 
 part of his time abroad. And just because his first impres- 
 sion of his cousin Emily had been received at the interview 
 between himself and Sergius Mihailovitch and the Grand 
 Duke, his first impression of the situation that existed between 
 his cousin and Macdonald had been one of great intimacy. 
 He had himself very quickly become intimate with Emily 
 Aldington. But there was nothing remarkable in that, 
 
igS THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 because they had merely taken up the cousinly relations 
 that they had dropped when they were thirteen and fourteen, 
 after which date the old Duke had very sharply separated 
 them. 
 
 A bachelor not particularly rich for his station, and 
 having let his town house, so that he lived more or less 
 permanently at Claridge's, Kintj^re found that he was going 
 to have a very agreeable pied-d.-terre at Leicester House. 
 He even found it pleasant to make a fool of Aldington. 
 But although he had been in and out of the house almost 
 every day since their return from Wiesbaden, he had not 
 heard his cousin mention Macdonald's name once, until 
 the afternoon when Emily Aldington had suggested that he 
 should go down with her to return the call — ^the extra- 
 ordinary, stiff, silent call — that the Countess had paid to 
 Lady Aldington in her saloon carriage between Rudesheim 
 and Ehrenbreitstein. Going down to Putney, Kintj^re 
 had made one or two polite references to Macdonald, whom 
 for the matter of that he really Uked. He was not in the 
 least inspired by curiosity. If it suited, or if it was necessary 
 for Emily to be " au mieux " with Sergius Mihailovitch, 
 he entirely approved. It was none of his business however 
 to inquire into the matter. But, on the other hand, it was 
 entirely his duty as a gentleman to show some interest in 
 his cousin's complement. So, as if he really desired infor- 
 mation, he began to ask a few questions about Macdonald's 
 opinions, what he was doing, and why his wife hved at 
 Putney ? 
 
 Emily Aldington, in the motor going down, had answered 
 with what might have been perfect openness or with what 
 might have been careful reserve. She had seen Mac- 
 donald, she said, only four or five times, but once or twice 
 for rather long periods. They had had a good deal of talk, 
 and she had foimd him extraordinarily pleasant and 
 sympathetic. She had found him, she said, one of the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 199 
 
 nicest men she had ever met, and she wished she could see 
 more of him. But she didn't know very clearly what his 
 occupations were, and during the autumn sitting of the 
 House she was so taken up by her political duties that she 
 could not expect to see much of Macdonald, who was 
 anything rather than a Whig. Indeed, Lady Aldington's 
 duties as a political hostess were that year unusually heavy. 
 She usually did the official receptions for the Minister of 
 the Fine Arts, who was a bachelor and quite a poor man. 
 But during August, the wives of two cabinet ministers 
 had died, and Lady Aldington had, as a matter of course, 
 taken over during the period of mourning whatever of 
 the social side of those ministries was indispensable. 
 
 " It's the misfortune," she sighed, " of being so very 
 much the richest person, and having so very much the 
 largest house of one's party. But I hope I shall see Count 
 Macdonald this afternoon, though I've heard someone say 
 that he doesn't live with his wife." 
 
 Altogether Kintyre had gathered that Lady Aldington 
 knew very little of Macdonald's affairs, however much she 
 might have penetrated and have appreciated his character 
 and his disposition. He remained silent for a minute or 
 two, and then he leaned forward to the little rack in the 
 motor before them and laid his hand upon her ladyship's 
 engagement book. He asked permission to look at it, 
 and ran through its pages for the next month or so. 
 There were not many blanks amongst aU the names of 
 societies for the promotion of or for the suppression of one 
 thing or another. But here and there there was an evening 
 free, and here and there a lunch time or an afternoon. 
 Kintyre took out the little pencil from the back of the book, 
 
 " What are you doing ? " Emily asked. 
 
 A minute or so later he handed her the book to look at. 
 Across each one of the blank spaces he had written : 
 
 Kintyre." 
 
200 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " And what does that mean ? " Emily Aldington asked. 
 
 " It means, my dear," Kintyre answered, " that there 
 are a great many too many flannel shirts in your engage- 
 ment book." 
 
 " I don't in the least understand you," Lady Aldington 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, think about it," the Duke answered. " They may 
 not aU wear flannel shirts, but whatever they do wear 
 you're a great deal too lonely. I don't at all Uke the looks 
 of you. Why do you stare so straight in front of you ? " 
 
 " I am only watching the trafiic," Emily answered ; 
 " Jenkins drives almost too skilfully." 
 
 " Ah, but you don't need to watch the traffic when you're 
 among the flannel shirts," Kintyre answered, " and you do 
 it just as much then as now." 
 
 " WeU, I'm pretty tired," Emily conceded. 
 
 " Tired and lonely and done," Kintyre answered. 
 " You can't keep it up. No, you can't. That's why I've 
 taken those spaces in the book. You won't have to watch 
 the traffic where I'll drive you. I am as lonely as you are, 
 really. So let's just join forces and work together." 
 
 Emily laughed : "I should think that would be rather 
 fun," she said. "Thank you, Kintjo-e." 
 
 Kintyre indeed really Uked his cousin well enough to 
 take a little trouble for her. Besides, he quite genuinely 
 wanted something to do, and he didn't see why he shouldn't 
 play providence to his cousin. His cousin was vastly 
 richer than he, and, he considered, vastly more virtuous 
 and more deserving. Besides, his motives were just a 
 little complicated by the fact that obviously Emily knew 
 nothing at all about the Gahzian coimter-revolution. And 
 Kintyre was interested in Galizia. 
 
 He owed that fact to a sort of lazy malice that he felt 
 against his uncle — really, it was his great-uncle — ^the late 
 Duke. The late Duke had added a large fortune to his 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 201 
 
 other large fortunes by developing the province of Batalha. 
 As a matter of fact, the late Duke had been an extra- 
 ordinarily good and persistent business man. There was 
 undoubtedly a touch of Jewish blood in all of their house. 
 Kintyre himself wasn't in the least interested in business ; 
 he didn't in the least want to be much richer than he was. 
 But eighteen months ago, at the breaking out of the Galizian 
 revolution, it had struck him that it would be rather fun 
 to do a httle dabbling in Galizian land. He hadn't at 
 that date reopened his acquaintance with Emily, and he 
 regarded her with a certain malice as being the person who 
 had inherited alike the title and the fortune of Batalha. 
 It had struck him, in fact, that it would be rather fun to 
 stick a pin into the ghost of his disagreeable old uncle by 
 making himself a huge fortune out of Galizia. Thus, at the 
 outset of the revolution he had gone to that distressed 
 country. He had taken a mining engineer with him, and 
 the two had spent an enjoyable month or so in poking 
 about amongst rocky sided and precipitous valleys where 
 there were only mule tracks, mud huts, and cheese. After- 
 wards the Duke alone had spent a week or two in the city 
 of Flores. Here he had spent his time amongst what he 
 regarded as a crowd of dirty republicans. And at the end 
 of those weeks he was in the possession of a great district of 
 confiscated land, bordering on the provinces of Gallegos and 
 Batalha. He had, that is to say, purchased the title to 
 these lands at a price so small as clearly to show him that 
 the republican ministers, who put the money into their own 
 pockets, did not expect to remain in power for more than a 
 few months at the very outside. Then Kintyre had returned 
 to London, where he had had a number of interviews with 
 several Galizian noblemen, whom he regarded as being a 
 little more dirty than the repubhcan ministers. As the 
 result of these interviews the Duke had found himself in 
 possession of the royalist rights to the same stretch of 
 
202 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 territory. He had paid almost nothing for them, for the 
 dirty noblemen were depressed and nearly starving. So 
 that altogether Kintyre possessed the double rights to a 
 district of almost a himdred thousand acres, for which he 
 hadn't paid much more than as many sovereigns. 
 
 And, upon the whole, he very decidedly desired the 
 restoration of the royalists. As far as he understood the 
 present negotiations, in that case his stretch of land would 
 lie between the province of GaUegos, which would be very 
 surely settled by the American speculators, and the province 
 of Batalha, which, by the power of Lady Aldington and her 
 factor, was at least as settled as the county of Cornwall. 
 In that way Kintyre's property would become almost 
 inevitably susceptible of vast developments. 
 
 So that it had been with feelings of polite curiosity that 
 KintjTre had watched the interview between his cousin and 
 the Countess during their short call. 
 
 He hadn't gathered very much from it, except the fact 
 that the Coimtess had waited on Lady Aldington at tea. 
 The Countess had done this in the most vigilantly polite 
 manner, pouring in milk, cream of which there had been 
 a small qucintity in a pewter can, and anxiously pressing 
 upon Emily her own home-made jam. Emily hadn't 
 " noticed " anything, but the Duke, who wasn't as used 
 as she was to oddities of advanced thought, found Countess 
 Macdonald a most extraordinary woman. He had never 
 really imagined anyone just like her. So that aU together 
 he had been extremely glad to remember that he had 
 dropped his cigar case into the long grass. He reaUy wanted 
 to deepen his acquaintance with the Cotmtess. He did. 
 
 He drove down to Putney in a hansom, for he had gathered 
 that the Countess disapproved of all kinds of motor vehicles, 
 and he expected her to open the door herself. The door, 
 however, was opened by a very large and quite vmmistakable 
 butler. This gentleman showed Kint5a:e into a room that 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 203 
 
 that nobleman could only regard as odd. On the table 
 were an immense quantity of uncovered pots of jam. The 
 waUs were covered with brown paper, the decoration of 
 one wall limiting itself to three large brass warming-pans. 
 The room also contained a grandfather's clock and four 
 large oak chests, whilst on one wall was a large coloured 
 reproduction of an early Italian Annunciation. There were 
 not any chairs, so Kint3n:e sat himself down on one of the 
 oak chests. He waited a long time ; he waited an intermin- 
 able time. He had never been kept waiting for so long. 
 At last there came in Miss Dexter, who told him that the 
 Countess would be down in a few minutes. She was 
 dressing herself. . . . 
 
 " Well, she needn't have taken the trouble for me," the 
 Duke said. 
 
 " I guess she didn't know it was you," the young lady 
 answered. " She thought it was Count Macdonald. We 
 were making jam. At least, we were tjdng paper on to the 
 tops of the jam-pots." 
 
 " And does the Countess always dress herself when she 
 expects Macdonald ? " Kintyre asked. 
 
 " I guess I don't know," Miss Dexter answered. " I 
 guess I'm not privileged enough yet to know so much about 
 the workings of this wonderful household. Don't you 
 think it's a wonderful household ? " 
 
 The Duke surveyed the jam-pots, the warming-pans, and 
 the tall clock. 
 
 " I am afraid," he said, " that I'm even less privileged 
 than you are. But it does appear certainly to be a wonder- 
 ful household." 
 
 " Oh, it is ! " Miss Dexter exclaimed. " These are a 
 most wonderful people. I've seen Count Macdonald 
 several times. He's the most wonderful man in the world. 
 He takes me shopping, and I just adore him. He knows aU 
 the Stores and just where you buy everything. And the 
 
204 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Countess is the most wonderful woman in the world. I 
 only had the privilege of meeting her twice — the other day 
 when you were here and to-day. She's let me help her 
 tpng up the jam, and I just adore her for it." 
 
 " Well, it does seem a reason for adoring her," the Duke 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad that you see that," Miss Dexter 
 answered ; " but, of course, you're sjmipathetic. I guess 
 you're some great poet. I didn't catch your name when 
 you were here the other day." 
 
 " Oh, I am only Kintyre," the Duke answered. 
 
 " Now, that's a pity," Miss Dexter said. " You ought 
 to be a poet. You look like one. And the best poets of 
 England come to read their poems to Countess Macdonald. 
 She says so. And if I was to be disappointed in not seeing 
 the Count, I did think I was going to be privileged to be 
 present at a reading." 
 
 Kintyre explained that he had only come to fetch his 
 cigar case. And at that moment the Countess herself 
 came into the room, very splendidly attired in a ruby 
 velvet dress. 
 
 When she entered, her face, as Kintyre made it out, was 
 carefuUy arranged in an expression of contempt and of 
 haughty reproof, so that he considered himself to be 
 receiving the full force of her greeting for her husband. 
 But the moment she perceived Kint3n"e, he seemed to see 
 three separate expressions come over her vivid features. 
 There was certainly disappointment about the lines of the 
 mouth just as there was certainly a touch of tears in each 
 of the hard eyes, and without doubt a touch, a sudden fire 
 — of curiosity. Kintyre certainly thought the Countess 
 the most extraordinary woman he had ever met, but he 
 certainly thought that at that moment he understood her, 
 as he considered himself to understand every woman. She 
 had without doubt put on her extravagantly blazing dress 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 205 
 
 for the sake of her husband's eyes. She wished to prove 
 how desirable she was, and at the same time she intended 
 to make him what Kintj^re would have called a heU of a 
 scene. 
 
 But he simply had not come ; that was why her eyes for 
 a minute had had tears in them. The curiosity meant, 
 he was perfectly certain, that she hoped he, Kint57re, had 
 come as some sort of ambassador from her husband. He 
 could tell perfectly well that this fierce and arrogant spirit 
 was in the habit of raging up and down that room with the 
 hard furniture. He imagined her pacing up and down like 
 one of the great caged cats waiting for a man whose presence 
 she passionately desired, and whom she would overwhelm 
 with outrages the moment he appeared. And he never, 
 Kintyre realised, came at all. And Kintj^re knew, when 
 he said that he himself came only to recover his cigar case, 
 that he was inflicting upon her a severe wound. But in 
 that moment he was so very much in the middle of an 
 exciting affair that he hadn't any time, coolly selfish as he 
 was, for more psychology. For Her Excellency became at 
 once calm and decided, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, it was your cigar case ? I thought it was Sergius 
 Mihailovitch's. So I sold it." 
 
 The Duke exclaimed — he couldn't think of anything 
 else to exclaim : 
 
 " That's very considerate ! " 
 
 The Countess was quite composed. " Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch," she said, " has no right to have such things. It was 
 gold with a coronet of diamonds, and it had a button of one 
 large ruby." 
 
 " Oh, I know what it was like," Kintyre said. " And 
 I'll aUow that it was rather gorgeous, but it was a present 
 from my mother. I should certainly not have bought 
 such a thing." 
 
 " Then you'll admit," the Countess said triumphantly, 
 
2o6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " that it wasn't at all the sort of thing that was fitting for 
 Sergius Mihailovitch's position." 
 
 " I shouldn't at all like to dictate the conduct of Count 
 Macdonald," the Duke said. " I don't know him well 
 enough." 
 " Well, I do," the Countess said. 
 
 And in the silence that followed for a moment Miss 
 Dexter, who sat upon the chest beside Kintyre, with her 
 eyes very wide, and her lips apart, exclaimed : 
 
 " I think it perfectly thrilling that I should be allowed 
 to be present at this interview. It's a privilege." 
 
 " It certdnly is," Kintyre said ; " but it seems an odd 
 one." 
 
 " It's not in the least odd ! " the Countess exclaimed, 
 " You're both friends of Sergius Mihailovitch ; you're 
 both members of the Smart Set. I wish Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch's friends exactly to imderstand what I'm doing. I 
 wish to act in public. I've nothing to be ashamed of. 
 Nothing ! Sergius Mihailovitch has no business with a 
 cigar case like that. He has no business with cigars at 
 all ! They're above his station ! " 
 
 " But, my dear lady," the Duke said, " his station is at 
 least as good as my own." 
 
 " I say nothing about that," the lady said. " I only say 
 that cigars are things I disapprove of. So, of course, when 
 I saw a cigar case Uke that apparently in the possession 
 of Sergius Mihailovitch . . ." 
 
 " But it wasn't in the possession of Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch, you know," the Duke said. " And even if it had 
 been, you might pretty certainly have argued that he hadn't 
 bought it. Men practically never buy cigar cases like 
 that. They're nearly always presents from their women 
 friends." 
 
 " That's what I thought." the Countess said. " That's 
 why I sold this one." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 207 
 
 " But that wouldn't have been the way to make yourself 
 popular with your husband," the Duke said. 
 
 " I haven't the least desire to make myself popular with 
 my husband," the Countess said. " I only desire to drag 
 him from his vicious courses." 
 
 " But really," Kintyre exclaimed, " this wasn't a vicious 
 course of Count Macdonald's. It wasn't even really a 
 vicious course of mine. It's all very complicated, and it 
 will just show you how difficult these questions are. That 
 cigar case was presented to me by my venerable mother 
 because she wanted to redeem me from what she considered 
 was a vicious course. If you'd opened that cigar case 
 you'd have found that it was fuU of cheap cigarettes. 
 That's my vicious habit. I haven't any taste in tobacco, 
 and I prefer a cheap cigarette to the best cigar. That was a 
 real grief always to my mother. She thought that cheap 
 cigarettes were below my station. So she gave me that 
 cigar case — and she made it as gorgeous as she could, dear 
 old lady, — because she thought it would bribe me to smoke 
 cigars. She gave it me as soon as I came into the title. It 
 didn't matter, she thought, so much what I smoked as long 
 as I was a commoner. But when I became a Duke . . ." 
 Kintjnre broke off and gazed amiably at the Countess . , . 
 " See how difficult you women make it for us men. I've 
 tried honestly to smoke cigars. But I can't ! They make 
 me sick. So I've to cram my mother's cigar case with 
 cheap cigarettes. And I can't help thinking that it's 
 dishonourable of me. You see, whenever my mother sees 
 me, she sees the cigar case, and it comforts her to think 
 that I'm behaving in a manner proper to my station. But 
 aU the while I'm not. No, my dear lady, don't exact from 
 your men folk too high a standard. They can't live up 
 to it." 
 
 " But all this is perfectly thrilling ! " Miss Dexter 
 exclaimed to Kintyre. " But why didn't you tell me you 
 
2o8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 were a duke, at first ? It would have made it all so much 
 easier to understand. And I do so much want to under- 
 stand everything. Don't you see, I should have been able 
 to take such a much more intelligent interest if I'd known 
 from the start that you were one of the dissolute and 
 worthless Smart Set that Mrs. Macdonald has told me so 
 much about." 
 
 '■ Oh, well, I am a beastly duke," Kintyxe said. " And 
 it you'll just take time you can revise your impressions all 
 right." 
 
 " You know," Miss Dexter continued, " all this struggle 
 is perfectly thrilling to me." 
 
 " What struggle ? " Kint3n:e asked. 
 
 " Oh, the struggle," Miss Dexter answered ; " the one 
 that's going on between you of the Smart Set and Mrs. 
 Macdonald here for the possession of her husband. It's 
 an epic contest I " 
 
 Kintyre reflected for a minute. " I should think Mac- 
 donald wouldn't like it," he said ; "I should think he'd 
 dislike it extremely — to have it conducted so much in 
 public." 
 
 " It doesn't matter what he Ukes or dislikes," the 
 Countess said decidedly. " If he wants to have to do with 
 me, he's got to consider what I approve of." 
 
 The Duke said nothing. The Countess looked at Miss 
 Dexter. 
 
 " If you want to get a true impression of the case, you've 
 got to consider that the Duke is l5dng all the time," she said; 
 " he is trying to shield his cousin Lady Aldington." 
 
 Miss Dexter said : " Oh, you're a cousin of the Lady 
 Aldington who is going to be the co-respondent." 
 
 " The legal term for the guilty woman," the Countess 
 said grimly, " is intervener, not co-respondent." 
 
 The Duke sat very still. At last he asked : " And what 
 has poor Emily done, pray ? " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 209 
 
 " Oh, I dare say," the Countess said, " that you think 
 that if I give you information about the case you'll be able 
 to lie a way out of it. But you can't. I've seen their 
 goings-on with my own eyes. You can't bribe me out of 
 the witness box." 
 
 " You know," the Duke said slowly. " I don't know 
 much about the case. I didn't even know there was any 
 case. . . ." 
 
 " Of course you'd say that ! " the Countess exclaimed. 
 With her high colour, her penetrating glance, and her 
 back square against the door, she was aware, from the look 
 in Kintyre's hardy dark eyes, that she looked extremely 
 handsome. And Kintyre laughed : 
 
 " I don't know anything about it," he said, " but I 
 beUeve my cousin Emily is as innocent as a dewdrop." 
 
 " Oh, I know your innocent women I " the Cotmtess said. 
 " She's a poor, weak, little fool. I don't bear her any 
 malice. But she has got to go through with it. I'm really 
 sorry for her ; for one day Sergius MihaUovitch will throw 
 her over and come back to me. He's bound to ! " 
 
 Kintyre looked at the floor. " I should say he was," he 
 said, " and that makes it all the more of a pity that you 
 should alienate his affections by bringing absurd charges 
 now. At least, for the life of me, I believe they're absurd 
 charges." 
 
 " A judge and jury won't think they're absurd charges," 
 the Countess said, with a high scorn. " She's been to his 
 rooms at night. I've seen her. I've kept watch." 
 
 " The deuce you have ! " Kintyre exclaimed. 
 
 " I've seen it with my own eyes," she went on, and her 
 excitement began to grow. " I saw them meet in a dark 
 passage. And I saw them come back four hours after- 
 wards. And I saw her go into his detestable rooms. Do 
 you suppose I don't know what his detestable rooms are 
 
 for ? " 
 
 p 
 
210 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Kintyre was really exceedingly puzzled. He couldn't 
 doubt the lady's entire sincerity. 
 
 " I don't understand," he said. " I don't really under- 
 stand how she Could possibly have found the time since he 
 has been back. I was looking at her engagement book 
 only just now, and I assure you that from the day after 
 we all came back from Wiesbaden there has not been a 
 single night that she hasn't had some sort of Congress 
 or pubUc meeting or dinner of her own. Not a single 
 night I " 
 
 The Countess looked at him with a hard, ironic exalta- 
 tion. " That may be true," she said. " I dare say he 
 has had enough of her. I suspected as much." And then she 
 added slowly : " You were careful to say that her ladyship 
 was engaged every night from the night after the one on 
 which we came back from Wiesbaden." Her voice became 
 slower and slower. " The night I mean was the night on 
 which we came back. Yes, I suspected that he had had 
 enough of her. He has not been nearly so assiduous since. 
 That was why I pitied her and was kind to her when she 
 called with you the other day. She may try to bribe him 
 back with cigar cases. But she won't get him. He 
 doesn't even take care of what she gives. He drops it in 
 the grass for me to find. I dare say he wanted me to find 
 it, so as to be able to boast of his conquest. But I have 
 done the right thing. I've sold it. And I've paid the 
 money to my lawyers. Sergius Mihailovitch will be 
 legally responsible for the costs of the case, and he won't 
 be able to pay them, so that he won't be able to complain 
 if I've sold the disgusting thing." 
 
 The Duke was looking at the floor. The lady spoke with 
 so much conviction. And he was so used to the frailties 
 of human nature in divorce cases that for a moment he 
 believed that he must himself be a little mad. It was 
 almost as if his own cigar case didn't belong to himself. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 211 
 
 " Didn't you notice," he asked slowly, " that the coronet 
 on the case was a duke's ? " 
 
 " I did," she answered. " And that woman calls herself 
 the Duchess of Batalha." 
 
 " But the arms ! " Kintyre said ; " the arms were my 
 arms." 
 
 " So are the arms of the Duchy of Batalha," the Countess 
 answered. " You can't get out of it in that way." 
 
 Kintyre dehvered a long, hard glance to the lady's 
 dress. 
 
 " I don't know whether you'll believe that I am the sort 
 of man not to care twopence whether my cousin is in a 
 divorce case or not ? " 
 
 " Oh, I can quite believe you're that sort of man," she 
 answered. 
 
 " Then perhaps you believe," he tried it on, " that I'm 
 the sort of man who'd prefer not to see you make an unholy 
 fool of yourself." 
 
 " I don't know about that," she answered dubiously. 
 
 " A most unholy fool," the Duke said. He looked at 
 the ground and continued to talk musingly. " At first I 
 believed that you had got hold of something against Emily 
 Aldington. But you haven't ! You've simply made an 
 uncommonly silly fool of yourself over that. The siUiest 
 sort of fool ! You've just mistaken the lady." 
 
 " Oh, I know," the Countess said contemptuously. 
 "I've had the siUiest sort of letter from Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch himself. He says it was some girl he picked up off 
 the streets. But I know better than to believe that he. I 
 know Sergius Mihailovitch better than to beheve that lie. 
 I know Sergius Mihailovitch better. I know very well 
 that you would come to me with that tale. But Sergius 
 Mihailovitch isn't the sort of man to pick up girls off the 
 street." 
 
 The Duke continued to look at the ground. " Any man,' 
 
212 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 he said slowly, " is any sort of man, some time or other, 
 you know." 
 
 " But not Sergius Mihailovitch," the Countess said 
 firmly ; " I know him better." 
 
 " Then all I can say is," Kintyre exclaimed, and he spoke 
 for the first time quickly, " I don't see, if you can idealise 
 our friend Macdonald to that extent, why you can't just 
 go the whole way and see that Macdonald has had nothing 
 whatever to do with Emily Aldington. I don't see why 
 you should want to play Macdonald's game so thoroughly, 
 or Emily Aldington's game so thoroughly, supposing she 
 really had a desire to poach your husband ? " 
 
 " I don't understand you," the Countess said ; " you 
 appear to be talking nonsense." 
 
 The Duke gave a negligent, side glance to Miss Dexter. 
 
 " If you would kindly ask your Uttle friend," he said, — 
 " if you'd kindly ask her to go and ask your butler if he 
 happens to have the Morning Post of the day after we 
 came back from Wiesbaden . . ." 
 
 " This appears to be nonsense," the Countess said. 
 
 " Oh no, it isn't nonsense," the Duke said ; " butlers always 
 read the Morning Post. They love it ; they sleep with it 
 under their pillows, and they always file it for reference. 
 And if your young friend will get the Morning Post of the 
 14th of September, you will be able to read in it that amongst 
 the guests at a dinner of fifty and a ball of two hundred 
 that followed it on the 13th of September there are figured 
 Lord and Lady Aldington." 
 
 For just a moment the Countess hesitated, but then with 
 vehemence she continued : 
 
 " Do you suppose that you can take me in with that lie ? 
 I tell you I knew it would happen. I felt it in Sergius 
 Mihailovitch's manner. I knew when he pushed me 
 brutally into a cab and packed me off to Putney, that he 
 was going to meet that woman. So I slipped out of the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 213 
 
 cab and waited outside his rooms, and I saw what I knew 
 I was going to see." She choked in her throat. " I 
 hardly needed to use my eyes at all. I knew what I was 
 going to see. It was the end of the world for me." 
 
 Kintyre continued to stare at the ground. " You never 
 used your eyes at all," he said. " If you'U send for the 
 Morning Post you can read the names of two hundred and 
 fifty people who can prove to you that your eyes were 
 mistaken." 
 
 And then suddenly the Countess appeared to wither. 
 " That was all that was needed, " she said, and her voice 
 shook with painful sobs. 
 
 " Wasn't it enough that I've lost all I had in the world ? 
 Wasn't it enough that they should meet ? And now 
 you've got up this conspiracy even to cheat me of my 
 revenge. Of course you can get two hundred and fifty 
 people to back you up in your lies. You all hang together. 
 All you dissolute and idle people who have tricked my man 
 away from me . . ." 
 
 The Duke suddenly stood up. " Look here," he said. 
 " I'm not going to listen to this sentimental flap-doodle. 
 It's not what I am here for. I'm not here for anything at 
 all. But when you're calling me a liar and I'm calling you 
 an ass, it amuses me. Watering cans don't amuse me. 
 Besides, they don't suit your queenly style. You're a 
 charming woman when you're denouncing anybody. You 
 look fine ! But I'm not going to stop and see you at your 
 second best, grizzling over a husband you haven't lost at all. 
 And that you won't lose at all, if you don't go on pla5dng 
 this siUy fool game. So just send your little American friend 
 for the Morning Post and convince yourself." 
 
 Miss Dexter had sat all the time as still as a motionless 
 mouse. But now she said pathetically : 
 
 " I guess you want me out of the room, Mr. Duke. 
 I guess you want to say some things in private to 
 
214 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mrs. Macdonald. I guess I've got to go, but I wish I 
 hadn't to." 
 
 Kintjrre looked at her amiably. " My dear little girl," 
 he said, " I really guess you have guessed what I want. Of 
 course, I ought not to be embarrassed by your presence. 
 I ought to be used to discussing the most intimate 
 secrets of my family before outsiders. But I can't. I am 
 sorry. It's class prejudice. It's the misfortune of my 
 birth, but I do wish you would run away." 
 
 " I really don't know why she should," the Countess 
 said. " Personally, I want the whole world to know how 
 I deal with Sergius Mihailovitch." 
 
 " Well, you can teU the young lady aU about it in private 
 afterwards," Kintyre said amiably. " I don't mind what 
 you say. Only, I can't talk with real equanimity before 
 outsiders." 
 
 " Oh, but Mr. Duke," Miss Dexter said, " you've been 
 talking just beautifully, though I dare say it's nothing to 
 what you can do. But don't call me an outsider. I'm 
 going, but don't caU me that. Why, I am in the very heart 
 and soul of it. I'm just thriUing to know whether you will 
 get him away from us, or whether we shall win him back. 
 Isntit so, Mrs. Macdonald ? " 
 
 " WeU, that's really touching," the Duke said. " I 
 understand that you side with the Countess and the Simple 
 Life against us, who are — what is it ? — the dissolute and 
 idle Smart Set. And our friend Macdonald is a sort of 
 Tannhauser whose present address is the Venusberg ? 
 That's about it, isn't it ? And the Countess is whatever 
 the heroine's name was , and you're the heroine's con- 
 fidante ? Well, it's all very touching ; but now run away. 
 And the next time you see me, don't call me Mr. Duke. 
 Call me Duke. And after you've known me a fortnight, 
 for propriety's sake, call me Kintyre, because I don't Hke 
 always hearing my title. But you just take my tip and 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 215 
 
 call the Countess here Countess Macdonald all the time, 
 because she's a Socialist. And she hkes to hear her title. 
 That's how people are built in this country." 
 
 When the door had closed on Miss Dexter he walked 
 straight upon the Countess and took both her hands, for 
 he was quite decided that the only way to deal with that 
 woman was the crudest and the harshest. And he had 
 come to the conclusion that Macdonald never could have 
 done anything with her at all, and never was going to, 
 simply because he couldn't be crude and he couldn't be 
 harsh. 
 
 " Now, look here ! " he exclaimed. " What is it you 
 want ? Because you're behaving atrociously." 
 
 She tried to draw her hands away. But she left them 
 where they were after a little, hardly noticeable, resistance. 
 
 " What the devil is it you want ? " he asked again. 
 " You don't want money. You don't want to please. 
 You just want to raise hell." 
 
 " I want Sergius Mihailovitch back," she said slowly ; 
 " if I don't get him, I'll ruin him, body and soul." 
 
 " Oh, his soul's all right," the Duke said. " You can't 
 touch that. And I don't exactly see how you're going to 
 ruin his body." 
 
 " Well, I do," she said. " He thinks he has done with 
 me, but he hasn't. I'll beggar him. I've got ways to do 
 it. And then when he's beggared he'll come back to me." 
 
 " It sounds rather melodramatic," the Duke said reflec- 
 tively. " You might bring a divorce action against him 
 over that girl. But that wouldn't really damage him much. 
 It doesn't nowadays." 
 
 " It would be a way of showing Lady Aldington that 
 Macdonald is canying on with another girl," she said 
 slowly. 
 
 " Yes, that would be pretty damnably cruel," Kintyre 
 commented. 
 
2i6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Cruel ! " she exclaimed ; " it isn't cruel ; it's just 
 simply treating these people as they deserve." 
 
 " But wait a minute," the Duke said ; " perhaps he 
 isn't really carrying on with the girl. Perhaps she's really 
 only what they caU a ' sitter.' Perhaps Emily and he have 
 arranged it only so that you should be able to prove adultery 
 against Macdonald. That would set him free. And she 
 could divorce Aldington at any moment. How would 
 that suit you ? " 
 
 " It wouldn't suit me at all," she said cooUy. " And it 
 isn't going to happen. I shall bring a divorce action 
 against him so as to show to the whole world what an 
 abominable, dissolute creature he is. It'll open that 
 woman's eyes to him. And then when I've got the decree 
 I shall never apply to have it made absolute. He'U never 
 be free." 
 
 Kintyre exclaimed : " Oh, hang it all, that's a bit too 
 thick ! " 
 
 " It's what I shall do," she said. 
 
 And in his real concern Kintyre exclaimed two or three 
 times : " Oh, hell ! Oh, hell ! " And then once more he 
 looked straight into her eyes. " You know," he said, 
 " that isn't playing fair. That isn't playing the game. 
 If you have the fun of a divorce action you ought to give 
 him his freedom. No, that isn't fair ; you ought to drop 
 that. You'll have to be made to drop that." 
 
 " Who can make me ? " she said defiantly. 
 
 "Oh, hang it all!" Kintyre exclaimed. "You're 
 really alienating all my sympathies. You may take it 
 from me that I have an immense admiration for you— as 
 immense as you could want. But Macdonald is a good chap, 
 and I'll teU you plainly that I should do the best I can to 
 save him from you. I shall do the very best I can. I 
 shan't stick at anything." 
 
 His hard, challenging eyes looked straight into hers, and 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 217 
 
 hers, hard, challenging, and greenish, looked back at him 
 with the sudden glare of the eyes of one of the great cats. 
 
 " Yes, an immense admiration ! " he said. " But, all 
 the same, I should do all I can to save him. I don't under- 
 stand what it is you want with him. You don't care for 
 him. You can't care for him. He's too soft ! You can't 
 respect a man who's as loveable as he is. And you can't 
 care for a man you don't respect." 
 
 " Who says I don't care for him ? " she said. " I want 
 him back. I'U ruin him if he doesn't come back." 
 
 " Ah, but only because he is a bit of your property that 
 you don't Uke losing. I tell you I shall do my best to save 
 him." 
 
 " Nothing can save him," she said. Her voice was 
 rather faint and her hands trembled. 
 
 " Ah, well, we'll see," Kintjnre said. " There are ways 
 and means you haven't thought of. I don't beheve he 
 cares for you. I don't believe you care for him. I dare 
 say he cares for Emily. And I dare say Emily cares for 
 him. They're awfully made for each other. Why don't 
 you give them a chance ? " 
 
 She pulled both her hands fiercely from his and 
 flattened her back against the door 
 
 " Never ! " she exclaimed. " Not for anything ! Not 
 for anybody ! You've been talking of the sort of man 
 Sergius Mihailovitch is ! Well, let me tell you one thing. 
 He's the sort of man nothing can save. He's the sort of 
 man that is doomed from his birth." 
 
 "Oh, that's just talk," Kintyre said. "We weren't 
 really talking about that. We were really talking about 
 something quite different. We were talking about the 
 means I shall have to adopt to save him." 
 
 Again she looked at him with the hard, straight glance. 
 " I don't understand you," she said in a low voice ; and 
 again he looked at her in return. 
 
2i8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Oh yes, you do," he said slowly. He took his hat and 
 his stick from the oak chest. " I shall come again," he 
 said slowly. " I shall come back and back again until 
 you change your mind." 
 
 " Nothing will make me change my mind," she said. 
 " This afternoon I am going to file my petition, and Lady 
 Aldington's name will be in it." 
 
 " Although you know perfectly well that she wasn't the 
 woman." 
 
 " I know that," she answered, " but it will discredit her 
 enough just having to fight the petition. It will show the 
 world the sort of person she is." 
 
 " It will show the world," Kin tyre answered, " that she 
 is a little spotless, white angel, and that you're a terrific, 
 gorgeous, flaunting fiend." 
 
 " How do you know,"-'3nr^ked, " that that isn't what 
 I want to have shown '? " 
 
 " Ah," he answered ; " but why-she^sLiLt© everybody ? 
 Why not just keep it for you and me — for when I come 
 back again ? " 
 
 She didn't answer, but she slowly put her hand on the 
 door to open it for him. ' 
 
 He had got as far as the hall when it occurred to him 
 that there was something that he still wanted to know. 
 And he came back to ask : 
 
 " Now, about ruining Macdonald ! How do you think 
 you're going to get him out of the job he's got in the motor 
 shop ? " 
 
 " My dear man," she answered, " I don't believe he's 
 got any job in the motor shop. I believe that's just a 
 pretext. He just wants those rooms." 
 
 The Duke said : " The deuce he does." 
 " He just wants them," the lady continued, " in order to 
 continue his dissolute practices." 
 " Oh, is that all ? " the Duke said. And then he put 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 219 
 
 the question that he really wanted to have answered. 
 " But really," he said at first, " Macdonald must have 
 some sort of resources. He can't exist on nothing. Don't 
 you suppose he's got some sort of political mission — say, 
 from the Russian Government ? " 
 
 " He ! " the lady ejaculated, with a high contempt. 
 " Who do you suppose would trust him ? He's too entirely 
 weak and feeble. No, he's just nothing, and he's just got 
 nothing to do. If he tells you that he has any political 
 errand, don't you believe him. He's just lying so as to 
 make himself of importance in your Smart Set." 
 
 The Duke heaved a slight sigh ; really, it was a relief, 
 for he couldn't doubt that the Countess was entirely sincere. 
 She knew nothing about the counter-revolution in Galizia. 
 So he said, in order to turn the lady's mind away from the 
 subject : 
 
 " Oh, I wouldn't beheve that too imphcitly, you know. 
 The Smart Set, if there is such a thing, though I never meet 
 it, wouldn't set any particular store by diplomatic import- 
 ance. They'd be, you know — what is it you call them ? — 
 too idle and dissolute. They'd be like me, you know. I 
 wouldn't walk round a lamp-post to meet the most important 
 diplomatist in the world." 
 
 " The only diplomatic occupation Sergius Mihailovitch 
 would ever get would be just to secure a new mistress for 
 the Grand Duke. That's about all he is fit for. I tell you 
 he's an idle and useless adventurer. And he's utterly 
 penniless. Don't I know the man ? I tell you you'd 
 better look after your pockets if you come into contact 
 with Sergius Mihailovitch. Why, I've known him go 
 three days without food, and have only one suit, and yet 
 turn up looking smart at some Countess or other's garden 
 party. He's utterly impracticable. Why, he'd give his 
 last penny to some needy hanger-on, and never think where 
 the next is coming from ! " 
 
220 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " I see," Kintyre said, and nodding pleasantly, he 
 went down the front steps. He occupied his long drive 
 home in the hansom with a brown study. He pushed his 
 hat back on his head and sat looking at the withers of the 
 horse in front of him. 
 
 Decidedly he was going to do something for his cousin 
 Emily. But the point was, how far would he have to 
 entangle himself ? It was a very complicated position, 
 and if the Countess Macdonald was too savage a woman 
 to be really dangerous, she might nevertheless wound him 
 in some way or other. He didn't see any objection to his 
 cousin's being in a divorce case. It was quite a proper 
 sort of thing if she cared for the man. It would be a 
 quarter of a million times better than her being tired out 
 by her flannel-shirted friends. It would probably shake 
 them aU off, for they would be mostly Nonconformists. 
 
 " But, hang it all," he suddenly ejaculated, " I wouldn't 
 marry that woman ! That would be a little too thick even 
 for Emily's sake." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 221 
 
 IN his bedroom at Claridge's Mr. Dexter was trying the 
 effect of shghtly shortening his grey side-whiskers. 
 In his walks in the parks and pubhc places of 
 England he had observed that, however much 
 he might himself resemble idealised pictures of John Bull, 
 he hadn't seen any man of position who resembled himself 
 in that particular. Moreover, he had gone that afternoon 
 to call on Mrs. Gould, whom he had met on the Riviera ; 
 the servant who had opened the door had tentatively 
 suggested that Mr. Dexter ought to have gone down the 
 area steps. And Mr. Dexter, who was not without per- 
 ception in these matters, had worked it out that Mrs. 
 Gould's servant had taken him for a butler. This had 
 almost decided him that his whiskers must go. And, in 
 his shirt-sleeves, with a safety razor in his hand he was 
 carefully regarding himself in his bedroom glass. 
 
 It gave him, therefore, something of a start when his 
 daughter, running in, exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, Popper, I've seen a real live English Duke." And 
 she subsided, exhausted, on to Mr. Dexter's bed. 
 
 Mr. Dexter put on his dressing-gown out of respect for 
 his daughter's femininity. He sank himself into an arm- 
 chair and crossed his legs in an attitude that he knew to be 
 genuinely British. A kind smile went over his face, but 
 because he had been thinking very deeply of his personal 
 appearance, his smile was extremely distracted. And this 
 
222 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 gave his daughter the idea that he had been thinking about 
 high financial problems. 
 
 Then he said : " What Duke ? " 
 
 And when his Mamie answered that it was the Duke of 
 Kintyre, he rose slowly from his armchair, went slowly into 
 the sitting-room and slowly returned, carrying a fat red 
 volume that had the Order of the Garter embossed upon 
 its cover. He read out slowly from this volume, " Kintyre. 
 Ninth Duke of (cr. 1642), Sir Edward William Percy 
 Archibald Fitzroy John Augustus . . ." His voice 
 continued for quite a long time droning out a string of 
 titles that meant nothing but rather agreeable sounds to 
 the girl. And then he said : " He doesn't appear to be 
 married. Where did you meet him ? " 
 
 " At Countess Macdonald's," Miss Dexter answered. 
 " It was most perfectly thrilling. I tell you. Popper, it 
 was just the home hfe of the corrupt British aristocracy as 
 you see it on the stage. His cousin is in love with Count 
 Macdonald, and Count Macdonald is in love with his cousin. 
 And the Duke came down to save the family name from 
 ruin. And then I could see the Duke was falling in love 
 with the Countess and the Countess with the Duke. But 
 she won't divorce them. And she is going to reclaim the 
 Count from his idle and dissolute ways. And the Duke 
 says I may call him Kintyre after I've laiown him a fort- 
 night." 
 
 Mr. Dexter, who thought very slowly, said : " WeU, 
 well ! " once more. 
 
 " And the Countess and I," Miss Dexter continued— 
 " I just wish Macdonald wasn't married, for I love him more 
 than any man, and it's just lovely to see how serious he is 
 when he's helping me to buy gloves— but the Countess and 
 I have sworn a mutual oath that we are to redeem him from 
 his vicious practices." 
 
 " Redeem who ? " Mr. Dexter asked 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 223 
 
 " Why, the Count," Miss Dexter answered. 
 
 " What are his idle and dissolute practices ? " Mr. 
 Dexter asked again. 
 
 " I don't know," Miss Mamie said. " The Countess 
 doesn't explain what they are. But they appear to be 
 dreadful. I know it's awful. I know I oughtn't to ; but 
 I can't help saying that it's a tremendous privilege to know 
 such a person. It's as good as knowing Lord Byron or 
 Don Juan." 
 
 " But I want to know some more of this," Mr. Dexter 
 said. 
 
 " I am telling you as fast as I can," she answered. " It's 
 all a tremendous battle between right and wrong. Of 
 course, I don't beheve Count Macdonald ever did anything 
 wrong in his life. But what we've got to do is to redeem 
 him and to make him lead the Simple Life again, and to be 
 strenuous, as the Countess says he used to be when he was 
 under her influence. The Countess is a Socialist, you 
 know." 
 
 . Mr. Dexter said : " Oh, I think I've sized the Coimtess 
 up." 
 
 " What the Countess wants," Miss Dexter said, " is 
 that the Count should come back to Putney and do without 
 servants, and wear a sack-cloth apron to keep his trousers 
 from getting spoiled when he does the washing-up. The 
 Countess has got a butler now, the most lovely butler you 
 ever saw in your life ! " 
 
 Mr. Dexter winced slightly, and then he asked : " What 
 does she want a butler for ? " 
 
 " That's to show the world that she isn't in fault," Miss 
 Dexter answered. " She wants everyone to think that she 
 gives Macdonald the kind of home he wants because she's 
 so gentle and yielding. The Count wants the Smart Set, 
 and the Smart Set always have butlers. So the Countess 
 is going to live like the Smart Set. The Count allows her 
 
224 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 two thousand a year, and she says she can do it on that. 
 She says it's all he's got." 
 
 "All this appears to be rather confusing," Mr. Dexter 
 said. " But just go on talking. I'm sizing it all up." 
 
 " The Duke," Miss Dexter continued, " is Count Mac- 
 donald's best friend. He's going to protect Count Mac- 
 donald against the Countess. The Countess is going to 
 ruin the Count. But the Duke's going to stop it. But it 
 is all a httle confusing, and sometinaes I think the Countess 
 contradicts herself, because at one time she talks of leading 
 the Simple Life, and at another she says she's going to go 
 on the stage as a great tragic actress and be the Smart 
 Set herself." 
 
 " Well, that's all right," Mr. Dexter said. " I tell you 
 I've sized the Coimtess up." 
 
 " And I don't see," Miss Dexter went on, " how the Duke 
 is going to save the Count if he's going to be in love with 
 the Countess ! I could see it in his eyes that he was. He's 
 a perfectly lovely Duke — dark, and like a Spanish don. 
 But I don't see how he's going to fix up saving the Count 
 and loving the Countess at the same time." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," Mr. Dexter said, " that's all 
 right, Mamie. It's like cat's cradle. When you take the 
 string off one set of hands on to another the pattern's all 
 different, but it's the same old string. Now, hold your little 
 tongue, Mamie, and I'U do my thinking." 
 
 Mr. Dexter got slowly up from his armchair and, with 
 his dressing-gown enfolding him, he went slowly into his 
 sitting-room again. He returned with an immense cigar. 
 
 For a long time Mr. Dexter remained stmk in his arm- 
 chair. His lips moved on the end of his cigar with an 
 unctuous, sucking soimd. And gradually, as he thought 
 his American thoughts, his attitude became less and less 
 British until, his legs stretching out and his heels resting 
 on the wiashing-stand, his feet were somewhat higher than 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 225 
 
 his head. From time to time Miss Mamie, sitting on the 
 bed, entertained him with bursts of speech. She recounted 
 the methods of living of the Countess, or the virtues and 
 charms of Sergius Mihailovitch. But Mr. Dexter did no 
 more than from time to time to let drop an ejaculation that 
 was invariably : " Well, now ! " 
 
 In spite of his British tastes, his Viennese home, and his 
 American upbringing, Mr. Dexter was of simple, pious 
 German ancestry. His father, Hermann Dexter of Bremen, 
 had made a large fortune by speculating in CaHfomian 
 land at the time of the boom. And Mr. Dexter had, by 
 his quiet, financial methods, added reasonably to this 
 fortune. But, in spite of his sermons on ethics, Mr. Dexter 
 had practically no moral standards and no knowledge of 
 life. His sermons on ethics he indulged in only on dress 
 occasions, and these sermons were no more than quotations 
 from the fervid rhetoric of such American magazines and 
 newspapers as supported the great American trusts. Mr. 
 Dexter believed in keeping one's account scrupulously 
 straight ; in paying one's bills with scrupulous accuracy. 
 He had a certain shrewd knowledge of character, but that 
 was all there was to him. And the main point that he 
 gathered from his daughter's story was that Macdonald 
 hadn't got any money. And one of the main principles 
 of the business tradition that he had inherited from his 
 father had been, never to do business with a man who you 
 knew hadn't got any money. It can't be said, too, that he 
 wasn't affected by his daughter's accoimt of the circle in 
 which Macdonald appeared to live. He was accustomed 
 to think of aU foreign aristocrats as being exceedingly . 
 immoral — it didn't matter whether they were French, 
 German, Austrian, or Russian. - And Mr. Dexter in one 
 way and another had come into contact on the continent 
 with quite a number of counts and barons, nearly all of 
 them exceedingly shady persons. So that his idea of all 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 aristocrats was that of a crowd of hungry pike all waiting 
 to tear into shreds the fortunes of simple, honest, American 
 citizens. 
 
 He did not have to think in this way of any friends of 
 Macdonald's that he had met or heard of. He didn't indeed 
 know that he had met either Kintyre or Lady Aldington, 
 though he had been with them in Countess Macdonald's 
 garden for at least ten minutes during their caU. But he 
 had been so engaged in lecturing the young King on the 
 moral and economic advantages of the Trjast system that 
 he had not even heard their names. He had neghgently 
 omitted to look at them, taking them for the parson and 
 his wife*making an afternoon call. But still, he knew that 
 Macdonald was acquainted with this brace of aristocrats, 
 and he heard from his daughter that the intimacy appeared 
 to be a very close one. And he knew that Lady Aldington 
 was enormously wealthy, even by American standards, 
 and that the Duke of Kintyre, though he was poorish for 
 an English duke, could not by any means be called a poor 
 man. So that Mr. Dexter did not need to think of any of 
 Macdonald's friends as penniless adventurers— except per- 
 haps the Marquis da Pinta, who appeared to be negligible, 
 or Mr. Pett, whom Mr. Dexter could not quite make out. 
 
 He knew, of course, from reading American books and 
 papers, that the British aristocracy is corrupt. And, in 
 setting out to better himself socially, Mr. Dexter had 
 vaguely taken into account the fact that he and his family 
 would have to come into contact with persons whose 
 manners and customs were not exactly respectable, accord- 
 ing to the notions of Boston, Mass. Mr. Dexter, however, 
 was not from Boston, Mass., but from Brooklyn, N.Y., 
 where the standards are slightly different. And quite an 
 astonishing number of Mr. Dexter's business friends had 
 availed themselves of the divorce facilities of the United 
 States. Indeed, when Mr. Dexter came to think of it he 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 227 
 
 was not acquainted with any single American man of 
 business who hadn't been divorced at least once. Never- 
 theless, these divorces did not somehow seem to coimt. 
 They seemed to be airy nothings ; there did not seem to 
 be any sexual passion behind them, so that they had none 
 of the aspects of immorality. But when it came to the 
 large collection of divorce suits into which apparently 
 Macdonald and his friends were going to be plunged, Mr. 
 Dexter couldn't help feeling alarmed for his daughter. 
 There seemed to be so much passion about them. And 
 though Mr. Dexter had quite expected to find corruption 
 amongst the corrupt aristocracy, he hadn't wanted to go 
 quite as far as this. He had hoped to be able to come 
 across at least one or two respectable noblemen and ladies 
 of title with whom he might establish intimacies. 
 
 And for the moment Mr. Dexter was really alarmed for 
 his Mamie. American parents have not the same standards 
 as European ones, and it would never have occurred to Mr. 
 Dexter that the pure thoughts of his Mamie would be 
 endangered by this society. It didn't reaUy even occur 
 to him to think that it might be bad for the girl, who was 
 obviously sickly in love with Sergius Mihailovitch, to 
 establish an intimacy with the Countess Macdonald. 
 Nor did he anticipate any danger to the girl's morals from 
 Macdonald himself, nor yet for her reputation or her social 
 position. Into Mr. Dexter's American mind these con- 
 siderations never entered. He was afraid, nevertheless ; 
 he was genuinely and seriously worried. He wished that 
 he could have consulted Mrs. Dexter, but Mrs. Dexter had 
 taken the opportunity to visit her relatives in Saratoga 
 Springs. But what he was afraid of for himself was Mac- 
 donald's pennilessness. And what he was afraid of for 
 his daughter was the Countess's physical violence. 
 
 If he had had to regard Macdonald as a prospective son- 
 in-law the pennilessness would not have worried him. Mr. 
 
228 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Dexter was quite wealthy enough to set up a household 
 for any European, young, noble pair. And if it had been 
 in the United States, Mr. Dexter would have been quite 
 prepared to purchase Macdonald for his daughter from the 
 Countess. But this matter was complicated by Lady 
 Aldington. Mr. Dexter didn't imagine that Lady Aldington 
 would be a seller. She was too immensely wealthy. She 
 was extraordinarily, she was quite respectably wealthy. 
 Mr. Dexter had even heard his own chief, Hodges P. 
 Mordaunt, speak of Lady Aldington along with himself 
 as being one of the possible chief forces of the world. So 
 that he wouldn't be able to buy Macdonald of her for his 
 daughter. But he imagined that he had sized up the 
 Countess Macdonald, and he was really afraid. He was 
 afraid simply that if it came to a three-cornered scene 
 between the Countess, Lady Aldington, and his daughter, 
 his daughter might suffer physically. He was afraid, in 
 fact, that the Countess would throw vitriol over his Mamie. 
 
 So, he sat and meditated. At about a quarter to eight 
 he roused himself from his armchair and went into his 
 sitting-room. He telephoned down to the hotel office to 
 ask them to ring up Mr. Hodges P. Mordaunt at the Hotel 
 Bristol in Paris. He said that he would stop in his room 
 all the evening so that Mr. Mordaunt might get through, 
 and would they tell Mr. Mordaunt that it was urgent ? 
 
 Miss Dexter heard the conversation from the bedroom, 
 and she came running in, to exclaim : 
 
 " Oh, Popper, and you promised to go with me to the 
 New Philharmonic concert this evening ! " 
 
 Mr. Dexter said that he was very sorry. It couldn't be 
 helped. He had a meeting of Mr. Mordaunt's interest at 
 eleven next morning, and he must speak to him that night. 
 He suggested that his daughter should go to the concert 
 alone. 
 
 Without waiting for him to finish his sentence, Miss 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 229 
 
 Dexter said : " Oh, Popper, I guess I'll ask the Count, to 
 take me." And before Mr. Dexter had put the telephone 
 down, she had it in her hand and was giving Macdonald's 
 number to the hotel ofi&ce. She knew the number by heart, 
 and she knew that the telephone was set up just outside 
 Macdonald's bedroom. And Mr. Dexter heard her exclaim : 
 
 " That Count Macdonald ? " And then : " Say, Count, 
 I want you to take me to the New Philharmonic ! " and 
 then : " Oh, that's real mean ! Who are you dressing 
 for ? Lady Aldington ? " 
 
 The girl's face, with the receiver of the instrument to 
 her ear, became intensely dejected. Immediately after- 
 wards she said : 
 
 " What ? what ? " and she became radiant little by 
 little. " What ? I can come too ? Yes, I can rush into 
 my glad rags like a hurricane. What's the address ? 
 Leicester House ? Yes, yes, yes ! " 
 
 She hung up the telephone and regarded her father with 
 triumph. 
 
 " Oh, Popper I " she exclaimed, " he's going to let me go 
 to Lady Aldington's. She's got a great party, and all the 
 Liberal speakers. He says it's going to be dull for me, 
 but I guess it won't. He's going to meet me there." 
 
 Mr. Dexter surveyed his daughter kindly for a minute. 
 " I guess," he said, " if you take my advice, you'd pull up 
 your stakes in that direction." 
 
 " Oh, you silly old Popper ! Why ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, say the feller's pretty penniless," Mr. Dexter said. 
 " That will do for a reason. And I'll advise you to quit." 
 
 She moved towards the door. " I guess I won't quit," 
 she said. " I guess you're a real silly old Popper to go and 
 get ratty over the first gentleman I ever really cared for. 
 I guess you're just ugly with jealousy." 
 
 Mr. Dexter smiled. " Well, he is pretty penniless," he 
 said. " You told me so yourself." 
 
230 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " You're really a silly, mercenary old man," she answered. 
 " And if he is pretty penniless, what does it matter ? He 
 isn't going to need to support me in luxury. I'm going to 
 help win him back to the Countess and the Simple Life, 
 when he won't have to have any hired help. But he'll 
 have to wear a sack-cloth apron to keep his perfectly 
 elegant trousers clean when he does the washing-up." 
 
 " Well, you can do as you hke," Mr. Dexter said. 
 
 " I guess I'm going to," she answered. And, having 
 kissed him on the forehead, she ran out of the room. 
 
 She did not see much of Macdonald that evening and 
 she heard hardly anything at all of the speeches. Instead, 
 she sat on a great landing of the great house between two 
 of the huge porphyry columns that supported the distant 
 ceiling. She sat with the Duke of Kintyre beside her, on 
 two hard mahogany hall seats facing a white marble 
 Bacchus. The voice of Dr. Farquhar reverberated from the 
 distance ; the steps were aU of white stone. Mamie had 
 never imagined anything so gloomy until she had been to 
 the British Museum. And this seemed to her to be gloomier 
 than the British Museum, except that the footmen wore 
 red velvet breeches. And Mamie had to listen to a really 
 frightful scolding from the Duke. It wasn't that he spoke 
 angrily, but she hadn't ever been spoken so seriously to 
 in her life. He seemed to forget that she was a woman, 
 and just talked on without raising or lowering his voice, as 
 if she had tried to murder the Coimt. He seemed, she didn't 
 know how, to have wormed out of her that she had been 
 telling her father things, and that, although she thought 
 nothing at all of the Coimt's being penniless, her silly old 
 father had made a great deal of it. And the Duke had reaUy 
 been most rude to her. He had said that she had violated 
 sacred confidences in repeating to anyone a word that she 
 had heard at Count Macdonald's house. And when she 
 
THE NEW H UMPTY-DUMPTY 231 
 
 said that Countess Macdonald had told her to tell the whole 
 world everything, the Duke answered that it was plain 
 that the Countess was mad with wickedness, and that, for 
 all he knew, she had ruined Macdonald for ever. 
 
 Miss Dexter burst into passionate tears. She told the 
 Duke that he was a wicked man, that she adored the 
 Count, and that sooner than do him an injury she would 
 have thrown herself off the top of the Monument, where 
 they had the rails round to stop people committing suicide. 
 She said that to get a smile from the Count she would go 
 on her knees on the stones and stop there for a week. 
 
 But this did not in the least move His Grace. He sat 
 looking at her with serious eyes in the gloom, and he told 
 her, with extraordinary solemnness, that if she ever breathed 
 a single word to anyone outside Macdonald's household of 
 what she heard within it, or if she ever breathed a word to 
 the Countess of what she heard about Macdonald's interests 
 outside, he, Kintyre, would forbid Macdonald ever to speak 
 another word to her. 
 
 Shaken almost out of her soul, the girl really fainted. 
 Kintyre had her carried downstairs into the library. But 
 even when she came to he wouldn't let her be seen home 
 by Macdonald, and he didn't even see her home himself. 
 He said that he would have to talk seriously to Sergius 
 Mihailovitch that night, in order to see if they could not 
 repair some of the mischief she had done. And he had her 
 sent home in Lady Aldington's carriage under the guardian- 
 ship of a disagreeable old lady called Mrs. Crewkeme, who 
 was her ladyship's aunt, and who was not in the least 
 S57mpathetic. 
 
 She cried all night ; she did not feel fit to see her father 
 next morning. And as soon as she could move she had 
 herself motored down to Putney to see if Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch were not there. And when she got there she wanted 
 to be back at the hotel to see if Macdonald were not with 
 
232 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 her father, for she understood from the Duke that those 
 two had business relations. In order to excuse her leaviiig 
 Putney, she insisted on taking the Countess with her. She 
 said she wanted the lady to make her father's acquaintance, 
 and, as the Countess wanted to go into town to see her 
 solicitors, she made no objection to being motored as far as 
 Claridge's. ;: 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 233 
 
 VI 
 
 MR. DEXTER spent an exceedingly worried night, 
 for it was not until nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing that his ears were gladdened by the sound 
 of the authoritative and drawling voice of the 
 great Mr. Mordaunt on the telephone. Mr. Mordaunt having 
 supped out, had not returned to his hotel in Paris until 
 eight o'clock, and then he had taken a bath and had other- 
 wise refreshed himself before attending to Mr. Dexter's 
 caU. 
 In his sitting-room Mr. Dexter heard Mr. Mordaunt say : 
 " Hello ! That you. Dexter ? What's the racket ? " 
 Mr. Dexter replied : " It's about this Gahzian business. 
 Their S57ndicate meets here at ten. I want to pull out 
 of it." 
 He heard the voice of the great man say : 
 " Golly, why somever ? Lost your nerve ? " 
 " I don't believe they've got any money behind them," 
 Mr. Dexter replied. 
 
 Mr. Mordaunt's voice came quick and decidedly : " We 
 never thought they had, did we ? But they've got the 
 concession, haven't they ? " 
 
 " They've got that," Mr. Dexter said ; " but they're a 
 pretty shady crew. There is only this Macdonald and some 
 sort of a joumaUst and a Galizian marquis of sorts." 
 
 " WeU, I know all about that," Mr. Mordaunt said. 
 '' Supposing they do cabbage a Uttle of the dollars ? 
 
234 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 There's plenty. We've got to allow for wastage. I want 
 that concession." 
 
 " But see here ! " Mr. Dexter pleaded. " Why not drop 
 these royalties altogether, and get the concession from the 
 Republican Government ? " 
 
 The voice of Mr. Mordaunt said reflectively : " I've 
 thought of that. On the face of it, it seems a pretty good 
 scheme. But it isn't. It's too expensive. You take my 
 advice. Dexter. Never you have to do with a republican 
 ministry when you can have to do with a king. A king has 
 got to be paid, but he's an infant in the boodle line when 
 it comes to a republican ministry, simply because he isn't 
 a professional politician. He hasn't got the genius of 
 extortion. And, mind you, there are thirty-two ministers 
 in Galizia, and every one of them will have to have his 
 whack. Besides, someone else will stick the King on his 
 throne in six months' time if we don't, and then bang goes 
 our concession. No, it's not good enough. Have another 
 try, Sammy Dexter." 
 
 " But, Mr. Mordaunt," Mr. Dexter pleaded, " I've got 
 family reasons for wanting to clear out." 
 
 " I guessed you had something of the sort, Sammy," the 
 great man's voice said. " But this is business, not family 
 talk. Supposing we give this particular lot the go-by ? 
 What then ? " 
 
 " Why shouldn't we," Mr. Dexter said rather humbly, 
 " just go to the King and get a new concession for 
 ourselves ? " 
 
 Mr. Mordaunt's voice remained silent for so long that 
 Mr. Dexter at the last said : 
 
 " Hallo 1 " 
 
 And Mr. Mordaunt answered : " Stand easy ! I'm 
 just thinking." 
 
 Quite a few minutes afterwards he said : " Now, listen 
 to me ! I don't want to lose this concession. / don't 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 235 
 
 want to ! Understand that ! Now, you don't know,, but 
 I do, that we aren't the only pebbles on the beach. There's 
 been someone from a Russian direction, and there's an 
 English Duke — Kin — Ken — Kintyre, that's the name ; and 
 there is that lady I was talking about— Lady Aldington. 
 She's already in possession of a part of the field. Now see 
 here. Dexter I I don't want to have io fight those interests. 
 I want to stand in with them. Understand that ! I don't 
 want to have a war on my hands at the very beginning." 
 
 Mr. Mordaunt's voice was rather heavy and threatening, 
 and Mr. Dexter had for Mr. Mordaunt all the respect that 
 an ordinary courtier has for an extraordinary monarch. 
 He considered that Mr. Mordaunt could ruin him at any 
 moment as easily as he could eat a banana. Mr. Mordaunt 
 had only got to say to any stock market in the world : 
 " Mark that stock up, and that stock down," and the 
 bottom would fall out of Mr. Dexter. Besides, it wasn't 
 only fear. Mr. Dexter had for Mr. Mordaunt an extra- 
 ordinary reverence ; for him he was The Chief. He was 
 more than a king ; he was almost more than the Pope, 
 though Mr, Dexter was a good CathoUc, for Mr. Mordaunt 
 was the richest man in the world. And he was an astonish- 
 ing man. There was not a single thing he didn't know and 
 didn't carry around in his head. How, for instance, had 
 Mr. Mordaunt come to hear that the Duke of Kintyre had 
 been buying ground in Gahzia ? Mr. Dexter had never 
 heard it. With a great deal of humihty he asked : 
 
 " What do you want me to do, sir ? " 
 
 " See here 1 " he got a question back. " Do you gather 
 that that man Kintyre and that woman are in with that 
 little syndicate ? What it amounts to is this : if they 
 aren't, you can give the syndicate the go-by this morning ; 
 but if they're in it for just one single cent, and if the syndi- 
 cate hasn't got a trouser button for capital, you've just got 
 to sign anything that syndicate wants. Understand that ! 
 
236 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 You find out if they're in it, Eind then do as I've said. 
 If they aren't, we'll buy up the old Queen-Mother for 
 ourselves." 
 
 And before Mr. Dexter could make any remark, Mr. 
 Mordaunt said : 
 
 " You keep this line open here while the meeting is on, 
 and if you want to ask me any questions, I'm at the end of 
 it. But I guess I want to eat my breakfast now." 
 
 And at the same moment there came a knock at the door. 
 There entered, behind the hotel page, Mr. and Mrs. Pett. 
 And before Mr. Dexter had done shaking hands, there were 
 the Marquis da Pinta and the young King. Then there 
 was Macdonald. Mr. Dexter was a little worried by their 
 singular punctuality. The clock was just striking ten. 
 Mr. Dexter's sitting-room was a long, rather low room for 
 London. It contained more saddle-bag chairs than is 
 usual in an hotel. And with an eye to effect, Mr. Dexter 
 had arranged a table in front of the fireplace. Behind the 
 table there were two chairs. In one of those Mr. Dexter 
 proposed to sit, with the King at his right hand. Above 
 the mantelpiece hung a huge, shiny map of the republic 
 of Galizia. This Mr. Dexter had purchased from an 
 educational bookseller. . . . They were all talking 
 about the weather, which was rather cold for September. 
 Mr. Dexter, however, piloted the King to the armchair 
 behind the table. He stood beside him, and then he 
 remarked to Macdonald : 
 
 " I guess the whole syndicate is here, Cotmt." 
 
 Macdonald answered : " Oh, just wait a minute, Mr. 
 Dexter." 
 
 And just then there came into the room a tall, dark, 
 rather melancholy-looking gentleman and a fair lady. 
 Macdonald introduced them as Mrs. Fawkner and Mr. 
 Archibald. Mr. Dexter seemed to know their faces, but 
 he couldn't remember where he had met them. He had 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 237 
 
 to delay the opening of the meeting a few minutes whilst 
 he had two more saddle-bag chairs brought in. When he 
 turned his back from the door he discovered that Mr. 
 Pett had sat himself down in the chair beside the King 
 at the table. He had a great many papers before him. 
 And he appeared arrogant and very cheerful. 
 
 " I think I'll take the chairmanship of this meeting," he 
 said. " I know most about the details." 
 
 And Mr. Dexter found himself forced to sit next to Mrs. 
 Pett at the end of the room. He felt very unhappy. 
 Mr. Pett, who really had taken the chair at many 
 public meetings, whirled things along in an admirable 
 manner. 
 
 " I take it," he said, " that there is no need for me to 
 read the constitution of the new kingdom. You've all 
 read it. I'll get on at once to the agreement between the 
 syndicate and Mr. Dexter. What we have to consider is 
 that this is not a commercial syndicate. None of us want 
 to make any money out of it ; what we want is to establish a 
 kingdom on a satisfactory basis for the inhabitants. We 
 have to consider that Mr. Dexter represents what in America 
 is called a trust, and what in Europe is known as a monopoly. 
 Trusts may be beneficent or they may be an affliction to 
 a country, according to its laws. In the United States 
 trusts are a curse. We have to consider how we may 
 prevent the trust which Mr. Dexter represents from being 
 a curse to Galizia. This is what I have endeavoured to do 
 in the deed I have drawn up. It provides that the opera- 
 tions shall be strictly confined to the district of GaUegos ; 
 it provides ^that there shall be no inter-district tradmg ; 
 it provides that the offices of the company shall be in the 
 city of Flores, and so on. If it's your pleasure, I will read 
 the document and we can discuss clause by Clause." 
 
 Mr. Dexter had really lost his temper ; he had had 
 a very bad night ; he had had no breakfast, aiid Mr. 
 
238 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mordaunt had thoroughly frightened him. He said in 
 rather a harsh voice : 
 
 " Before we go into that I want to know what money 
 you've got. I want to know whether you are substantial 
 people. I don't mind saying that I've heard you're not." 
 
 Mr. Pett exclaimed : " Good God ! I haven't got any 
 money. I'm not putting money into it. I'm putting 
 brains. I'm a writer on economics." 
 
 Mr. Dexter said : " Ah 1 " 
 
 And then he turned upon the Marquis da Pinta : " You 
 haven't got any money to put into it ? " 
 
 Da Pinta looked blankly foreign. " Money ? " he said. 
 " No ; no money, but estates — ^great estates." 
 
 Again Mr. Dexter said : " Ah ! " 
 
 And he looked at Macdonald. " I understand," he said, 
 " that you don't propose to put any money inio it, either. 
 I understand that you're not what they call a substantial 
 man. You also are going to put only brains into it." 
 
 He looked also with a rapid negUgence at the dark gentle- 
 man and the fair lady. 
 
 " I suppose with you too," he said, " it's only a case of 
 brains ? " 
 
 Mr. Dexter thought he was upon safe ground there, for 
 he had never heard the names of either Fawkner or Archi- 
 bald in connection with money. 
 
 " Well, then," he continued, " it doesn't seem to me that 
 this meeting represents dollars enough to sit here and 
 criticise either the laws of the United States or the syndi- 
 cate that I represent." 
 
 The tall dark man was lying rather lackadaisically side- 
 ways in his deep chair. He put his hand negligently into 
 a side pocket of his blue pilot coat. He drew out a very 
 white letter, which he held towards Mr. Dexter. 
 
 " If you read this," he said rather insolently, " you will 
 understand better what you're talking about." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 239 
 
 And Mr. Dexter had to cross the floor in order to take the 
 letter. 
 
 " What's this ? What's this ? " he muttered. 
 
 His eyes were met by the name of a great joint stock 
 bank. And then he read below it the words : 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " With reference to your inquiry of this morning 
 we have to inform you that His Excellency Count Mac- 
 donald has standing to his credit at this moment in our 
 hands the sum of sixty thousand pounds, and that we 
 consider that he is a gentleman with whom you can quite 
 safely enter upon such a transaction as the one you 
 mention." 
 
 Mr. Dexter heaved a deep sigh and stood looking at the 
 document. 
 
 The dark gentleman said to him : " You see, I was more 
 cautious than you. Before undertaking business relations 
 with Count Macdonald I took the precaution to inquire 
 at his bank what his financial position might be." And 
 the dark gentleman looked at Mr. Dexter with rather an 
 insolent expression. " I wouldn't listen to gossip again 
 if I were you," he said, " wherever it comes from. You 
 risk having us throw you out of this affair altogether. 
 We can do perfectly well without you." 
 
 For a moment or two Mr. Dexter was not conscious of 
 anything. The matters were too much to take in all at 
 once. He hardly knew what he was doing ; he didn't 
 grasp what he heard. He heard behind him a metallic, 
 buzzing sound, and his brain sent to him mechanically that 
 some one was speaking from the other end of the telephone 
 wire, whose receiver was off. Then he heard the voice of 
 Mr, Pett saying : 
 
 " Yes, yes. That's so." And in the same subconscious 
 
240 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 way he recognised that Mr. Pett must be speaking into the 
 telephone that was on the table behind his back, for Mr. 
 Pett's voice was hard, raised, and distinct. Then he heard 
 Mr. Pett say : 
 
 " Yes, they are both here ... in this room." 
 And then once more : 
 
 " Yes, they are both in it, heart and soul. You can bet 
 they're going to see it through." 
 
 And then Mr. Dexter heard Mr. Pett's voice speaking to 
 him in the ordinary conversational tones. Mr. Pett said : 
 
 " Mr. Dexter, there's some chap at the end of this tele- 
 phone who says you're to sign any damn thing we please 
 as long as he gets the concession." 
 
 Mr. Dexter turned sharply round. Mr. Pett was hanging 
 up the receiver on its hook. 
 
 " My God ! " Mr, Dexter exclaimed, " you've been 
 speaking to Hodges P. Mordaunt, and you've rung him 
 offl" 
 
 Mr. Pett said : " Oh, that was Hodges P. Mordaunt, 
 was it ? And he is behind you, is he ? I am glad I 
 know." 
 
 Mr. Dexter snatched fiercely at the telephone. He called 
 down to the office that they were to ring Mr. Mordaimt in 
 Paris at once again. He said that they had been cut off 
 by mistake ; and when the central office told him that it 
 would probably take him a couple of hours to get on to 
 Paris again, Mr. Dexter groaned aloud. He wanted to 
 speak to Mr. Mordaunt as desperately as a child when it 
 is in the dark wants to speak to a grown-up person. He 
 reaUy didn't know where he was. He was extraordinarily 
 nervous. The people he was among were not like any 
 American business people he had ever been used to. For 
 he was used to gentlemen who paid him profuse compli- 
 ments for two hours and a half over a lunch table, and 
 then tried to slip in a business deal whilst they were getting 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 241 
 
 their hats and sticks in the cloak room. These people 
 weren't business people. They hadn't paid him any 
 compliments at all. They had treated him quite insolently, 
 and they had got to business with a directness that struck 
 Mr. Dexter as being nothing more or less than brutally 
 unusual. But they seemed to be inclined to allow him time 
 to think. He had gone back to his armchair and was 
 sitting sunk in it, with his legs stretched out before him. 
 And the only thing that occurred to him to say was : 
 
 " Well, yes, Hodges P. Mordaunt is behind me." 
 
 He expected that they would at least show some signs 
 of astonished respect. But they didn't any of them seem 
 to take any more stock of Hodges P. Mordaunt than if he 
 had been just an ordinary banker. And he could not 
 afford to let things go as easily as all that. He looked at 
 the gentleman called Mr. Archibald and coughed. 
 
 " You'll understand," he said, " that having to represent 
 the interests of Mr. Mordaunt it was my duty to make some 
 inquiry as to our friend the Count's position." 
 
 " I should have thought," Mr. Archibald replied, " that 
 you would have done that at the start, and not left it so 
 late that it appears hke an insult to all of us." 
 
 " An insult ! " Mr. Dexter exclaimed. " There's nothing 
 hke an insult meant. We are here all of us to-day to put 
 our cards upon the table. The point is to determine what 
 we are all ready to do in this undertaking that we all have 
 at heart." 
 
 " That sounds all right," Mr. Pett said. 
 
 And suddenly from beside him the young King brought 
 out the words : 
 
 " If any one is beginning to insult my friend Macdonald, 
 I vote that that person be ejected from this room. My 
 friend Macdonald is a thimdering good sort." 
 
 " Oh, it's all right, Mr. Spenlow," Macdonald said sooth- 
 ingly. " Nobody is insulting me." 
 
242 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mr. Dexter appealed to Macdonald. " Now, why do 
 you call His Majesty Mr. Spenlow ? " he said. 
 
 Mr. Pett suddenly cut in : " That's my idea, that is. 
 What you don't seem to understand is that we want a 
 certain amount of secrecy about this affair. So I've in- 
 sisted that any one who is at all likely to be connected in 
 the public mind with the kingdom we are concerned 
 in shall be addressed by a name that isn't his." 
 
 " That seems very sensible," Mr. Dexter said. 
 
 " So," Mr. Pett continued, " as nobody would connect 
 you with the great ones of the earth, you can continue to 
 be Mr. Dexter and I can go on being myself for the same 
 reason. You and I are of humble birth and don't count. 
 But the Marquis da Pinta has got to be Mr. Rosenbaimi. 
 He looks Uke a Jew, so we can remember that, and as he 
 hardly ever speaks it doesn't much matter. And Mac- 
 donald is going to be Mr. Mack, because we all call him 
 Mac, and that makes it easy. The King is Mr. Spenlow, 
 and that is Mr. Archibald, and that is Lady — I mean Mrs. 
 Fawkner. Now you know all about it, and we can get on." 
 
 " I wish we could get on," the King said. " I want to 
 be out of this. I want to be at Brooklands by twelve." 
 
 " Oh, we are making very good progress, Mr. Spenlow," 
 Mr. Pett said. " Now then, Mr. Dexter, for all our cards 
 are on the table ! . . . First, there is me. I'm the 
 brains of the show. Then there's Mr. Spenlow and Mr. 
 Rosenbaum there. They provide the raw material of the 
 concession we're going to work. Then there is Mack there. 
 He does the organising and the picturesque side of the job 
 — the battleships and so on. Mr. Rosenbaum also sees 
 to the bribing of the population that we've got to bribe. 
 Then there's Mr. Archibald — you can take my word for it 
 that he's a substantial gentleman. And there's Mrs. 
 Fawkner; she is substantial too. They're here to see 
 whether the cards you lay on the table are good enough to 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 243 
 
 let them want to take a hand in the game. Now, then, 
 what are your cards ? You're down for eight milhon pounds 
 sterHng — forty million dollars — and your chief says you're 
 to sign any damn thing we put before you. Is that so ? " 
 
 Mr. Dexter coughed faintly : " As I have Mr. Mor- 
 daunt's instructions," he said, " I am only to enter this 
 enterprise if it has the backing of a certain lady and a 
 certain nobleman." 
 
 " Well, that's all right," Mr. Archibald said. " You've 
 got me and Mrs. Fawkner." 
 
 Mr. Dexter gave a smile which was meant to show a 
 polite and superior patience. 
 
 " That may be very well," he said ; " but the lady and 
 gentleman I mean are people of extremely high situation 
 and great resources. I mean that the lady is said to be in 
 a position to draw her cheque for a couple of million sterling 
 at two days' notice." He looked at Mrs. Fawkner and 
 smiled. " That you'll imderstand, madam," he continued, 
 " makes it almost an impossibihty ! . . ." 
 
 He received back a polite look from a pair of eyes that 
 appeared to him to be extraordinarily cold and English. 
 He couldn't remember to have noticed the name of Fawkner 
 in Debrett, though he had studied that volume very care- 
 fully. The lady sat quite still, with her gloved hands 
 folded before her. Her sitting forward in her deep chair 
 gave her an aspect of a slight, business-like stiffness. She 
 spoke very precisely. 
 
 " I have come prepared," she said, " to pay to the account 
 of Mr. Mack the exact sum that you mention, as soon as I 
 am assured that you are ready to place at his disposal the 
 sum which you are understood to be ready to find." 
 
 Mr. Dexter said : " But my dear madam " 
 
 Mrs. Fawkner continued : " And I may as well tell you 
 — I dislike talking about money matters, and I have re- 
 flected sufficiently about it— that if you do not feel inch'ned 
 
244 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 to find this money at once, and to leave the whole conduct 
 of the matter in the hands of Mr. Mack, I shall myself 
 do so." 
 
 Mr. Dexter exclaimed : " Do what ? " 
 
 " I shall find the whole of the money for this enterprise." 
 
 " But you're not serious ? " Mr. Dexter said. " You 
 really can't be in earnest ? " 
 
 " Do I look," the lady said, " as if I were not in earnest ? 
 I have considered the matter quite carefully. I don't 
 mind telling you that I suspected that you were only acting 
 as the agent for Mr. Mordaunt, and I put it to my financial 
 advisers that what is a good-enough speculation for Mr. 
 Mordaunt is a good-enough speculation for me. It is 
 probably better for me, because I already, along with some 
 of my friends, have interests in the direction in which the 
 money is Icdd out." 
 
 Mr. Dexter said : " But pray, pray excuse me for a 
 minute." 
 
 He felt a desperate desire to get into his bedroom, the 
 door of which stood ajar just at his right hand. His 
 bedroom seemed to him to be a blessed place of refuge since 
 it contained all the British books of reference to noble, 
 landed, or wealtliy famihes. If this Mrs. Fawkner really 
 had at her command a sum of about fifty milUon dollars, 
 he must certainly be able to trace her. 
 
 " Just wait a minute," the lady said, " and then I shall 
 have done speaking. There are these considerations which 
 I may as well put to you. I am quite determined to put 
 this sum at the disposal of Mr. Mack — if it is absolutely 
 necessary. But, of course, I do not wish to disturb to 
 such an extent the capital of myself and various friends. 
 And I quite understand that if in this way I should come 
 against your principals, something like a financial war 
 might ensue. But, as far as I've been informed of the 
 financial methods of your principal, I believe that he has 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 243 
 
 a strong objection to such conflicts. I don't believe that 
 he will really want to come into conflict with my interests, 
 which, in this particular field, are fairly powerful. That 
 is really all I have to say. And if you wish to consult any 
 friends whom you may have in the next room, I have now 
 nothing against it." 
 
 Mr. Dexter exclaimed with the utmost astonishment : 
 " Friends in the next room — I ? " 
 
 " It would really be much better," the lady said, " to 
 be perfectly open in these matters. You locked the door 
 of this room quite ostentatiously when we all came in. 
 But for the last five minutes I have observed a shadow of 
 one or possibly two persons through the crack of the door 
 in your room. I really don't see any reason for this 
 dehcacy on your part. That is all I mean. Your friends 
 may just as well be in this room as in that. I have nothing 
 at all against it." 
 
 Mr. Dexter suddenly fell back from the door of his own 
 bedroom, for the door opened of itself. 
 
 There came in the Coimtess Macdonald in an outdoor 
 costume of Oriental furs ; she was dragging behind her 
 Miss Dexter. 
 
 " My dear Lady Aldington," she said in her high voice, 
 " Mr. Dexter is entirely innocent. We found the door of 
 this room locked, and as Miss Dexter was anxious to intro- 
 duce me to her father, I suggested that she'd better take 
 me through his bedroom. It has a door on the corridor." 
 
 "And so you have been listening for the last five 
 minutes," Mr. Archibald said to the lady in Oriental furs. 
 
 " My dear Kintjnre," the lady said, " of course I've been 
 listening. It was my business to listen." 
 
 And in the momentary silence that ensued, each of the 
 syndicate was perfectly aware that everyone else of the 
 syndicate was tr57ing to remember what they had said in 
 the last five minutes. 
 
246 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mr. Pett cheerfully broke the silence : "Oh, that's all 
 right, Countess Mac," he said ; " there is no reason why 
 you shouldn't hear. I hope you won't let it out, though, 
 and spoil the show." 
 
 " I shall make exactly what use of the information I 
 please," the Countess said. 
 
 "Oh, please don't do that." Mr. Pett said. "You'll 
 upset all our prima donnas and tenors all over the world. 
 It's no end of a tickUsh job getting together a gigantic 
 opera trust like this." 
 
 Kintyre had been looking with a serious glance at Miss 
 Dexter, and behind the Countess's back Miss Dexter was 
 silently weeping. 
 
 " I couldn't help it," she sobbed ; " no, I couldn't help 
 it. Don't you look at me like that." 
 
 The Duke looked at Countess Macdonald. " My dear 
 woman," he said, " I don't suppose you really want to 
 interfere with a harmless enterprise like ours. I don't 
 know whether you had really gathered what we were up 
 to. But, as Mr. Pett has amiably let the cat out of the 
 bag, we are doing nothing more than getting together a 
 syndicate for the reformation of English opera upon national 
 lines." 
 
 " And what," the Countess asked, " has Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch got to do with the grand opera ? The ballet is much 
 more in his line." 
 
 " Oh, of course," the Duke said, " he will have the 
 management of the ballet as weU." 
 
 " That," the Countess said, " is probably the real attrac- 
 tion for him." 
 
 Suddenly Lady Aldington rose from her deep chair. 
 
 " I don't see any use in prolonging this meeting," she 
 said. She looked at Mr. Dexter. " You have my terms," 
 she said. " I presume you understand them, and you'll 
 agree when you discuss the matter with your principal. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 247 
 
 You can telephone to me at any time you like at Leicester 
 House." 
 
 And Lady Aldington walked towards the door. Mr. 
 Dexter almost ran to open it for her. She included the 
 company in a slight inclination of farewell. Kintyre still 
 sat deep in his armchair, as he always did when he had 
 nothing else to do. He drew from his waistcoat pocket 
 a single eyeglass that he fixed unskilfully in his right eye. 
 It was a sort of toy that amused his idle habit of mind. 
 Through it he gazed at the Countess, screwing up his features 
 so that, olive-skinned and dark-bearded, he resembled a 
 Spanish Don tr5dng to imitate the grimaces of a clown. 
 The Countess looked at him sardonically. 
 
 " Your cousin did not seem to take much special notice 
 of me," she said. 
 
 " She didn't take much notice of anybody, Margaret." 
 The voice of Mrs. Pett suddenly startled them all. " She 
 regarded this as a purely business meeting. You wouldn't 
 think it to look at her, but she is a most extraordinarily 
 cool-headed person when it comes to business. I have 
 seen that. I wanted to know how a great property was 
 really worked. So she took me one morning to her offices 
 — to one of her offices. There wasn't a drawer in the place 
 that she hadn't a rough knowledge of the contents of. And 
 what struck me most was the extraordinary concentration of 
 her manner. She got a sort of grip, a sort of coldness " 
 
 " Well, I experienced some of that," Mr. Dexter said 
 amiably. " I was never spoken to Hke that in my life." 
 
 " She says," Mrs. Pett continued, " that she can afford 
 herself that manner in business things. She says it's the 
 only way she can get through." 
 
 The Coimtess said suddenly : "I think I know all I 
 want to know about Lady Aldington, thank you, Anne." 
 
 She looked at the Duke with the manner of a cool slave* 
 owner, 
 
248 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " You'd better come along with me," she said. " I 
 want to speak to you." 
 
 The Duke rolled himself sideways out of the seat of his 
 chair and, standing up, stiffened his shoulders obediently. 
 And whilst the Countess swept out of the room — she had 
 not given a single look at Sergius Mihailovitch, but had 
 kept her face as stifHy towards the door as if it had been 
 resting in a photographer's neck stall — Miss Dexter sud- 
 denly exclaimed from the bedroom door ; 
 
 " Oh, I hope I haven't done any harm to Count Mac- 
 donald ? Oh, I hope I haven't done any harm to Count 
 Macdonald ? " 
 
 The Duke looked at her with his enigmatic and gloomy 
 eyes. 
 
 *' God knows ! God knows ! " he said. 
 
 Then he stalked gloomily out of the room after the 
 Countess. Macdonald stood up lightly on his feet. They 
 were all silent, listening to the sobs of Miss Dexter. 
 
 " It's extraordinary how little talking I've had to do 
 this morning," he said. " I might have been a battlefield 
 that you were all contending over while I just lay there — 
 except, of course, that it didn't hurt. It's been delightful 
 to be so lazy, and it's all gone like greased clockwork. 
 Her Excellency couldn't have broken the meeting up at a 
 more convenient moment." 
 
 He looked at the King. " Come along, Mr. Spenlow," 
 he said, " we'll be down at Brooklands by half-past twelve 
 all right. And I guess if you want to do a kingly action 
 you wiU ask Miss Dexter and Mrs. Pett to come with us. 
 They haven't either of them seen an aeroplane." 
 
 The King suddenly started to life. 
 
 " In that way," Macdonald said, " we leave Mr. Pett 
 and Mr. Rosenbaum to explain to Mr. Dexter the terms of 
 the contract Mr. Pett has drawn up. It's all entirely Mr. 
 Pett's doing." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 249 
 
 Mr. Pett said : "Oh, rot ! The whole thing was your idea." 
 
 The King was making towards the door with more ani- 
 mation than he had displayed at any moment of the meet- 
 ing, but he was delayed in his stride by the fact that Sergius 
 Mihailovitch had gone into Mr. Dexter's bedroom and 
 foxmd Miss Dexter sitting on the bed and weeping, with 
 her hands hiding her face. He sat down on the bed beside 
 her and patted her shoulder. 
 
 " There ! there ! " he said. " It's all forgotten ; it's 
 all forgiven. There aren't any bones broken. You'll just 
 have to get used to Kintyre's manners. He's a tremen- 
 dously great nobleman, and he regards us all just as the 
 grass he treads on with his patent leather shoes." 
 
 Miss Dexter pulled her hands fiercely down from her face. 
 
 " You're every bit as great a nobleman," she said. " I 
 hate that old Duke ! I never want to speak to him again." 
 
 " Now, that's rather awkward," Macdonald said, " be- 
 cause it's perfectly plain that he's the person you ought to 
 marry." 
 
 She looked at him more fiercely than ever. " Marry 
 him ! " she said. " I'd as soon marry a toad." 
 
 " Oh, well, you know," Macdonald said, " he may have 
 a jewel in his forehead." 
 
 But the allusion meant nothing to Miss Dexter, who was 
 preparing a new invective against Kintyre when Macdonald 
 held up his forefinger : 
 
 " Just a minute ! " he said. 
 
 From the next room they heard the voice of Mr. Dexter, 
 raised high, and saying, more and more jubilantly : 
 
 "HeUo, heUo! . . . That Paris? . . . That 
 the Hotel Bristol ?— that Hodges P. Mordaunt ? . . . 
 That you, sir ? . . . " 
 
 " Doesn't it awe you," Macdonald said, " to think that 
 we're connected at this very moment with the greatest 
 force in the world ? " 
 
250 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Besides,"— Miss Dexter ignored his question and con- 
 tinued her own train of thoughts — " if I married that ugly 
 old Duke you'd never get your divorce, and then you'd 
 never marry Lady Aldington." 
 
 Macdonald's smile became for a moment rather vague. 
 But he recovered himself immediately, and said : 
 
 " Oh, well, if I've been impertinent to you for your good, 
 you've been impertinent to me in return. So we are quits, 
 and I hope it'll be for my good too. Come along, we're 
 all going to Brooklands, and Mr. Spenlow is in a hurry." 
 
 Miss Dexter had jumped from the bed to her father's 
 washstand. She had poured out a basin full of water and 
 had shaken half a bottle of eau de Cologne into it, and had 
 got her face right into the basin before Macdonald was 
 through the door. 
 
 In the next room the King was standing forlornly in the 
 middle of the floor. Mrs. Pett was beside him, buttoning 
 up her gloves. Mr. Dexter, the Marquis da Pinta, and Mr. 
 Pett were grouped round the telephone, into which Mr. 
 Pett was reading slowly the terms of the deed that were to 
 limit the powers of the trust in the kingdom of Galizia. 
 Apparently at the other end of the wire Mr. Mordaimt had 
 some difficulty in appreciating the nicenesses of Mr. Pett's 
 London pronunciation, for one sentence Mr. Pett had to 
 repeat three times over, and once he exclaimed with 
 exasperation : 
 
 " Oh, hang it aU ! Cawn't you tmderstand Henglish ? " 
 
 " That," Macdonald remarked cheerfully to the King, 
 " is how Your Majesty makes history." 
 
 " It seems to be a silly, rotten sort of a way," was the 
 King's comment. 
 
PART IV 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 253 
 
 THIS was in the beginning of October, but it was 
 nevertheless a full six months before Sergius 
 Mihailovitch and Emily Aldington stood on the 
 deck of the yacht Esmeralda looking at the dark 
 outline of the city of Batalha. It was therefore April, 
 and although in north Galizia the spring by that month 
 has as a rule not fully set in, there are at times certain days 
 of great heat and certain nights of a tepid warmth. And 
 this was such a night. The yacht was moored close into 
 the quays, for indeed in that city they have deep waters 
 right to the heart of the bay. There was no moon, but the 
 clusters of bright stars, like swarms of bees, covered the 
 entire dark heavens. Immediately alongside there towered 
 up, black and frowning, the great square masses of ^ ware- 
 houses. In front of the warehouses they could make out 
 three enormous steam cranes, like four-legged giants of 
 iron. A Uttle to the left there was an old palace that now 
 housed the Galizian custom service. On its roof against 
 the sky they could see faintly a chariot with three horses 
 and the silhouette of a woman who, standing in the chariot, 
 held out towards them a wreath of laurels. Further along, 
 high standards of electric lights flickered and intermittently 
 sparked and died down for a moment, as if they intended 
 to go out for good ; now and then, brightly lit and glowing, 
 an electric tram ran for a brief space along the water front, 
 to be lost behind white houses almost before the rumble of 
 
254 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 its passing reached their ears coming down the water. 
 Further along still there were some lighted caf 6s. from which 
 there came faintly the sound of guitars and the metalic 
 bray of a phonograph that continued to repeat the air of 
 " La ci darem la mano." Away to the north there rose up 
 the tall shafts of the factory chimneys that they could 
 count to the number of seven, looming indistinctly in the 
 night, though from one of the factories there came a blind- 
 ing glare and bright white smoke, sending wavering trails 
 of radiance down the dark water. And all around and 
 behind the town they had the sense of high mountains, 
 looming darkly, and of ragged sea cliffs. There ran, more- 
 over, across the sea front of the bay two promontories of 
 land that seemed to overlap, on each promontory being 
 silhouetted the ragged form of a castle, the one being known 
 as Le Morro, and the other the Castle of the Gracious 
 Endeavour. 
 
 " So that," Sergius Mihailovitch said suddenly, " this 
 is what we can call success. It's success so overwhelming 
 that if we each of us had a hundred hands aaid a hundred 
 arms we couldn't take hold of it, and we couldn't grasp 
 what it meant." 
 
 The ship seemed all asleep, though somewhere someone 
 watched. A boat was crossing the harbour at a distance 
 and men were singing in it. From the portholes of the 
 upper cabins there was shown here and there a light, 
 bright and yellow, illuminating a Uttle half-circle of the 
 blue darkness. They were on the captain's bridge, looking 
 down over the whole ship. 
 
 "And wouldn't you think," Sergius Mihailovitch con- 
 tinued — " Don't you feel a sense of all these people slumber- 
 ing beneath our feet ? Doesn't it make the whole ship 
 seem Uke an immense, softly "breathing organism ? Don't 
 you feel little Pett and his wife ratlier oppressed by the 
 heat where that light is? And don't you feel the little 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 255 
 
 King on the other side, looking out of his porthole and 
 trying to think historic thoughts, whereas all the while all 
 he can really think about is the new wrench that he and 
 Mr. Salt have been trying to make out of hardened alu- 
 minium ? And if you really try you can just catch a whiff 
 of the odour of the pope's cigarettes. His room is some- 
 where just about under our feet. And the crew is all 
 asleep, and the officers are lying on mattresses right forward 
 there. And the captain is talking to my namesake Mac- 
 donald, the King of Batalha. You can just hear their 
 voices. And the cooks, and the stewards, and the stew- 
 ardesses, and the cabin boys — how many people are there 
 on the ship ? A hundred ! a hundred and twenty I Haven't 
 you got a sense of them all, sleeping or watching ? " 
 
 " No, I haven't," Lady Aldington answered. " I am 
 not so sensitized. I only feel a sense ... of you." 
 
 " Ah, my dear ! " Sergius Mihailovitch said. 
 
 And after a silence he continued : " Well, then, don't 
 you feel," he asked, " a sense that it's all more than we 
 deserve ? We've got everything that we want. There is 
 nothing we can think of that we haven't got. To-morrow 
 we begin the silly little revolution, and nothing in the world 
 can stop its success. There's nothing that we have not 
 foreseen, and there isn't a helping hand for the other side 
 anywhere in the world. And haven't we just glided alojlg 
 until we are here together— exactly where we want to be, 
 and exactly as we want to be ? And we don't seem to 
 have done anything." 
 
 Again Lady Aldington said : "No, I don't feel it like 
 that, but I can understand how you feel. They say that's 
 the difference between a man and a woman — that a man 
 looks forward and a woman remembers. At any rate, 
 that's the difference between you and me. I can't forget 
 what you've gone thro^gh. I can't forget your ups and 
 downs. I don't think I am ever going to forget your 
 
236 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 mortifications. And I don't suppose I am ever going to 
 feel perfectly safe." 
 
 " It's as if you didn't trust me," he answered happily. 
 
 " I don't know that I do," she replied. " I don't mean 
 to say that I don't trust your motives or your honour or 
 your love for me. That would be nonsense, for you've 
 got all the trust I can give. But I don't think I can trust 
 your . . . your fate. That's what I mean." 
 
 " Oh, but just consider," he answered, " how splendidly 
 we've brought it all off ! Look what we began from ; 
 look what I began from ; and look where we are ! " 
 
 " Ah, that's your dear optimism," she said. 
 
 " No, no," he answered. " That's just what is. It isn't 
 optimism, and pessimism couldn't chanpe it. It's fact." 
 
 She answered only : " Ah I " 
 
 And he continued : " And I still feel that I haven't 
 done anything for it. There's the water and the palm- 
 trees and the lights shining aU down it, and there's the 
 blessed warmth, and there's you ! " 
 
 " Ah," she said, " but you forget that we are only here, 
 as you might say, just by the skins of our teeth. It was 
 the day before yesterday at foiir o'clock that we started, 
 and at a quarter to four you still thought that you couldn't 
 start at all, or that you'd have to go by another way. And 
 you forget all the miseries you have been through, and all 
 the treacheries, my dear, that you have had to put up with." 
 
 " Oh, but all the treacheries never came to anything,' 
 he said gaily. " In the end they have quieted down. 
 We've brought it off." 
 
 " Well, I'm not wringing my hands," she answered. 
 
 " Oh no 1 " he exclaimed ; " you never wring your hands. 
 Sometimes I have looked at you, and I have wondered if 
 you had any heart at all when that wrangling was going 
 on. But, of course, I know you have a heart. Of course 
 I know it's only your cold exterior. I know it ! I'm simply 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 257 
 
 filled with pity and concern for you. And I suppose really 
 it's I that haven't got any heart, for all I think about in 
 the end is just getting forward. And even when I look 
 back and try to be as sympathetic as possible for the 
 worries you have gone through on my account — even then 
 I can't really worry enough for you. Of course I have my 
 times of depression, but they're Uke fevers. That's the 
 difference. You take these things coolly and you re- 
 member them. But they say it doesn't matter what agonies 
 you have been in if you have got a touch of fever ; after 
 they are over you simply don't remember them. And if 
 I look back on the times we have had, I just remember 
 spots of things here and there. There are interviews with 
 Pett, and interviews with soHcitors, and interviews with 
 pawnbrokers, and interviews with filibusters. But I have 
 practically got to make an effort to remember every other 
 interview that wasn't an interview with you. But when 
 it comes to them I remember every word you ever said. 
 I remember that when we went, for instance, from Wies- 
 baden to Nauheim you said you coiddn't understand 
 if I talked in figures." 
 
 " Oh, I am beginning to understand you better now," 
 she answered. 
 
 And then he said : "I said it was all the dark forest, 
 and you said you couldn't think what the dark forest 
 meant. And I dare say you can't. That's probably the 
 difference between us. When I remember what we have 
 been through, it just seems like a dark forest that I have 
 come out of into this starlight. I don't see the interviews 
 plainly ; I don't see the people plainly. It's just a dark- 
 ness. It's just tree trunks. But we are out of the wood. 
 .Whereas you . . ." 
 
 " Oh, I," she answered — " I don't forgetanything. And 
 that's why I wish you'd get rid in some way of Mr. Pett 
 and the Marquis da Pinta," 
 
258 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed, " but I can't ido it 1 And^what 
 in the world can they do to me ? I can't think of it. I 
 can't begin to think of robbing them of whatever credit 
 there is to be got out of all this funny little affair. You 
 see, they want credit and I don't. Besides, what can they 
 do to me ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear," she exclaimed, with a touch of deep 
 feeling, " if there's any credit at aU you ought to have it, 
 for you've done everything. But I don't particularly 
 want you to have the credit if you don't want it. It's only 
 that if you did want it, if you had a touch of selfishness, 
 I should feel so much safer, because I should know that 
 you'd be able a httle to look after yourself. As it is, I 
 dare say you're all right against Da Pinta, though you can't 
 expect me to Uke all this when I know that you've got to 
 fight him after aU this is over." 
 
 " Oh, but, my dear," Macdonald answered, " one's got 
 to fight duels. It's part of the day's work." 
 
 " I dare say it is," she answered. " But you can't 
 expect me to like it." 
 
 " Oh, I'll chip a Uttle bit off Da Pinta's wrist," Macdonald 
 said. " It's all right, he hasn't got a chance with me." 
 
 " I dare say he hasn't," Emily answered. " I quite 
 believe he hasn't, but it's those two, with their heads 
 always together, whispering and jealous ! It worries me. 
 It's a worry that will go on after this affair is over. You 
 pretend you don't care what they say. But you do. 
 And I who don't care what they say — who don't care in the 
 least, and you know I don't care, because I have you and 
 I trust you — I have to be worried because you're worried. 
 That's what it really comes to." 
 
 Macdonald, of course, was the unconquerable optimist. 
 But that was not to say that he did not have his moments 
 of worry, and it wasn't to say that in these moments of 
 worry he did not commit himself to actions that were 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 359 
 
 certainly unwise. And the worries of his life had really 
 been considerable, because they were so exceedingly com- 
 plicated. That was how his absurd trouble with the Mar- 
 quis da Pinta had arisen- You might have said that for 
 months Da Pinta would have been ready to black Sergius 
 Mihailovitch's boots. And he really didn't seem ever to 
 have anything to say. He could talk, of course, about the 
 weather, but he didn't appear to have any opinions. But 
 one evening, walking home with Sergius Mihailovitch and 
 Mr. Pett from Leicester House, Da Pinta had suddenly 
 begun to talk. And then it appeared that he had an 
 extravagant admiration — which was shared by all his 
 countrymen — for the works of Alexandre Dumas. 
 
 For some obscure reason — perhaps because they had no 
 writers of their own — the Galizians had elevated the author 
 of the " Three Musketeers " to the position of a sort of 
 patron saint of the country. And in Gahzia, as it came out 
 that evening, the Marquis was celebrated for his immense 
 devotion to the works of this romantic writer. He was 
 even the president of the National Society of Friends of 
 Dumas — La Sociedad Nationale Dos Amigos De Dumas. 
 Even at the revolution he had not been deprived of this 
 honour. The republic had said magnanimously that it 
 did not war against poets, so that the president of the re- 
 public was actually the vice-president of the Dumas 
 Society, thus being the inferior of the exiled nobleman. 
 Nay, Da Pinta had actually been invited to return to 
 Galizia and to occupy the chair at the great national fete 
 and bull-fight that were to be given on Dumas' Saint's 
 Day. Da Pinta was to be amnestied for a week. And he 
 fully intended to take advantage of this invitation, because 
 he was anxious to do honour to the great, the illustrious 
 god of romance. Moreover, he was anxious to get into 
 touch with the President of the Republic so as to gather 
 how much of a fight the ministry might be expected to 
 
26b THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 put up against the counter-revolution. These important 
 facts he told Macdonald as they were walking through the 
 silent emptiness of Cadogan Square towards one in the 
 morning. He added that he fully expected to make excel- 
 lent use of his visit. 
 
 " And thus," he exclaimed, swelling his chest and making 
 a great gesture with his hand, " thus the restoration to 
 liberty of my unfortunate country will be contributed to 
 by the immortal shade of the great, the illustrious, the 
 god-like poet . . ." 
 
 " Mais, mon cher," Macdonald said pleasantly, " aU this 
 is positively absurd, c'ctait ce monsieur qui ecrivait comme 
 un cocker de fiacre." 
 
 Da Pinta didn't say another word, and Macdonald forgot 
 all about it, for immediately afterwards Mr. Pett began 
 to talk about a pamphlet that he was writing. 
 
 Next morning Macdonald was in the midst of a good deal 
 of trouble with the affairs of the Resiliens Motor Company. 
 The care and attention which he gave to this enterprise 
 was just one more of his unimportant nuisances. He didn't, 
 of course, know anything about the motor-car iadustry, 
 and that was probably why such ideas as he had were 
 regarded by the sub-manager, Mr. Lawson, as being of 
 singular brilliancy. 
 
 It had struck Macdonald that as the chief characteristic 
 of the Resiliens car was the standardisation of its parts, 
 they ought to make as much of this as they could. This 
 had given him the idea of issuing a challenge to the other 
 manufacturers of motor cars in this country. He offered 
 to send six machines to Brooklands ; to let them be pulled 
 entirely to pieces by the staff on the ground, and to have 
 all the pieces mixed up as if in a heap of scrap iron. And 
 he said that his six cars would be put together again quicker 
 than any three cars of other makes that had been subjected 
 to the same process. He added other sporting features 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 261 
 
 to the challenge, such as that the Brookland officials might 
 take away any parts they liked and then telephone to the 
 factory for these parts to be sent out and fitted into the 
 machines. 
 
 Mr. Lawson had said that that was all very well, but it 
 wouldn't come off, because none of the other makers would 
 enter the competition. Macdonald said that, nevertheless, 
 they would have a try. And in the end, by skilfully 
 taunting the higher officials of certain companies, he did 
 bring the competition off. They even sold off the ground 
 the six reconstructed cars, so that the affair was in every way 
 a success. But it had meant an enormous amount of 
 correspondence and an enormous amount of wrangUng 
 with the board. It came, indeed, to the Hon. Mr. Isaac- 
 stein's resigning his directorship ; for Mr. Isaacstein had 
 views which did not include the success of the Resihens 
 Cars. But Macdonald had Mr. Dexter very firmly under 
 his thimib, and the other directors, if they were as stupid 
 as owls, were at least perfectly honest men. 
 
 But into the middle of a very worrying morning, when 
 Macdonald had one secretary at work and Lawson another, 
 and when in consequence half the letters had got into wrong 
 envelopes and the three telephone bells of the establishment 
 were aU ringing madly together, Macdonald perceived the 
 Marquis da Pinta stalking into the room, dressed with 
 unusual care in a funereal black. Da Pinta said that he 
 wanted to have some private conversation with Macdonald 
 about a personal matter. Macdonald asked Da Pinta 
 whether he couldn't see that he was very busy. Then Da 
 Pinta asked Macdonald formally to retract the infamous 
 scandal that he had uttered against the patron saint of the 
 literature of Galizia. At that moment three telegrams 
 were put into Macdonald's hands, and Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch could think of nothing better to say for the moment 
 than that he'd wiUingly retract having said that Dumas 
 
262 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 wrote like a cabman ; as a matter of fact, he wrote worse 
 than a chauffeur. Da Pinta went away in a stiff cloud of 
 gloom whilst Macdonald was reading his telegrams. 
 
 And the next morning, whilst Sergius Mihailovitch had 
 a bad headache and was worr57ing about where he could 
 get the money for Miss di Pradella's weekly accoimt, there 
 came in two gentlemen with French titles and top-hats 
 with flat brims. They were very polite and formal, and 
 Macdonald was in a very bad temper. That did not mean 
 to say that he was anyttiing but polite and formal himself, 
 but it meant that he absolutely refused to apologise. He 
 was perfectly ready to fight Da Pinta ; he really wasn't 
 going to be bothered with all this nonsense, and he referred 
 Da Pinta's seconds to two gentlemen of the Russian Em- 
 bassy, to whom he telephoned, thus getting the whole 
 thing off his hands. The duel was fixed to take place 
 during the following week at Boulogne. But on the night 
 before Macdonald had forgotten all about it. He really 
 had a most important interview to attend to. This was 
 with Kintyre and a Scotch-American called Campbell, 
 whom Kintsnre had vouched for. Campbell was to find 
 the men for the Russian battleship that was to overawe 
 the city of Flores. It was an interview that could not be 
 put off, because Campbell was saiUng in the small hours for 
 the United States. Thus Macdonald had another con- 
 founded rush on hand. By motoring with his seconds to 
 Folkestone, he had just caught a boat that landed him in 
 Boulogne towards eight. But when they reached the 
 hotel to which they were to have gone for coffee, they found 
 a telegram from the young King to say that he had abso- 
 lutely forbidden Da Pinta to fight imtil their whole enter- 
 prise was safely concluded. 
 
 This really did annoy Macdonald because he had lost 
 one of the few leisure days that he could allow himself. 
 If it hadn't been for this folly he would have been able to 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 263 
 
 lunch alone with Emily Aldington. As it was, he didn't 
 get back to town till seven. And in his ill temper he told 
 his seconds that nothing in the world would persuade him 
 to give up the duel. It was a silly thing to say, really, 
 because he did not care two pins about it, because Da 
 Pinta was a dirty little animal, and because, in the end, he 
 regarded himself as having behaved with nonsensical bad- 
 ness. But after that,of course he couldn't very well apologise. 
 
 On Charing Cross platform he fovmd awaiting him the 
 young King, who had Da Pinta under control as if he were 
 a very sulky dog. His Majesty insisted that Da Pinta 
 should offer Macdonald his hand, and that Macdonald 
 should take it. The fact was that, owing to the influence 
 of Sergius Mihailovitch, the King was beginning to take 
 his historic position with a touch of romantic seriousness. 
 He took the whole lot of them into the gloomy grill-room of 
 the station, and tried to bring off a speech in which he 
 wanted to say that a king could not allow his most promi- 
 nent adherents to quarrel in the very hour of organisation 
 of a victory. 
 
 He did not bring off his speech very well, and Macdonald 
 recognised that as things stood it was a silliness ; for it 
 would have been much better if he had been allowed to 
 scratch Da Pinta's wrist, or to cut a little bit of skin off 
 the top of his shoulder. That would have satisfied the 
 whole fiery blood of the Gahzian. As it was. Da Pinta, 
 he knew, would from that moment begin to intrigue against 
 him. Da Pinta indeed made a quite creditable little speech 
 in return. He said that His Majesty could rely upon him 
 for faithful services in their gracious endeavour, but as for 
 that gentleman. His Excellency the Count Macdonald, he 
 must expect, as soon as the King enjoyed his own again, 
 the flick of a pair of gloves or something of that sort. And 
 Macdonald was sorry that he couldn't think of anything 
 better to do at the moment than just to laugh pleasantly. 
 
264 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 It all annoyed him very much, and it annoyed him all 
 the more to think that his manners had given way under 
 the strain of the mere overwork and over-thinking that 
 he had to do. He begged his seconds next day to inform 
 the seconds of Da Pinta that he appreciated the fact that 
 the Marquis had acted with an extreme correctitude. 
 Nevertheless, he knew that Da Pinta was pursuing him all 
 the time with an untiring maUgnancy. 
 
 He heard of it from many people, but principally from 
 Mr. Pett. And then he managed to insult Mr. Pett himself. 
 It came about in this way. 
 
 Mr. Pett, happening to be in a benevolent frame of mind, 
 came one day to Macdonald at the garage to say that Da 
 Pinta was sapng the most frightful things about Mac- 
 donald. Mr. Pett tried to make Sergius Mihailovitch see 
 what a silly thing it all was, and what nonsense duelling 
 was in any case. He began an interminable worrying 
 argument on the whole subject of duelling. He began it 
 by saying that every one was talking about this siUy duel, 
 and every one thought that it was sheer fooUshness — Mrs. 
 Pett, Lady Aldington, Mr. Salt the chauffeur, and even 
 Kintyre. 
 
 " Well, hang it all," Macdonald said, " you don't suppose 
 I hke all you confounded fools talking about my affairs ? 
 I tell you I have got to fight the duel." 
 
 Mr. Pett replied that duelling was a barbarous survival 
 that had been abandoned by all sensible people in the 
 eighteenth century. Macdonald said that he had got to fight 
 this duel. Mr. Pett said he couldn't see why Macdonald 
 shouldn't tell Da Pinta that he was a dirty httle foreigner, 
 and that he might go and hang himself if he wanted death 
 in a hurry. Macdonald said that he had got to fight this 
 duel. And Mr. Pett said once more that he thought 
 duels were silly. 
 
 At last Macdonald couldn't stand it any longer, and, 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 265 
 
 although he realised that he was making a mistake, he 
 said: 
 
 " Look here, my Pett, you had better save your breath 
 for some meeting or other. You can't understand my 
 attitude, and you never could." 
 
 Mr. Pett, who was the son of a market gardener, immedi- 
 ately made the reply that might have been expected of 
 him. He said that Macdonald had told him he was no 
 gentleman. 
 
 Macdonald repUed that he hadn't said anything of the 
 sort. All he had tried to say was that there are sillinesses, 
 and that you can only get out of sillinesses satisfactorily in 
 a silly way. Duelling might be a silly way, but at any rate 
 it was a clean one. 
 
 And immediately Mr. Pett exclaimed that Macdonald 
 had told him that he, Pett, was dirty. 
 
 Macdonald was quite good humoured, but he was really 
 tired and not in the least in the mood either for explanation 
 or for a theoretic discussion of the ethics of manners, so 
 that all he said was — and he was trying to be as English 
 as he could for his friend's benefit — all he could find to say 
 was : 
 
 " Oh, go away and don't be a rotten fool." 
 
 Mr. Pett went away. And then gradually, in the shifting 
 kaleidoscope of all these people that were thrown together 
 by circumstances, Macdonald discovered that Mr. Pett and 
 Da Pinta were forming a cabal against him. 
 
 The reaUy weak spot of Macdonald in the whole affair 
 was the question of the Russian battleships. Without 
 them Macdonald wasn't going to set out upon the revo- 
 lution. But this was doubly awkward, for Mr. Pett con- 
 sidered nothing of any importance but his own particular 
 scheme of bribing the Galizian population. And Da 
 Pinta's share in the execution of the affair was precisely 
 to get the population bribed, This made Da Pinta, too, 
 
266 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 consider that the bribery was the only matter of import- 
 ance, and it threw him altogether into the arms of Mr. 
 Pett ; for both Mr. Pett and Da Pinta thought themselves 
 justified in asserting that not only the entire population of 
 Galizia, but the repubhcan ministry itself could be bribed 
 for a few thousand poimds. And this fact Mr. Pett was 
 perpetually dinning into the ears even of Lady Aldington 
 herself. He couldn't let her alone ; he imagined that by 
 the right of his genius he ought to have her ladyship entirely 
 imder his thumb. 
 
 But little by Httle it came into Mr. Pett's head to observe 
 that Lady Aldington ssonpathised entirely with Mac- 
 donald. Indeed, Mr. Pett at last opened his eyes suffi- 
 ciently to see that Macdonald was at Leicester House 
 every day, and practically all day, and one day his own 
 wife — ^his own Anne — informed him that there couldn't be 
 any doubt that Lady Aldington was going to divorce her 
 husband and marry Macdonald. She had heard it from 
 Lady Aldington's own lips. 
 
 And it was perfectly true. 
 
 One afternoon Emily had rung up the house of Mrs. 
 Montmorency in Curzon Street and had asked to be allowed 
 to speak to Lord Aldington, whom she hadn't seen for 
 three days. And then she asked Aldington to come and 
 see her at Leicester House at once. Otherwise all the rest 
 of her time was occupied for nearly a fortnight. She was 
 only free on that afternoon owing to a sudden indisposition 
 of the royal lady who was to have laid the foimdation-stone 
 of a hospital in which Lady Aldington was interested. 
 
 Aldington, who had been playing with the children of 
 Mrs. Montmorency, and who was in consequence in quite 
 a good humour, got himself into a cab and came to Leicester 
 House. 
 
 He was more untidy than usual, for one of the children 
 had pulled three buttons off his waistcoat, and another had 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 267 
 
 rufSed all of his hair that remained. He lurched into 
 Emily's dressing-room and exclaimed : 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 Emily said : " I just want to know what you will take 
 to let me divorce you ? I can't make it more than six 
 figures, but I'll go up to that." 
 
 Aldington looked at her with a crooked smile that, 
 beneath his ragged moustache, displayed all his ugly and 
 discoloured teeth. 
 
 " You want to take up with somebody el§e ? " he said. 
 
 " I want to marry Count Macdonald," she answered. 
 " If you don't convenience me in the matter I shall ask 
 him to go away with me to-morrow." 
 
 Aldington laughed. " And what becomes," he said, 
 " of your ladyship's position and your ladyship's example 
 and your ladyship's good works ? " 
 
 " I've naturally thought all about that," she answered. 
 " But it seems to me that one of the privileges of my 
 position is that I can do what I want. That's the only 
 reward that I can expect for what you call my good works 
 and for the example I do set to the rest of the world. If 
 I don't get that it doesn't seem fair. If I had to be a cook- 
 maid I might act differently. But I don't have the plea- 
 sures of a cook-maid, and I have twice the work of a prime 
 minister. So I consider that I have the right to do what 
 I want." She added : " And if I haven't the right I 
 shall make it." 
 
 Aldington looked at her with the same grin — it was all 
 the expression that he had. 
 
 " Well, by God," he said, " living with me has made you 
 a damned good plucked one 1 " 
 
 " I dare say it is living with you that has done it ; " she 
 said, " but the point is, what will you take ? " 
 
 Aldington said : " Oh, damn it ! " and she imagined that 
 she perceived in his tone an air of aggrievement. He 
 
268 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 remained looking at her for quite a long time, his blue eyes 
 having reddish rims and being entirely expressionless. He 
 might have been thinking nothing ; he might have been 
 making the deep and long calculations that one imagines 
 a bull to make when it gazes at you for a long time. 
 
 And at last he said — and this time there was no doubting 
 the aggrievement of his tone : 
 
 " Oh, hang it all, old girl, don't you remember that I 
 am a gentleman ? " 
 
 " I don't see how I can," Emily answered ; and his face 
 really fell. " You've forged my cheques for that woman ; 
 you've behaved like a brute to me. How can I remember 
 that you're a gentleman ? " 
 
 " But I am ; damn it, I am," Aldington answered. " If 
 I forged your cheques it was because I wanted the money 
 and I took it ; if I behaved hke a brute to you it was 
 because I wanted to do it and I did it. That's what you've 
 just been saying ; you talked about a cook-maid. Hang 
 it all, have I had a better time than you or than a cook- 
 maid ? Good Lord, no ! Don't you understand that 
 living with you is worse than anything any cook-maid ever 
 had to put up with ? " 
 
 Lady Aldington considered him for a minute. " Oh, 
 you poor devil ! " she said. 
 
 " Good Lord," Aldington went on again, " if I wanted 
 your money I'd go on forging cheques. I will if I do. 
 But as for putting a price on your liberty ... no, 
 I am not that sort of swine." 
 
 " Oh, but. Aldington," she exclaimed, " what will you 
 do ? You have got all those expensive habits ! You 
 can't get on without . . ." 
 
 " Good Lord," he interrupted her, " what a queer devil 
 a woman is ! What does it matter to you what I get on 
 without or what I don't get on without ? " 
 
 " But I shouldn't like to think," she exclaimed, " of 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 269 
 
 your having to do without the things you are used to. 
 You must let me . . ." 
 
 " Pack of nonsense ! " he exclaimed. " If you want 
 your liberty you can divorce me to-morrow. I shan't 
 defend it ; that's an end of the business." 
 
 " But how are you going to get on ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, good Lord," he answered, " I don't know ! What 
 does it matter ? I'll find somebody else's cheques to forge. 
 There's the entailed property ; I can always raise a bit 
 more on that. My mother's jointure will be falling in 
 some day. I can always blackmail her for a hundred or 
 two. But as for hanging on to you when you don't want 
 to be hung on to — no, I am not that sort." 
 
 Emily remained for some time gazing abstractedly at a 
 silhouette of her great-grandfather, the eighth Duke of 
 Kint5T:e, an absurd figure in a huge pot-hat that hung 
 beside one of her wardrobes. . . . 
 
 " I don't understand it all," she said ; "I thought it 
 was going to be so difficult, and you're making it so easy." 
 
 " Oh, just stick it down in your account books that I'm 
 a gentleman," he answered. " I remember hearing you 
 and that young fool Tony Wellman arguing in that silly 
 way of yours about what a gentleman was. But I can tell 
 you. It doesn't matter what he does, and it doesn't matter 
 what he thinks. But if you come to think of me I'U tell 
 you what you'll think. You'll say I ragged you and I 
 bullied you. But there was some sort of tag that we had 
 to translate at Harrow. I don't know whether it was 
 Latin or whom it was about. I've got no memory. But 
 what it said was that nothing in this life became him like 
 the leaving it. That's what you've got to stick down about 
 me. You won't want to stick it down because you've 
 always loathed me, but you've got to do it." 
 
 " Oh, I'U stick it down," she said. 
 
 " WeU, then, that's an end of it," he answered ; " that's 
 
270 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 an end of the whole rotten jackpot. We shan't, thank 
 God, ever have to see each other again ! I guess I don't 
 ever want to speak to you again. But you can't stick it 
 down that I wanted to keep you away from a man you 
 wanted. I'm not that sort of a loafer. Nothing in our 
 joint Hfe is going to become me hke the leaving it. It's 
 you that have got to feel mean, if either of us has to." 
 
 " I beheve I do feel a little mean," Emily answered, 
 " though I don't in the least see why I should." 
 
 Heavy and ungracious, Aldington seemed to waver on 
 his large feet, as if he wasn't quite certain whether he had 
 an5^hing more to say. 
 
 " Oh yes," he exclaimed at last, " you can do this if 
 you hke ! I'm a confounded waster, and Mrs. Mont- 
 morency is six times worse than I am. And there are the 
 three children. Supposing you settled three thousand 
 pounds a year on Matilda Montmorency. No, don't settle it ; 
 have your solicitors to pay it quarterly, and stop it if you 
 hear she's tried to mortgage it in any kind of way at all. And 
 let the three children have five hundred a year each for hfe 
 after the mother's death. That won't inconvenience you ? " 
 
 " No, it won't inconvenience me," Emily said. " I 
 think it makes me feel rather obliged to you." 
 
 He looked at her threateningly. " Mind you leave it 
 at that," he said ; " mind you imderstand that I don't 
 ask it as the price of your liberty. I ask it so as to give 
 you a chance of obliging me, and that puts you under an 
 obligation to me because you want to oblige me. You 
 will have a better taste in your mouth." 
 
 " Well, I'm not saying that I am not grateful," Emily 
 answered. 
 
 Aldington squared his shoulders and breathed deeply. 
 
 " Then, thank God, it's over ! " he said. " I feel as 
 if I'd dropped a beastly big knapsack." And he went out 
 of the room. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 271 
 
 II 
 
 BUT in however quiet and civilised a manner all 
 this might be arranged, there was no getting 
 away from talk about it, so that the only person 
 who was at all interested in these subterranean 
 matters and who did not know that Lady Aldington was 
 divorcing her husband — the only person who was quite 
 ignorant of it was Sergius Mihailovitch himself. This 
 came about from the peculiar nature of his relation with 
 Emily. He must have seen her certainly every day, and 
 on some days two or three times, but he never really once 
 saw her alone. He would indeed have lunched with her 
 alone at Leicester House but for the fact that when that 
 day came he had been engaged for his duel at Boulogne — 
 death and the hazard of death having precedence of all 
 lunches and the hazard of love. Thus it might be said 
 that in all the things that they could know of each other 
 beneath public eyes they were extremely intimate. Kin- 
 tyre had really taken that side of the matter in hand. He 
 had fixed up his cousin's engagement book for her. 
 
 He wasn't a man that did very much entertaining of his 
 own, though now and then he gave a dinner, or in the 
 summer took people to race meetings on a coach. But 
 he had at his orders at least a dozen subservient hostesses 
 who would give entertainments when he wanted them, 
 and ask anybody whom he wanted to have asked. Thus 
 he saw to it that Emily was asked for every night of her 
 
272 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 life, and that Sergius Mihailovitch was asked on the same 
 nights. And he saw to it too that Macdonald and his cousin 
 were sent down to dinner together. And once that sort 
 of thing is started it continues itself. There wasn't any 
 lack of people who wanted to have Lady Aldington, and 
 they were all of them glad enough to get Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch. 
 
 It considerably extended Emily's visiting list. It made 
 her coachman famiUar with parts of London that they had 
 never thought of officially penetrating into. They went 
 into Bayswater, and they went into Hampstead, and they 
 even went into Bloomsbury. And in extending Lady 
 Aldington's visiting list it extended, too, her view of Ufe. 
 
 For until about this date it can't have been said that she 
 was much more than something like the energetic wife of 
 an extremely lax clergyman. Aldington, that is to say, 
 had the duties of his station ; he was a landowner and a 
 peer of a great Whig line. He didn't attend to any of his 
 duties, and so Emily had conceived that it was for her to 
 take them over. She had, moreover, the duties of her own 
 station — of her immense wealth, of her slum properties, 
 and of her never-ending " interests." So that, what with 
 attending to the social duties of the two incapacitated 
 Radical cabinet ministers, what with clearing out the 
 rookeries in Glasgow, and conscientiously looking after 
 the administration of hospitals, she simply hadn't had any 
 personal hfe at all in the ten years of her marriage to 
 Aldington. Of that sort of semi-public Hfe she knew 
 almost everything. She was as well able to manage a 
 committee as a bank clerk was to manage his fountain- 
 pen. This had given her the touch of coldness and hardness 
 with which she had managed Mr. Dexter. It wasn't so 
 much that she was rude as that she had only just time 
 enough in which to do all that she had to do. She couldn't 
 afford to be bothered by listening to the protestations df 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 273 
 
 Mr. Dexter or of anybody else. A meeting was a thing 
 convened to do a certain amount of work. At every 
 meeting there would be a number of persons with a number 
 of different kinds of selfishness. These people had to be 
 silenced somehow or the meeting couldn't do its work. 
 So that to any such meeting she always went fully advised 
 of what she wanted, and perfectly determined to ignore 
 anything that wasn't in the nature of a sensible objection 
 to one or other of her determinations. 
 
 In almost the same cold way she had considered her 
 relations with Sergius Mihailovitch. She hadn't any 
 doubt that she wanted to marry him, and she determined 
 to be in a position to do so whether he was or wasn't. 
 So she simply spoke to her husband and instructed her 
 soHcitors without ever having spoken to Macdonald himself. 
 It was an odd, cold, obstinate way of going about things ; 
 it was the sort of thing that makes foreigners speak of the 
 English as having a spleen. And she hadn't any moral 
 scruples of any kind. She felt in herself precisely that she 
 was a public officer with public work to do, and that as 
 long as she did her public work, what she did privately 
 was just her personal reward if she liked it when she got it. 
 She probably could not have put it into words — or she 
 would never have thought of putting it into words — but 
 within her was the feeling that that was what distinguished 
 her as an aristocrat from the rest of the world. A great 
 lady did what she wanted, and it was right ; other women 
 had to have standards because they had to have standards. 
 She couldn't have imagined any other way of looking 
 at it. 
 
 Kintyre's dinners, however, introduced her into an 
 entirely new world. She came across dishes that she would 
 never have imagined, and points of view that she never 
 believed to have existed. It wasn't that many of Kint57re's 
 friends were Bohemians ; it was simply that all of them 
 
 T 
 
274 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 were irresponsible. With a certain sort of shyness she 
 came across ladies whose blood, titles or positions were 
 certainly the equal of her own ; and they would have ex- 
 travagantly blonde heads, high voices, and views about the 
 opera. She came across men who were certainly the superior 
 of Aldington in both blood and position ; and these men 
 ran theatres, conducted Bohemian clubs, or gave all their 
 attentions to one form or another of fashionable mysticism. 
 And the odd thing, as far as she herself was concerned, 
 was that as far as she could see there was nothing really 
 wrong with these people. 
 
 From her old standpoint, which was that of a district 
 visitor on a scale so gigantic that she seemed in a wholesale 
 way to district-visit the entire empire — from her own 
 standpoint it had been almost criminal to think of such a 
 thing as an opera at all. But here she came across ladies 
 of position whose whole mind seemed to be given up to 
 collecting attendances at the opera for all the world as if 
 they were collecting postage stamps. Why, six of Kintjnre's 
 friends went off in a body to Budapesth, men and women 
 mixed up in order to attend the production of an Egyptian 
 fantasia by an Hungarian composer called Gay-Korskao£E, 
 with words by an Italian poet Ccilled D'Aimunzio. 
 
 Lady Aldington really had never imagined that such a 
 thing would be possible, yet one of the gentlemen who made 
 this joimiey was a British ex-prime minister, who paired 
 for the purpose. It is perfectly true that this gentleman 
 was of a political opinion opposed to that of Lady Alding- 
 ton's friends, but although she had heard him speak at 
 least twenty times she hadn't been expecting to find him a 
 member of what the Countess Macdonald would have called 
 the idle and dissolute Smart Set. 
 
 Yet what Lady Aldington had seriously considered to 
 be the duty of serious people in mid-October and early 
 November was to shoot pheasants. Serious people bore 
 
THE NEW HUMPIY-DUMPTY 275 
 
 the burden of the empire, of the poor, and of the adminis- 
 tration of trades and industries for nine or ten months in 
 the year. Now and then they shot pheasants in order to 
 recover their healths. They visited each other in country 
 houses for this purpose, and when they weren't actually 
 amongst the fusillades of the dripping covert sides they were 
 discussing serious matters in the smoking-room or even at 
 the dinner-table. That late autumn and early winter she 
 had her usual house parties for her usual three big shoots 
 at Aldington Towers. She had her usual guests, except 
 for the fact that Aldington was not there, and Macdonald 
 and Kintyre, and Mr. and Mrs. Pett, and Mr. and Miss 
 Dexter, and the King of GaUzia and the Queen-Mother 
 were. 
 
 The laws of the country demanded that Aldington should 
 not sleep beneath the same roof as his wife, but Lady Alding- 
 ton's very ef&cient solicitors — ^Aldington was employing no 
 solicitors at all — decided that it was just possible that 
 Aldington should show himself at some of her poUtical 
 teas. Emily wanted this, because she wanted to delay 
 talk for as long as possible. It wasn't that she disliked 
 talk, but simply that if there was much of it it might make 
 it necessary for her to have an understanding with Sergius 
 Mihailovitch, and with a feeling of shyness she didn't 
 want to come to an understanding with him before she was 
 in a position of absolute liberty. So that whilst she was 
 giving her shoots. Aldington was understood to be absent 
 on business in Nova Scotia — and, indeed. Aldington had 
 gone to Nova Scotia with Mrs. Montmorency on the sugges- 
 tion of Lady Aldington's solicitors. In this way there was 
 established what is called legal desertion on the part of 
 Aldington. 
 
 But, in the queer way that lawyers have of regarding 
 these things, her ladysWp's excellent soUcitors could not 
 see anything against her ladyship's husband being present 
 
276 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 at her tea parties. It was to be imagined that his lordship 
 in removing his effects from Leicester House must have 
 occasion for conversation with her, to which not even the 
 King's Proctor could take exception. 
 
 Thus, quite frequently enough to confuse the social 
 commentators, the large and awkward figure of Aldington 
 was seen in the background of his wife's guests. And, 
 moving about near him there was also to be seen the form 
 of the unconscious Sergius Mihailovitch. 
 
 It wasn't so much that Sergius Mihailovitch was really 
 obtuse, but simply that the sort of thing was entirely 
 unfamiliar to his foreign mind. He would never have 
 thought of it ; indeed, it would have seemed rather ob- 
 noxious to him. He would not have wanted to be in the 
 same room with Aldington in these circumstances. So that 
 when the hght did burst upon him it gave him one of several 
 of his bad days. But it came rather slowly. 
 
 There was a firm of soUcitors caUed Holland and Buss 
 who had twice written to him asking him to make an 
 appointment for some purpose that they did not specify. 
 Macdonald, imagining that they wished to propose to him 
 some business deal connected with the Resiliens Motor 
 Car Company, did not answer their letters, for he thought 
 they might just as well say what they wanted before wasting 
 his time. But something like a fortnight later he received 
 a bulky and registered letter that, although his corre- 
 spondence was very heavy, semed to claim his attention, 
 because it was marked " private " and his business secretary 
 had not opened it. He tore the envelope negligently, and 
 then perceived a sheet of writing paper with the heading of 
 Messrs. Holland and Buss. And along with it came a 
 quantity of bluish-grey paper, endorsed on the folded back 
 in a rather faint type-writing, all in capital letters : " Draft 
 of a Deed of Separation between H.E. the Countess 
 Margaret Macdonald and Count Sergius Mihailovitch Mac- 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 277 
 
 donald, Aide-de-camp to H.I.M. The Emperor of Russia, 
 etc., etc." And in their letter Messrs. Holland and Buss 
 begged His Excellency to call on them for the purpose of 
 discussing this doument. Macdonald did not look at the 
 deed, but he stood for a moment reflecting. Then he told 
 his secretary to strike out any engagements that he might 
 have for that afternoon, and to telephone to those gentlemen 
 that he was coming to see them at once. 
 
 Mr. Buss was a sleepy, untidy gentleman, in a grey 
 coat, with erect grey hair, a reddish hooked nose. He 
 was rather stout, and at first he seemed to regard the 
 whole matter as an immense joke. He became, however, 
 decidedly concerned as soon as Macdonald placed upon the 
 table the draft deed. 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch said : " You can make this out 
 as soon as you like, and I'll sign it." 
 
 Mr. Buss leant a Uttle forward over his table and chuckled. 
 He said that if Macdonald would give him the name of his 
 solicitor they could discuss the matter. Macdonald said 
 that he didn't want any discussion. He hadn't got a 
 solicitor of his own. 
 
 " I haven't looked at the deed," he said. " I don't in 
 the least know what it contains,, but I am ready to sign it 
 whatever it is." 
 
 Mr. Buss sat up rigidly in his chair. He did not appear 
 to beHeve his ears, and gradually a look of concern came 
 into his eyes. 
 
 " But I say," he exclaimed, " look here, you know 1 " 
 
 " It's perfectly simple," Macdonald said. " I will 
 give Her Excellency exactly whatever she asks. I won't 
 discuss anything, because any discussion of the sort would 
 be unpleasant to me." 
 
 "But " Mr. Buss exclaimed. 
 
 " That's really an end of the matter," Macdonald said ; 
 and he rose from his chair to go. 
 
278 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " But, look here I " Mr. Buss exclaimed energetically, 
 and, rising from his chair, he almost fell backwards over its 
 arm in his excitement. " We can't do business like that. 
 Such a way of coming to an agreement has never been 
 heard of in aU the history of the divorce courts I " 
 
 " Then it's got to be heard of now," Macdonald said. 
 " You understand that I wish the Countess to have 
 everything that she desires. Or can't you understand 
 that ? " 
 
 " But really," Mr. Buss protested, " I must insist on 
 your consulting a solicitor. It simply can't be done like 
 this. Supposing— supposing . . ." And Mr. Buss 
 wavered for a moment. Then he went on with relief: 
 " Supposing that in after years there should be any ques- 
 tion of the document. It might be held to be harsh and 
 unconscionable." 
 
 " But there will never be any question of the document," 
 Macdonald said. 
 
 " But your heirs might object ? " Mr. Buss protested. 
 
 " I haven't got any heirs," Macdonald answered. " I 
 just want you to understand that I want her Excellency 
 to have every stick that she asks for." 
 
 Mr. Buss's voice became soft and confidential. " Of 
 course I recognise," he said, " that you are acting with a 
 most extraordinary handsomeness. I've never met any 
 one who acted with more handsomeness. But the point is 
 that there might be such a thing as giving the Countess 
 more than she asks for." 
 
 " Then you can just cut the surplus out of the deed," 
 Macdonald said. 
 
 " But really," Mr. Buss answered, " I can see that 
 you intend to be most amiable, but you do put us into a 
 confounded dif&culty." 
 
 " It's more than I can understand," Macdonald said. 
 " What do you want me to do ? " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 279 
 
 " Why, of course, we want you to consult a solicitor," 
 Mr. Buss answered. 
 
 " But what's the good of consulting a sohcitor ? " Mac- 
 donald asked. " I've already said that I will give you all 
 you ask." 
 
 " No ; but really do get a solicitor to have a look at the 
 deed," Mr. Buss said ; "all this is so extraordinarily irregu- 
 lar. Don't you see that this deed, which you haven't 
 read, might perhaps, let's say, now — let's say it might 
 prevent your marrpng again ? " 
 
 " But I haven't the least desire to marry again," Sergius 
 Mihailovitch said, " not the least desire or intention in the 
 world." 
 
 At this Mr. Buss's jaw fell right open. " But, good 
 God," he exclaimed, " is the Countess mad ? " 
 
 " I should say," Macdonald answered amiably, " that 
 Her Excellency is quite mad. That's really the trouble, 
 you know." 
 
 " But then ..." Mr. Buss sat down in his chair 
 in an ungainly heap. He ran his hand through his imtidy 
 hair and gazed at his blotting-pad. 
 
 " Of course, it puts us in an impossible position," he 
 said ; " because I don't mind teUing you — without pre- 
 judice of course — that the Countess does want to marry 
 again ! " And then he started uneasily and exclaimed : 
 " You really mean what you say — that you will give the 
 Countess all that she asks ? You won't take advantage 
 of my shp ? But it's such an extraordinary position." 
 
 " My dear man," Macdonald answered, " I shan't take 
 an advantage of your slip because I don't know what your 
 shp is. But I certainly shan't prevent Her Excellency 
 marrying again if that is what you mean. Why should I ? 
 As far as I am concerned I regard her as a dead person. 
 She simply isn't there. She simply doesn't exist." 
 
 " Of course that makes it more comprehensible," Mr. 
 
28o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Buss said. " But all the same it's very queer. It's very 
 queer." 
 
 Macdonald laughed : " I don't in the least understand 
 you," he said. " It seems to me that I am acting in the 
 only possible manner for a decent man." 
 
 " That's just it," Mr. Buss said ; " they never do act 
 in that manner. That's what's thrown us off our balance. 
 We expected — the Countess represented that you would 
 make all sorts of objections. So we prepared tiie deed in 
 the expectation that you would." 
 
 Macdonald laughed. " I am very sorry for you per- 
 sonally," he said, " but I will do everything that I can to 
 help you. What do you want me to do ? " 
 
 Mr. Buss straightened his back and resumed something 
 of the hopeful attitude of an ordinary man. 
 
 " AU that's wanted," he said, " is that you should consult 
 a soh'citor. He'll explain the matter to you. You under- 
 stand that I can't professionally do it." 
 
 " Well, I'll consult a solicitor," Macdonald said. " I 
 seem to gather that you want me to instruct a solicitor 
 to fight your own deed." 
 
 Mr. Buss reaUy sighed with relief. He rose from his 
 chair and, coming round his table, patted Macdonald on 
 the shoulder. 
 
 " Oh yes, do that ! " he exclaimed. " That's all that 
 we want. You understand that our position has been 
 extraordinarily difficult. The lady ..." 
 
 " Oh, I quite understand that your position has been 
 difficult," Macdonald said. 
 
 Mr. Buss smiled affectionately. " You mean to say," 
 he said, " that you've had fifteen years of the same sort of 
 thing." 
 
 " I didn't mean to say anything at aU," Macdonald 
 said. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 281 
 
 The immediate result of this interview, as far as Mac- 
 donald was concerned, was that at about half-past eleven 
 of that night Miss Dexter came knocking at his door that 
 gave on to the mews. This was inconvenient to Macdonald, 
 because he had Miss di Pradella upstairs in the garage. 
 Miss di Pradella had come to fetch a dozen embroidered 
 pillow slips which a stupid firm of tradesmen had sent to 
 MacdonaJd's address instead of hers, and she had declared 
 that she couldn't possibly wait for them till next morning. 
 So that it was by the merest accident that Macdonald 
 heard Miss Dexter knocking at all, for he had merely come 
 down into his room to fetch the parcel, and had intended to 
 go straight back to Miss di Pradella and out with her by 
 the Little Walden Street entrance. 
 
 So that when he saw Miss Dexter, pale and dishevelled in 
 the light of the mews lamp, he couldn't do anything but 
 exclaim : 
 
 " My God ! " 
 
 She walked straight past him and into his room. She 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " The Countess has asked me to come and see you." 
 
 " But at this time of night ? " Macdonald protested. 
 
 " The Countess says that she couldn't possibly sleep 
 unless she gets this matter settled," Miss Dexter quavered. 
 " I don't want her to have a bad night." 
 
 " But you can't stop here," Macdonald said. " We'd 
 better go to your hotel." 
 
 " I'm not stopping at the hotel," the girl answered. 
 " I am stopping with the Countess at Putney, and Popper's 
 away at Liverpool over a cotton deal." She added rather 
 dismally, " You can't say I'll be compromised if the 
 Countess is waiting outside." 
 
 And, at an end of his resources, Macdonald answered : 
 " I can't say anything. It's beyond me." 
 
 He took up the parcel of piUow slips and exclaimed : 
 
282 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " At any rate, however monstrously you may tyrannise 
 over me, I've got to have three minutes to myself." And he 
 ran upstairs to deUver her parcel to Miss di PradeUa. 
 
 Miss di PradeUa insisted on opening the parcel then and 
 there to see that the pillow slips were the right ones. What 
 with the opening and the packing it up again she managed 
 to occupy a fuU ten minutes, and before the final knot was 
 tied Macdonald was aware that Miss Dexter had climbed 
 the corkscrew stairs and was coming towards them in the 
 aisle between the two rows of automobiles. She was paler 
 than any one he had ever seen in his life. It was aU extra- 
 ordinarily bewildering. 
 
 It had come about in this way. No sooner had Mac- 
 donald left Mr. Buss than that gentleman sent the Countess 
 a telephone message to say that he had had an interview 
 with Macdonald and wanted to see her. But it was fuU 
 six o'clock before the Countess arrived in Savile Row. 
 Mr. Buss was upon the point of leaving the office, because 
 he had an engagement for bridge at his club at ten minutes 
 past six. Thus, when the Countess arrived with the dis- 
 tracted Miss Dexter in attendance upon her, Mr. Buss 
 became in the worst of tempers. In the ordinary course 
 he would have said that he was out. But something had 
 gone wrong with the telephone in his own room and he 
 had come down to use the instrument that was in the clerk's 
 office. Thus the Coimtess caught him at it, and indeed she 
 had marched into Mr. Buss's room, followed by Miss Dexter, 
 before that gentleman had left the telephone. This really 
 did seem to him what he called a little too thick. He 
 followed her agitatedly — it is possible that he might not 
 have been the celebrated and skilful divorce lawyer that 
 he was had he not been a person of more human passions 
 than is usual in a solicitor. He found the Coimtess glaring 
 at him with very large eyes and flushed cheeks. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 283 
 
 " You've seen Sergius Mihailovitch ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes, I have," Mr. Buss answered ; " I've seen Count 
 Macdonald, and let me tell you, you've dished the whole 
 show. That's what you've done ; you've cooked your own 
 goose, because the Count is an absolute gentleman. You 
 shoTildn't have tried that sort of game on with the Count. 
 Because that's what he is, a perfect gentleman." 
 
 The Countess looked at him ironically. " Of course, 
 Sergius Mihailovitch would take a man like you in," she 
 said. " He takes everybody in except me ; " and then 
 she added slowly and contemptuously, " I thought you 
 represented me, not him." 
 
 " So I do," Mr. Buss said. " I wish I didn't." 
 
 " This doesn't seem a conventional way to treat a client," 
 the Countess exclaimed. 
 
 " It isn't," Mr. Buss answered ; " but if you want me 
 to continue representing you the matter has got to be 
 treated in an imconventional manner. Now listen to me. 
 If you want me to go on with your affair you've got to 
 leave the matter entirely in my hands. You've not got to 
 go confusing me by misrepresenting your husband's cha- 
 racter. I know what you want. You want all his money 
 and all his furniture and his title, and as much as you 
 can get of his prospects ; and you want him to let you 
 divorce him ; and you want to damage his character in the 
 divorce case as much as you can. Well, I can guarantee 
 to arrange all that if you let me alone. But with the 
 muddle you have got things into at the present . . ." 
 
 "What is the muddle I have got things into at the 
 present ? " the Countess asked sombrely. 
 
 " Simply this," Mr. Buss answered with exasperation, 
 " your confounded husband agrees to every silly blessed 
 thing you made me stick into this agreement." 
 
 " Well, that seems to be all right," the Countess said. 
 
 " Is it ? " Mr. Buss snarled. " It simply means that 
 
284 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 you won't get your divorce. That's what you've done, 
 you've dished yourself." 
 
 He pulled off his office coat and snatched another from 
 the nail at the back of the door. Whilst he was struggling 
 into this he said : 
 
 " You've dished yourself, that's it. Do you suppose 
 that your husband is going to let you discredit him just 
 because you ask it, when aU the while he can get what he 
 wants in this confounded separation deed ? Do you under- 
 stand that ? He's got you caught out of your own mouth. 
 You simply haven't got a chance. You worried me into 
 producing a deed that would prevent your husband from 
 remarrying and you from remarrying. You thought that 
 in that way you would blackmail him ! Yes. blackmail 
 him ! You've offered him those terms, and you can't get 
 out of it if he accepts them, and you're done if he does. 
 Is that King's EngUsh enough for you to understand it ? " 
 And Mr. Buss clapped on his broad-brimmed silk hat and 
 shook a heavy finger at the Countess. His game of bridge 
 was calling to him insistently. 
 
 " I can't spare any more time," he said. " I've got an 
 urgent appointment. You go away and reflect upon it, 
 and let me know to-morrow whether you agree ta my 
 handling the case or else you find another solicitor." 
 
 The Countess dragged the agitated Miss Dexter down to 
 Putney in a taxi-cab. And then, reaching that place 
 about seven, they began to discuss the matter in the room 
 that contained the oak chests, the warming-pans, and the 
 grandfather's clock. 
 
 The Countess discussed the matter with an extreme 
 eloquence from all its aspects. The chief thing which she 
 ftiade out of it was that Sergius Mihailovitch was a cunning 
 devil who could take in the Arch-fiend himself. He was 
 determined to treat her with the most refined cruelty, even 
 if he had to sacrifice his marriage with Emily Aldington in 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 285 
 
 order to do it. What Sergius Mihailovitch really was, she 
 said, was a mean scoundrel who would starve her and cheat 
 her out of all her rights. But now he wanted to pose as 
 a gentleman. And the way he did it was the meanest 
 thing of all. By pretending to give her what she wanted 
 he was cheating her out of the possibility of marrsnng 
 Kintyre. 
 
 It was exactly three hours before Miss Dexter got a word 
 in — that is to say, it was ten o'clock. Then the unfortunate 
 Mamie managed to say that she didn't beUeve Sergius 
 Mihailovitch knew what he was doing when he offered 
 to agree to all that the Countess wanted. She believed 
 that he was just simply ignorant of the niceties of English 
 law. She supposed that he thought he could have the deed 
 of separation and the divorce as well. The Countess, of 
 course, confuted this theory with an immense vigour. She 
 said that it was absurd to say that Macdonald was a fool 
 when every one in the world knew that he was a hardened 
 villain steeped in the practices of the idle and dissolute 
 Smart Set. How was it possible that he could not know 
 about the divorce laws when the idle and dissolute Smart 
 Set talked of nothing else ? But for once in a way Miss 
 Dexter held firmly to her opinion. She said she beUeved 
 that Sergius Mihailovitch was just ignorant. She said 
 even that Sergius Mihailovitch was just as innocent as 
 a Boston boarding-school miss. 
 
 " Oh, he's a silly fool 1 " the Countess conceded. " I'll 
 admit that he's a fool whenever being a fool can do mis- 
 chief, but it's his fate to work mischief one way or the 
 other," 
 
 But at last Miss Dexter got the Countess down to a sort 
 of a wager. She staked her intelligence upon the point 
 that, if the legal aspect of the case could be put to Sergius 
 Mihailovitch, Sergius Mihailovitch would perfectly 
 readily agree to let the Countess have her divorce. And 
 
286 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 that really started in the Countess a new train of thought. 
 It made her, moreover, exceedingly eager to get the matter 
 settled that very night. For if that could be done before 
 morning she would be able to teU Mr. Buss that she had 
 settled the matter without his aid. She wanted to be 
 able to snap her fingers in Mr. Buss's face. 
 
 " It's very odd to me," Miss Dexter said, " that you don't 
 seem to hate Mr. Buss. He was real rude to you. Real, 
 downright rude ! And you don't seem to mind it a bit." 
 
 " No, I don't mind it a bit," the Countess answered. 
 " That's how I like a man to treat me ; if he's right he is 
 right, or if I can dish him, as he called it, I'll dish him. 
 But there aren't any maudlin friUs about him. He speaks 
 to me as if I were a man, and I speak to him back as if I 
 were a man, and that's what I want." 
 
 " Then there's no wonder," Miss Dexter sighed, " that 
 you can't get on with any one as perfectly lovely as Sergius 
 Mihailovitch." 
 
 " No, I've no use for that sort of fool," the Countess 
 answered. 
 
 And having got her mind set upon it, she whirled Miss 
 Dexter right up to the door of Macdonald's lodgings in the 
 mews. She made Miss Dexter knock, and then withdrew 
 into the shadows of the passage. 
 
 " But ain't you coming with me ? " Mamie exclaimed 
 helplessly. 
 
 " Certainly not," the Countess answered. " Do you 
 suppose that I would soil myself by entering those polluted 
 doors ? " 
 
 " But shan't I be soiled too ? " Miss Dexter answered. 
 
 " You I " the receding Countess called, contemptuously. 
 " Do you suppose that any man would be suspected of so 
 much as looking at you ? " 
 
 It was in this way that Macdonald had both Miss Dexter 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 287 
 
 and Miss di Pradella on his hands in the garage at Little 
 Walden Street. But Miss di Pradella did not occupy his 
 time all along. He had to take her out into Regent Street 
 and find her a cab. When he came back he found that 
 Miss Dexter had retired into his room downstairs. 
 
 " Couldn't you," he asked, " have stopped in the garage ? 
 It would have been much more respectable." 
 
 " No, I couldn't," she answered. She shivered. " I 
 couldn't stand all those automobiles in that dim hght. 
 They seemed to be watching me like dragons — like wet 
 monsters." 
 
 Macdonald sighed. " Well, what's it all about ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " It's just this," she answered. " The Countess thinks 
 that you aren't going to let her divorce you." 
 
 " Now, see here," Macdonald said. " This isn't at all 
 the proper sort of talk for a girl like you. How old are 
 you ? Nineteen. ... I never hke to talk about Her 
 Excellency, and I never like to blame her, but I think it's 
 the most outrageous and disgusting thing that I've ever 
 heard of a woman doing for a young girl in her charge." 
 
 " Oh, what's the use of talking hke that ? " Miss Dexter 
 wailed. " Are you going to let the Countess divorce you 
 or aren't you ? " 
 
 " Of course I am," Macdonald said. " I've told those 
 fools that I'll let them do anything they want. All this 
 is infamous ! It's execrable I " 
 
 A profound misery had indeed descended upon Macdonald 
 — a blackness of despair such as had been famihar to him 
 in the days of unbridled repression after the failure of the 
 Russian revolution. He didn't feel able to think ; he didn't 
 feel able to move. He just sat in a chair with his hands 
 hanging beside him. 
 
 " In the name of God," he said, " what have I done to 
 get mixed up in this sort of loathsome business ? " 
 
288 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Miss Dexter was sitting on the bed facing him. " Oh, 
 don't ! " she exclaimed. " I believe you're going to 
 cry." 
 
 Macdonald looked desolately at her. " I Avish I could," 
 he said. And then he added, "I see you've got your 
 glasses. Do they do you any good ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's heaven I " Miss Dexter exclaimed. " It's just 
 heaven ! I haven't had one of my headaches since the 
 day I put them on. And if ever I bless you for anything, 
 it is for making me go to that old ocuhst." 
 
 " Well, you certainly look much better," Macdonald said 
 absently. " You're putting on flesh . . . But be off 
 now ; you can't keep the Coimtess waiting." 
 
 Miss Dexter said, with a sudden touch of vindictiveness, 
 " I don't care if I keep the Countess waiting aU night 
 or six weeks ! " And then suddenly she broke down and 
 began to wail out : " Oh, do say that you'll let the Countess 
 have her divorce ! Do say that you'U let the Countess 
 have her divorce ! i said you would if the divorce law 
 could be explained to you, but I can't explain it to you. 
 I only know that if you sign that deed she can't get her 
 divorce, and oh, I pledged my word that you aren't that 
 sort of man. Don't give me the go-by. Don't do a thing 
 like that. I don't know what it's all about, and I'm very 
 tired. But if you don't do what's wanted she can't remarry, 
 and then you can't marry Lady Aldington." 
 
 Macdonald was too tired to pay much attention. 
 " What's all that ? " he said. 
 
 " I said you won't be able to marry Lady Aldington," 
 the girl answered. 
 
 Macdonald suddenly stood up. " Look here," he said, 
 " that's the second time that you've said that to me. I am 
 quite ready to believe that you're innocent, but you haven't 
 the right to say that sort of scandalous nonsense to my 
 face." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 289 
 
 " But Lady Aldington is divorcing her husband so as 
 to be able to marry you," Miss Dexter wailed. 
 
 Macdonald said harshly : " Who told you that nonsense ? 
 It is absolute nonsense ! It was the Countess who told 
 you that. Don't you understand that that woman's 
 mad about that sort of thing ? Can't you understand 
 that ? " 
 
 Miss Dexter looked at him tremulously and solemnly 
 through her glasses. 
 
 " Do you mean it ? " she said. " Do you honourably 
 and honestly mean it ? Isn't there anything at all between 
 you and Lady Aldington ? " 
 
 " My dear child ! " Macdonald said. " There's nothing ! 
 Absolutely nothing ! I'd as soon think of marrying you 
 as of marrying her." 
 
 Miss Dexter's hps parted, but no sound came from 
 them. 
 
 " Look here," Macdonald said again, " it's scandalous 
 to have to talk to you about this sort of thing, but if you've 
 got to have this sort of thing talked about, it's as well 
 that you should understand that it's a decent world and 
 not the loathsome sort of place that you've been made to 
 think it. Listen to me ! There's nothing whatever be- 
 tween me and Emily Aldington. I admire her immensely ; 
 I don't admire anyone else in the world as I admire her. 
 But I never had the least idea of marrying her. I might 
 say that you've put the idea into my head, and that would 
 be absolute truth. Of course, if she could divorce her 
 husband — it's nonsense to talk about it, for she never could 
 and she never will — but if she did, and if the Countess 
 divorced me, I would marry Emily ; but it's the absolute 
 truth that I'd as soon have thought of marrying you as 
 of marrying her. I haven't thought about these things 
 at all. Don't you understand that I'm a busy man, with 
 a great deal to do in the world ? I haven't time tfl think 
 
 u 
 
290 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 about this sort of thing, I never do ; all my thoughts are 
 taken up. If I wanted to analyze my feelings I should 
 say that I felt that it was pleasant to be going along beside 
 Emily Aldington as a stream might flow along the level 
 grass of meadows. That's a Russian way of putting it ; 
 it's too flowery for England. But I'm a Russian, you 
 know, and I feel a great deal more than I think, and that's 
 how I feel." 
 
 Miss Dexter looked at him piercingly. 
 
 " It's true that you never thought of marrying her ? " 
 she said ; " and it's true that you'd have just as soon have 
 thought of marrying me ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course I'd have thought about that much sooner," 
 Macdonald said kindly. " Because of course she's got a 
 husband and you haven't." 
 
 " And I've put it into your head about marrying her ? " 
 the girl said slowly. " And it will never go out of your 
 head again ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't suppose it will," Macdonald said. " Once 
 a. concrete idea is born in the head of us Russians, you 
 know, it never dies out, just because concrete ideas are so 
 rare with us. I dare say I shall think about marrying 
 Lady Aldington for the rest of my life. Of course, it will 
 have to be for the rest of my Ufe, because it's all nonsense 
 about her divorcing her husband. That's just the Coun- 
 tess's jealousy. But now, run along. I hope your mind's 
 at rest." 
 
 "I've put it into your head I " Miss Dexter re- 
 peated. 
 
 ■'Well, you've certainly done that," Macdonald said 
 cheerfully. 
 
 The girl suddenly pitched forward right off the bed, her 
 iace striking the floor, which was very hard, because under- 
 neath the carpet it was of concrete, Macdonald simply 
 didn't know what had happened. It was as if one of the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 291 
 
 windows had fallen out. And then, having in his eyes 
 the disagreeable feeling of the colour of her face as she lay 
 quite still, rather grey and rather blue, he rushed out into 
 the mews, calling at the top of his voice : 
 
 " Margaret, Margaret ! " 
 
 The Coimtess answered him from the shadows of 
 the passage. She wanted to know with cold disdain 
 what was the matter. He ran at her and gripped her 
 wrist. 
 
 " That girl's fainted," he said. " How could you do 
 such an infamous thing as to send her to me ? " 
 
 The Countess pulled her wrist from his grasp, 
 " She's in love with you," she said. " She wanted 
 to come." 
 
 " Well, in God's name," Macdonald exclaimed, " come 
 and bring her to ! " 
 
 " My good man," she answered clearly, " do you think 
 I would enter your rooms for anything under the sun ? 
 Just you manage your love affairs yourself. I'm going 
 back to Putney." And indeed she was gone before Mac- 
 donald could say another word. 
 
 He didn't in the least know what he did. He knew that 
 the girl's eyebrow was badly cut because one of the glasses 
 was broken into it. He knew that he got a doctor by shout- 
 ing into the telephone, and that somehow or other the doctor 
 managed to make a nurse arrive at the same moment as 
 himself. And the next thing that he really realised was 
 that towards nearly four o'clock in the morning Miss Dexter, 
 lying on his bed, opened the one of her eyes that wasn't 
 covered by a bandage, and seeing him and the nurse stand- 
 ing beside her, exclaimed after a moment or two : 
 
 " It's just heaven," and then began to cry. 
 
 In those four hours or so Macdonald really hadn't been 
 conscious of anything that he would have called concrete, 
 he had been too deep in his own particular dark forest. So 
 
292 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 that, although his light had burnt with its accustomed and 
 painful brilliancy, it had appeared to him that darkness 
 was all round him. 
 
 Then he went to a Turkish bath and spent the remainder 
 of the morning in it. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 293 
 
 HI 
 
 IT seemed for some reason or other natural to Mac- 
 donald to apply to Kintyre for the name of a firm 
 of solicitors. He had no particular respect for 
 Kintyre's intellect, though he was prepared to credit 
 him with a rather shallow but yet acute knowledge of the 
 world. He had indeed seen a good deal of Kintyre because 
 of that gentleman's maritime knowledge ; for Kintyre had 
 spent much of his life in yachting, and, indeed, when his 
 prospects of attaining to the title had in his early life seemed 
 obscure, he had passed several years in the Royal Navy. 
 Kintyre, with his maritime knowledge, knew also a great 
 many of the tribe of younger sons and the disinherited 
 with whom Macdonald would have to man the Russian 
 warship. Of the Russian warship, which was indeed a 
 battleship called Admiral Trogoff II, there was now no 
 doubt, though it had never come to telegraphing about the 
 lampreys of the Don. The Grand Duke, having occasion 
 to come to London upon a ceremonial visit, had taken 
 occasion also to inspect the various deeds that had passed 
 between Macdonald and his royal and financial associates. 
 Thus H.I.H. had a perfect confidence that he would get 
 his money, and the battleship, which had already broken 
 down off Toulon, was lying, in perfect condition, in that 
 harbour, and was already the property of a shipbreakers' 
 syndicate. Kintyre himself, taking with him a naval 
 captain, had inspected the Admiral Trogoff 11, and reported 
 
294 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 that she was exactly what was wanted. But the getting 
 the crew together was not by any means a matter without 
 its little difficulties. 
 
 The navigating crew and the stokers were easy enough. 
 They signed on in Cherbourg, most of them English time- 
 expired seamen, for an indefinite cruise beginning on 
 April 4. But when it came to engaging the fighting men, 
 the gunnery lieutenants, and a possible landing party, 
 various more or less humorous difficulties did arise. They 
 came mostly from Sergius Mihailovitch's determination to 
 avoid bloodshed and plunder. So that although there was 
 not the least difficulty in getting five or six hundred men 
 all more or less well calculated to handle a rifle or to train 
 thirteen-inch guns of the latest Russian pattern, it needed 
 a great many personal interviews to make certain of the 
 men. Macdonald and Kintyre interviewed them at one 
 club or another. Thus, there was a genial scoundrel 
 called Grant, an ex-gunnery lieutenant of the British 
 Navy, who later had been in the ChiUan Republican 
 Service. Grant was everything that was wanted to com- 
 mand the expedition as long as he had a strong hand over 
 him. He was, of course, a ferocious drunkard, but, as 
 the Admiral Trogoff II would carry no Uquor at all, and 
 all the men would be personally searched on corning aboard, 
 and all the cabins of the officers were by their consent to 
 be searched by three of Kintyre's gamekeepers, the danger 
 of El Commandante Grant's getting drunk would be 
 limited. But even if they kept him strictly sober, Grant 
 swore that it was a principle of his never to go upon any 
 fihbustering expedition without having at least three shots 
 with a heavy gun at something or other. They couldn't 
 get him to promise not to do this. There was simply 
 nothing that would make him. In a whimsical sort of 
 way he swore that it wasn't decent, that no man could hold 
 up his head before his Maker if he had commanded an 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 295 
 
 eighteen-thousand-ton battleship and not fired one single 
 shot with its heavy guns before she went out of commission. 
 He said he wouldn't do it ; he said he couldn't do it, and three, 
 was his minimum. If he could see a flagstaff on an isolated 
 hill he would pot at that ; but at something he would pot, 
 lapng the gun himself. And they had to leave it at that, 
 because they had to have Mr. Grant. In the odd, ferocious 
 underworld of men that in these interviews came up before 
 the eyes of Macdonald and Kintyre, like creatures of the 
 ooze swimming in the light of day. El Commandante Grant 
 had a position of so much importance that they could not 
 afford to do without him. He was even a man of some 
 substance, possessing a duck-farm of his own at Cholsey- 
 on-Thames. There, whether he was full of liquor or 
 whether he wasn't, he had, he said, to be dabbhng with 
 water, sweet or salt, cold or hot. 
 
 Thus this particular side of the venture was shaping 
 itself with Commander Grant for the captain and with 
 Kintyre as a sort of super-cargo. Kintyre, it was under- 
 stood, would carry upon his person four Browning pistols 
 and would shoot anybody at sight. Macdonald had no 
 need to doubt Kintyre's coolness or courage. He never 
 showed the least signs of excitement, and from various 
 persons, more particularly from his Russian friends, 
 Macdonald heard that Kintyre was qtiite as cool as could 
 be wanted. He had, for instance, walked about the 
 fortifications of Vladivostok under the Japanese fire with 
 his hands in his pockets. His Russian friends supposed 
 that this was either showing off or the mere spleen of the 
 Englishman. But in either case it seemed to be good 
 enough for what Macdonald wanted. Moreover, he heard 
 from a man who offered himself for engagement that, in 
 one or two disreputable and tight quarters in Portuguese 
 East Africa, Kintyre had used his Browning pistols with 
 accuracy and dispatch. The man had seen it himself. 
 
296 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 It was in this way that Sergius Mihailovitch had seen 
 a great deal of Kintyre, And in one odd way or another, 
 in his manner and in the inflection of his voice, Kintyre had 
 struck Macdonald as either taking a great, if cool, interest 
 in Macdonald's affairs, or else as having, in some way that 
 Macdonald did not care to inquire into, some sort of finger 
 in the pie. As a matter of fact, Sergius Mihailovitch was 
 the least inquiring person in the world. A constitutional 
 disUke to talking about his own affairs, and a strong 
 determination to let no other person talk to him about 
 them, rendered him really rather sohtary, for no man can 
 be really liked in England who will not talk about himself 
 in a way that most foreigners feel to be as indecent, or 
 even more indecent, than appearing without clothing in a 
 public place. Indeed, even Kintjn-e had only once dared 
 to approach Macdonald in any personal matter. This, 
 to go back, had occurred on the night after Lady Aldington's 
 reception, when Dr. Farquhar had talked about the 
 Nationalisation of Scottish railways. 
 
 On this night, whilst Macdonald was going down the 
 stairs of Leicester House, Kintyre had sUpped his hand 
 under his elbow. He had said that he wanted to speak 
 to Macdonald upon an urgent personal matter. Going 
 along Lowndes Square there had been too much noise 
 from the motors that were leaving Lady Aldington's. 
 But when they came in front of the French Embassy in 
 the dark silent spaces of the park, the Duke, who really 
 knew his man, said suddenly in his cold, level tones : 
 " Look here I What is your balance at the bank ? " 
 And Macdonald, who understood that Kintyre would 
 not ask for the purpose of mere impertinence, answered 
 simply : 
 
 " I'm exactly two pounds thirteen shiUings overdrawn." 
 The Duke took out from his coat pocket an envelope 
 which showed white in the darkness. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 297 
 
 " Then look here," he said again, " you'll oblige me by 
 pa5dng this into your bank by to-night's post. You will 
 please to put it to a separate account in your own name. 
 You needn't know the amount of it if you don't want to ; 
 you needn't draw on it, though of course you can if you 
 wish to. It represents a sum that I and some friends of 
 mine wish to put into your adventure. We pay it into 
 your hands unconditionally ; but, of course, you will 
 credit it to us as our share." 
 
 Macdonald remained silent for a moment, and the Duke 
 continued : 
 
 " It will also very much oblige me if, in the letter you 
 send to your bank manager with the enclosure, you instruct 
 him to answer fully and unreservedly any questions that 
 may be asked by any person whatever as to your credit 
 at that bank." 
 
 Macdonald still remained silent. Anything Uke a 
 financial transaction filled him with an extreme dislike. 
 It seemed to him to be as indecent as a personal question : 
 but after reflecting for a moment or two, as they walked, 
 he saw that, as these political transactions must mean the 
 manipulating of immense sums of money, so he must brace 
 himself even to the trouble of keeping accounts, which 
 again appeared to him to be an almost indecent proceeding. 
 It caused him really to feel extremely shy, as shy as if 
 another man had been trying to enter into personal rela- 
 tions with a woman. But as he had to face it, and as Kintyre 
 knew probably what he was about, he answered simply : 
 
 " I will do exactly as you ask." 
 
 " You understand," said Kintyre, " that you're in a 
 disgusting country where you can't do anything if your 
 personal credit isn't safe. I haven't any comment to make 
 on this. It's just exactly so. It isn't necessary for me 
 to say that we exactly trust you, but it's necessary for us, 
 as we're interested in your scheme, to put you into such a 
 
298 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 position that we may rebut any assertions we may hear 
 about you. For I don't mind saying that several persons, 
 and one person in particular, are trying to wreck this 
 scheme by asserting that you are a penniless adventurer. 
 We know you aren't, but we've got to prove it, or the whole 
 thing will go to pieces on that nonsensical ground. It's a 
 thing that really doesn't concern you. It's nothing to do 
 witli your personality." 
 
 " I know it hasn't," Macdonald answered. " I dislike 
 the whole thing. But I quite understand it's a necessity. 
 I know I can't make romantic omelettes without breaking 
 my own fantastic eggs. Let it go at that. I am mucli 
 obliged to you, Kin tyre, and I'll do exactly what you 
 ask." 
 
 They reached the colonnades at Hyde Park Comer, 
 and Kintyre got into his motor, which had followed them. 
 Macdonald spent the greater part of the night in walking 
 about the streets, because it was a disagreeable matter to 
 him. 
 
 It was on the next morning that, at the meeting, Kintyre 
 had knocked over Mr. Dexter by producing the letter from 
 Macdonald's bank manager, stating that Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch had sixty thousand pounds to his credit ; and Mac- 
 donald didn't give any more thought to the matter, because 
 various large sums began to be paid to him for the expenses 
 of the counter-revolution. This was not to say that he 
 did not know the extremity of a personal poverty that 
 quite amused him. 
 
 With a rather excessive scrupulousness he had waited on 
 his bank manager to instruct him solemnly that these two 
 accounts were to be kept entirely separate, and that he 
 wasn't to be allowed to overdraw in his own name one 
 penny more than the bank would have permitted if he 
 hadn't had any account at all. And the manager amiably 
 Ustened to his instructions, and said that he perfectly 
 
THE N EW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 299 
 
 understood. But, nevertheless, it is probable that the 
 second account did remain in the manager's mind when 
 Macdonald went on to propose certain arrangements that 
 were really only for the benefit of Miss di Pradella. He 
 proposed, that is to say, that the bank should take over 
 the whole of the remainder of his much mortgaged Russian 
 property, and that they should pay the young lady, with 
 this as a security, the sum of ten pounds a week for a year, 
 with the capital sum of two hundred and fifty at the end 
 of that time. And when the manager quite amiably con- 
 sented to this arrangement, Macdonald really sighed with 
 relief, for it meant that, roughly speaking, Miss di Pradella 
 would be off his hands for at least twelve months, and in 
 the mean time he was having her carefully educated in 
 dancing by the ballet master of the Talavera Theatre, 
 who reported that if she had had the slightest spark of 
 ambition, instead of being quite unreasonably lazy, she 
 might develop into one of the great dancers of the 
 world. 
 
 But even this wasn't to say that Macdonald didn't 
 know what it was to be from time to time literally without 
 a shilling. He hadn't, that is to say, the least idea of how 
 to manage money. If he had ten pounds in his bank he 
 certainly spent it the same night in treating some one or 
 other — it might be one of the filibustering scalliwags ; it 
 might be Miss di Pradella ; it might be Da Pinta, or it 
 might have been Mr. Dexter himself, who was worth just 
 about a million times as much as Macdonald ever had in 
 his possession at that portion of his career. 
 
 He really began to know the ways of pawnshops wilh 
 an extreme intimacy, and the more distinguished brokers 
 treated him with courtesy and attention. When he had 
 pawned all his jewellery and replaced his studs and links 
 with imitations, they obliged him by sending assistance 
 to remove even his personal effects from the little room that 
 
300 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 gave into the mews. So that, as often as not, Macdonald 
 would possess only the suit that he was walking about in, 
 though the pawnbroker would always oblige him by letting 
 him exchange his morning suit for the evening clothes 
 that were held in pawn in the back of the shop. As a 
 matter of fact, at this stage, the pawnbroker would have let 
 Macdonald do anything he liked, for he regarded him 
 as an eccentric millionaire, and Macdonald had a way of 
 attracting the affection of all Jews, though he personally 
 disliked them. At the same time he insisted that all these 
 business arrangements should be punctiliously observed, 
 so that once, although Messrs. Zimmermann had offered to 
 oblige him with a hundred pound note as a loan. Miss di 
 Pradella, coming to his room to borrow five pounds in 
 order to purchase some linen at a white sale — Miss di 
 Pradella had to sit down on the iron slats of SergiusMihailo- 
 vitch's bedstead, for he had been forced to send his bed- 
 clothes into temporary exile. 
 
 She had, however, to wait for her five-pound note until 
 two days later, when, providentially, the ResiUens Motor 
 Car Company paid Sergius MihaUovitch his quarter's 
 salary of two hundred pounds. 
 
 This sum would have gone further than it did but for 
 the fact that Miss di Pradella had acquired so large a 
 collection of Unen of one kind or another that, her flat 
 being too small to contain it, she was forced to ask Mac- 
 donald to take another room for her in the same building. 
 This she did with a great reluctance, because she really 
 disliked asking him for money except when it was a matter 
 of buying linen, and then her moral sense deserted her. 
 The two hundred pounds lasted Macdonald fairly comfort- 
 ably for about six weeks, and he got through the remainder 
 of the quarter in one way or another. Moreover, as the 
 next quarterly instalment fell two days before his setting 
 sail for Galizia, he was able to do this with all his equipment 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 301 
 
 intact, and even engaged a valet for the time whilst he 
 should be on Lady Aldington's yacht. 
 
 It is not to be imagined that he either starved or was 
 even very much worried during this period of six months 
 or so. Indeed, worry about money was a thing entirely 
 foreign to his nature. He would have promised almost 
 anyone at any moment two hundred and fifty pounds as a 
 gift, and somehow or other, up to this time, he had always 
 managed to make it good. And the hospitaUty of London 
 was so profuse that although upon occasion he had to 
 walk home from a dinner, he was never without a dinner 
 to go to, though occasionally he couldn't get a lunch for 
 want of the money. As for breakfast, there was a very 
 ugly old woman who came in every morning from the mews. 
 She made him a cup of tea, cut him some bread-and-butter, 
 and very perfunctorily put his bedroom in order, but that 
 was all the attendance that he got. 
 
 It was part of his scrupulousness that he never used the 
 Resiliens' cars to take him from place to place, except 
 when it might have been in the nature of an advertisement, 
 just as it was possibly part of his unscrupulousness that he 
 never troubled much about returning the hospitality that he 
 had from one person or another. And it was probably part 
 of the usual sunniness of his disposition that what for most 
 men would have been sordid in his circumstances never 
 troubled him in the least. It struck him rather as fun, 
 or perhaps even as a rather British and business-hke 
 proceeding, to negotiate with the pawnbroker, though it is 
 perfectly true that his negotiations worked out in his 
 merely taking whatever was offered him. 
 
 Just every now and then it appeared to him quaint that 
 he should pass for one of the best dressed and wealthiest 
 young men in his particular set. That he did this he knew 
 very well, because it was forced upon his attention from time 
 to time. Thus, at one of his several clubs Mr. Reggie 
 
302 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 W3mdhani approached him one day and asked him what 
 sort of socks were likely to be worn next spring. Sergius 
 Mihailovitch answered that he simply hadn't the least 
 idea. At this Mr. Wyndham rejoined : 
 
 " Oh, that's nonsense ; you know you're the best dressed 
 man in London. Some of us think you're even over 
 dressed ; but, at any rate, I know half a dozen fellows wait 
 till you put on something new and then go and order it." 
 
 " So that I set the fashions ? " Macdonald said ; then he 
 laughed, for, as a matter of fact, the state of his wardrobe 
 was very much governed by accident, or by the will of 
 Messrs. Zimmermann, who advanced money on portable 
 property. 
 
 On another occasion the Earl of Portadown approached 
 him at Lady Aldington's and suggested that they should 
 go shares in buying the lease of the Talavera Theatre and 
 running it themselves, because it was said that Mr. Montagu 
 Everard was giving up that flourishing business at the 
 request of his wife. Portadown said that they would not 
 need a capital of more than eighty or ninety thousand, 
 and when Macdonald said that he couldn't spare the money, 
 Portadown answered resignedly : 
 
 " Well, I suppose it's not very much in your line, but I 
 thought you wouldn't mind chucking the money away upon 
 a little flutter." 
 
 And Macdonald, who happened to have three coppers 
 in his right trouser pocket, clinked the coins agreeably, 
 and answered : 
 
 " My dear fellow, I'd willingly throw away all the capital 
 I possess on anything that amused me, but I can't imagine 
 that running a theatre would be anything but a beastly 
 grind." And upon the whole Portadown was inclined to 
 agree with him, and as Mr. Everard had not the least idea 
 of selling the Talavera the matter fell through. 
 
 Just for minutes now and then it would come into 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 303 
 
 Macdonald's head to wonder whether he was not in what 
 his wife would have called the halls of the gilded great by 
 false pretences. And then again he would remember that 
 he was actually a man of respectable substance. He was 
 worth two thousand eight himdred pounds a year, and he 
 was as well bom as anybody he could possibly meet, 
 whilst his official position and his own title gave him pre- 
 cedence on an equality with an EngHsh earl. There 
 wasn't anything technically the matter with him, for it 
 was entirely his own affair if he chose to allow the Countess 
 two thousand pounds a year, and if various other people 
 without any claims swallowed up the greater part of the 
 eight hundred pounds. 
 
 But if these things didn't worry him at all, or worried 
 him in the very least when he was tired with running about 
 or rendered unwell by his housekeeper's tea and bread-and- 
 butter, which were things that he detested, he had other 
 depressions enough. And his depressions came from that 
 essential dark forest which is the heart of another. He 
 had to come across so many basenesses, httle and big, 
 and so many mere selfishnesses, big or Uttle, and whether 
 these affected himself or merely other people, they troubled 
 him beyond all reason. It was the one thing that really 
 affected him. As a person with a training into which 
 French hterature and the French spirit had entered very 
 largely he was perfectly able to stand as it were erect, and 
 to say cynically, when he heard of basenesses or of cruelties : 
 " Cela vous donne unefiere idee de I'homme 1 " 
 
 He was perfectly ready to avow that his feUow-beings 
 were wolves, and that the only way to attain to prosperity 
 and happiness was to be a kingwolf of some pack. But 
 always at the bottom of his heart there was the feeling — 
 it may have been part of his Russian blood or it may have 
 been part of his Enghsh public-school training — the feeling 
 that all humanity, if you could understand them, if you 
 
304 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 could get at them in the right way, were at least as chival- 
 rous as himself. That a Russian Czar or a royal bureau- 
 cracy should execute a hundred and fifty thousand pohtical 
 prisoners a year did not disturb this serene philosophy. 
 For that was part of their game — of their particular 
 political game, and as you would expect nothing else, it 
 was neither dishonest nor disappointing. It would be the 
 same thing with a British squire who stole common land 
 from his cottagers, Or with a British workman who stuck 
 his coat up a steampipe in order to ruin his employer's 
 costly machineiy because his employer's foreman had 
 refused to let him steal three hundredweight of coal. That 
 was the sort of thing that you expected. 
 
 And even from his Countess there was literally nothing 
 that he didn't in the end expect. The trouble was that he 
 just simply couldn't discover what her code of morals was. 
 He never had been able to. He had at first taken her to be 
 honourable, truthful, patient, with some sort of compre- 
 hension for humanity and particularly for himself. But 
 one by one all these things went by the board. And, though 
 he let it go at that, he couldn't arrive at any fixed standard 
 whatever. She seemed to be perpetually breaking out in a 
 new place. He couldn't have imagined that she would 
 have been capable of sending Miss Dexter to him as she 
 had done, and he couldn't have imagined that she could 
 have been capable of leaving the girl in the lurch as she did. 
 That sort of thing gave him such severe shocks as to render 
 him really ill. His mind was too sensitive to stand it, 
 and for the time being he would be deprived almost of his 
 senses and his power to control himself. 
 
 It was on the following day that he sought the advice 
 of the Duke's sohcitors, Messrs. Lumsden and Lumsden. 
 The particular Mr. Lumsden that he saw was a young alert 
 man, with a touch of the Jew in his appearance, though 
 actually he Was not a Jew at all. But he wore a navy 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 305 
 
 blue tie with many white spots upon it. He listened with 
 attention whilst Macdonald concisely and seriously gave 
 an account of his interview with Mr. Buss, the Countess's 
 solicitor. Macdonald related how he had said that he 
 was perfectly ready to sign the deed of separation as it 
 stood, and how appalled Mr. Buss had immediately become ; 
 and he related that Mr. Buss had become still more appalled 
 when he had said that he wanted the Countess to have 
 exactly all that she asked, and how Mr. Buss had quite 
 literally fallen down when he had said that he didn't in the 
 least want to marry anyone in the world. And Sergius 
 Mihailovitch was aware of feeUng exceedingly naive before 
 this young man when he explained that he was still perfectly 
 bewildered and could not in the least understand what it all 
 meant. 
 
 " And what does it really mean ? " he asked. 
 
 Mr. Lumsden gave a perfunctory glance at the deed itself 
 and then burst into a fit of laughter that lasted several 
 minutes. He couldn't stop himself. When he was quiet 
 Sergius Mihailovitch continued : 
 
 " I ought to add that although at the time I hadn't the 
 least idea of marrjdng any one, to-day I distinctly wish to 
 do so, though of course I haven't any prospect of its coming 
 off." 
 
 Mr. Lumsden pushed the deed a little further away. 
 " Oh, that will be all right, that'll be all right," he said 
 confidently and comfortingly. " I don't in the least want 
 to know whether you want to marry or not. I will fix it 
 all up for you with Mr. Buss. It will be perfectly easy." 
 
 "But what does it all mean? " Sergius Mihailovitch 
 asked. 
 
 Mr. Lumsden evaded the question. He began to ask for 
 details as to what facilities Sergius Mihailovitch could give 
 the Countess for divorcing him. Had there been any act 
 of cruelty ? Could Sergius Mihailovitch throw a teacup 
 
3o6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 at the Countess ? And when Macdonald said that he 
 certainly couldn't do anything of the sort, Mr. Lumsden 
 sighed slightly and said that it would have to be desertion. 
 
 " Now, what about adultery ? " 
 
 " Oh, look here," Macdonald said, " that's your business 1 
 You've got to arrange all that." 
 
 " Well, you've got to be at our disposal," Mr. Lumsden 
 said, " more particularly at the disposal of Mr. Buss. As 
 we're obliging them he's bound to make the circumstances 
 such as will not be disagreeable to you. Now, about the 
 desertion. Of course you've got to stop the Countess's 
 allowance until she files her petition." 
 
 Macdonald exclaimed angrily : "I'm damned if I 
 will!" 
 
 " But, my dear sir," Mr. Lumsden exclaimed, " you've 
 got to ! That's the law. You can't help the Countess 
 to what she wants if you don't commit an offence against 
 her. And you've either got to hit her or stop her money 
 for form's sake. There's no third way, but you can just 
 take your choice of those two." 
 
 " But if I do stop her money," Macdonald said, " you've 
 got to explain with absolute clearness to Mr. Buss that it 
 is for form's sake." 
 
 " Oh ! of course, of course," Mr. Lumsden said soothingly. 
 " Then there's reaUy nothing more to be talked about. 
 You'll put yourself quite at the disposal of Mr. Buss. That 
 means to say that you'll stop at the same hotel in Brighton 
 — that's the best place — ^with any female you hke to pick 
 up anywhere. And you'll enter your name in the hotel 
 books as Count and Countess Macdonald or Mr. and Mrs. 
 Thompson — whichever you like ; but the former's better, 
 because it saves much of the expense of identification by 
 waiters and chambermaids." 
 
 " But I'm hanged- if I'U drag in my name — ^the name of 
 my ancestors ..." Macdonald was beginning hastily. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 307 
 
 " Then make it Mr. and Mrs. Thompson," Mr. Lumsden 
 said quickly. " Don't pray get excited. This is what 
 the law asks. You've got to satisfy the law." 
 
 Macdonald remained silent. 
 
 " Of course you've got to have your name dragged in," 
 Mr. Lumsden said. " It will be in the papers. If we don't 
 defend — and we shan't — the papers won't pay much atten- 
 tion to it ; but you've certainly got to have your name 
 dragged in." 
 
 Macdonald simply bowed his head. " All right," he 
 exclaimed after some time, " I shan't make any fuss. It's 
 to be exactly as you want." 
 
 " Then that's all," Mr. Lumsden said. He pushed the 
 deed still further from him. " This document isn't worth 
 the paper it's written on. The Court will grant the CoHhtess 
 a third of your income, and your furniture and effects 
 will revert to you." 
 
 " But I've already said," Macdonald exclaimed, " that I 
 want the Countess to have the whole of my income from the 
 Russian Government, and she's to keep all the things." 
 
 " That's a matter of private arrangement afterwards," 
 Mr. Lumsden said ; " it's nothing whatever to do with the 
 law. We can't make an agreement before the divorce, 
 because that would be collusion and it would stop every- 
 thing." 
 
 " But what's the meaning of this agreement, then ? " 
 Macdonald said ahnost violently. " What does it mean ? " 
 
 A queer as if inward smile passed over the face of Mr. 
 Lumsden. 
 
 " It means," he said, " that by English law . . ." 
 
 " I don't want to hear about English law," Macdonald 
 said. " It appears to be a disgusting thing. Here you've 
 got two people perfectly willing to separate, and it can't 
 be done without one or other of them consenting, to maike 
 what the English, law would consider a beast ol himself." 
 
3o8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Well, I'm not here to talk about English law," Mr. 
 Lumsden said, " neither are you ; but unless you let me 
 explain what the English law is, I can't tell you what this 
 document means." 
 
 Macdonald remained silent, and then Mr. Lumsden 
 tentatively continued : 
 
 " By English law this agreement for separation renders 
 any subsequent divorce impossible. That is why Mr. 
 Buss does not want you to sign this deed of separation." 
 
 " Then why did they ask me to sign it ? " Macdonald 
 said. 
 
 Again Mr. Lumsden smiled. " Why," he said, " that 
 was simply because Messrs. Buss wanted to get more out 
 of you than they supposed you to be wiUing to give." 
 
 " But they must have known ! " Macdonald exclaimed 
 hotly. " The Countess must have known that I would give 
 her anything she asked." 
 
 Mr. Lumsden waved his hand. " Either the Countess 
 didn't know it or else she represented it otherwise to Messrs. 
 Buss. She represented, in fact, to Messrs. Buss that you 
 were determined to leave her to starve and to marry some 
 other lady. So to fight this, Messrs. Buss put forward a 
 deed which would make it impossible for you to marry 
 anyone else, in order to make you behave handsomely to 
 the Countess if she consented to divorce you. I hope I 
 make inyself plain, for that is all that this document was 
 meant to do. So, of course, when Messrs. Buss leamt that 
 you were ready to sign it, they were naturally thrown off 
 their legs, for it certainly appears that their client is anxious 
 to remarry, whilst you aren't. That gives us the absolute 
 whip hand over them. Your Excellency can dictate any 
 terms that you like." 
 
 " I don't want to dictate any terms at all," Macdonald 
 said wearily. " I want you to arrange it so that Her 
 Excellency gets everything that is provided for in this 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 309 
 
 deed, together with whatever facilities she wants for 
 divorcing me. Of course, I don't wish to be made to appear 
 too much of a villain. But if that is what your law insists 
 on, your law can have that too. You understand." 
 
 They left it on that basis, though of course Mr. Lumsden 
 made it plain that he would have to fight all the points in 
 order to concede them gracefully afterwards. To Mac- 
 donald that seemed an imbecile proceeding, but Mr. 
 Lumsden said it couldn't be done otherwise, as a vague 
 functionary called the King's Proctor would be always on 
 the watch to smell out any trace of agreement between the 
 parties, as he called them. He warned Macdonald that 
 he would have to receive from the Countess a pitiful letter 
 asking him to return to the domestic hearth that he had 
 so heartlessly abandoned. But as this letter would be 
 dictated by the Countess's solicitors in order to make 
 certain that there was nothing in it that would give a 
 handle to the King's Proctor, Macdonald was to take no 
 notice of it. 
 
 Personal poverty hadn't affected Macdonald in the least, 
 but this obscure fumbling in the unpleasant background 
 of what appeared to him unholy indiscretions affected him 
 quite horribly. It was like playing a game of make- 
 believe in which every one of the details was obscene. And 
 for a great many days he went about in a state of deep and 
 lasting depression. His Countess had indeed broken out 
 in a new place. He couldn't believe that she believed that 
 he was ready to leave her to starve. On the other hand, 
 she had certainly said just that to her legal advisers. If 
 she had said it without believing it it was revolting, but 
 if she believed it it was revolting almost beyond belief. 
 She couldn't believe it. Yet the uncertainty weighed 
 upon him. He wanted to write to her to point out that 
 she must know that such a course of conduct would have 
 
510 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 been impossible to him. But Messrs. Lumsden abso- 
 lutely forbade him to write. They said that the King's 
 Proctor could caU for all the documents in the case, and 
 that this letter alone would be suf&cient to prevent a 
 divorce. So that, in a Russian phrase, all his soul shivered 
 on the brink of uncertainty. It had to continue to 
 shiver, 
 
 Mr. Pett might by now, as far as the affair of GaUzian 
 revolutions was concerned, be regarded as Macdonald's 
 pohtical enemy. And Macdonald imagined that, this 
 being the case, Mr. Pett would avoid any personal contact 
 with him. But this was not the case. 
 
 They had, of course, to meet in a social manner, here and 
 there, and they had to behave themselves, which Mac- 
 donald was quite capable of doing. But on the occasion 
 of one of Lady Aldington's shoots they were all stopping 
 at Aldington Towers together — Kintjre, Macdonald, the 
 Petts, the Dexters, the Galizian royal family with Da 
 Pinta in attendance, and twenty or thirty gentlemen and 
 ladies of Whig opinions who did not much count, though 
 they provided an agreeable background at dinner and in 
 the smoking-room, where they told anecdotes until far into 
 the night. 
 
 It was on the sixth and last night of his stay that Mr. 
 Pett heard that Macdonald, Kintyre, and a Lady VuUiamy, 
 who was a distant connection of Lady Aldington, were 
 going to stop on at Aldington Towers for the week-end 
 after the crowd of them had left. Mr. Pett heard this by 
 accident at dinner, because Kintyre said across the table 
 to Macdonald that if the morning was at all decent they 
 would ride over and see the otter hounds at work in the 
 neighbourhood of Northiam. Mr. Pett had already been 
 informed by the butler that his train to town left at ten- 
 fifteen. The otter hounds would not be at work until about 
 eleven of the foUowing day. Therefore Macdonald must 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 311 
 
 be going to outstay Mr. Pett. He turned indeed straight 
 upon Seigius Mihailovitch and said : 
 
 " You're stopping on then, I understand." 
 
 Macdonald said : " Yes, I'm stopping on until Tuesday." 
 
 And Mr. Pett grunted : " What about Fumess and 
 Fumess ? About the ammunition ? You were to have 
 seen them to-morrow." 
 
 Macdonald answered: "But unfortunately Lord Sur- 
 biton has just wired to me that he has got the influenza, 
 and can't see me until Tuesday afternoon." 
 
 Mr. Pett choked in his throat. He couldn't eat any 
 more dinner, and he couldn't think of anything, because 
 his emotions were too strong for him ; for after that he 
 imagined that there could notbe any doubt that Macdonald 
 had more influence with Lady Aldington than he with all 
 his genius. And this appeared to him to be a positive sin 
 against God, for whenever Mr. Pett had deigned to talk to 
 Emily She had listened to him with a deference that seemed 
 quite proper. So that at the end of the meal, when the 
 ladies were leaving the gentlemen, Mr. Pett got up from 
 his chair, approached her, quivering with excitement, and 
 said that he must positively have some words with her 
 before they went to bed, as he wouldn't see her on the 
 following morning, and she was stopping at Aldington 
 Towers for a fortnight. 
 
 Lady Aldington said that it was a fine night, and that 
 she would meet him on the south gallery of the terrace in 
 about ten minutes, or as soon as she had seen that the 
 ladies had had their coffee in comfort. It had rained ;hard 
 all day, but now it had stopped, and she said they would 
 both probably be better for a breath of fresh air. 
 
 In his public utterances Mr. Pett would have declared 
 that it was the duty of Lady Aldington to admire— even to 
 adore him for his eminence and wisdom. She ought to hang 
 upon his lips waiting forthe words that should show Jier how 
 
312 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 to conduct her public duties. Indeed, had Mr. Pett known 
 what was the male equivalent for an Egeria, or even what 
 exactly an Egeria was, he would have declared that he 
 ought to be her ladyship's Egeria. In private he had the 
 feeling that his physical charm and the briUiant bitterness 
 of his wit ought by now to have forced her to become his 
 mistress. He wanted more than anything to be able to 
 boast to a small but admiring circle that Lady Aldington 
 was his mistress, and indeed he had already hinted as much 
 to this small group amongst whom he felt really at home. 
 These were the disbanded members of the Putney Fabian 
 Society, who had followed Mr. Pett when he had gone 
 over to Torjdsm ; they regarded Mr. Pett as the greatest 
 influence of his day, and no doubt he was, for at that date 
 this writer set the whole tone of hfe for an almost uncount- 
 able multitude of younger men and women. 
 
 He was used to being taken as a poetic philosopher ; he 
 was used to being looked up to by adoring eyes, to be 
 listened to with the parted lips of absolute attention. His 
 " conquests " among women and female disciples of the 
 middle and lower middle classes had been so numerous and 
 so extremely facile that in his moments of unbending he was 
 accustomed to say that the Englishwoman was extraordin- 
 arily immoral — though, of course, he had never recorded 
 this opinion in print — and he regarded himself realty as the 
 sultan of the world. 
 
 It is true that according to his own standards Mr. Pett 
 had been very badly treated by her ladyship. Emily 
 Aldington had regarded the little cockney as a friend of 
 Sergius MihaUovitch, and any friend of his she considered 
 to be worthy of attention. Thus she had listened 
 to Mr. Pett's quite briUiant conversation with a serious 
 attention, though she had always disliked shaking hands 
 with him. But, with Mr. Pett, to listen to him with serious 
 attention was, for a woman, a sign that she was ready 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 313 
 
 to be seduced by him when he chose to throw down his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 At that date — in late November — he had akeady been 
 told by Mrs. Pett that Lady Aldington was wrapped up in 
 Macdonald, but though the announcement had at first 
 put him into a fever of rage, as the weeks had passed and he 
 had seen absolutely no sign of any understanding between 
 Sergius Mihailovitch and Emily, he had gradually come 
 to take it for an accepted fact that that story was only 
 a manifestation of Mrs. Pett's jealousy. For the only 
 manifestation of jealousy that Mrs. Pett allowed herself 
 over all her husband's numerous infidelities was at times, 
 with a faint malice, to disparage the lady who for the time 
 being occupied the time in her husband's attention that she 
 considered ought to be devoted to his work. And that 
 Mrs. Pett should say that Lady Aldington preferred to the 
 attentions of Mr. Pett those of Sergius Mihailovitch, Mr. 
 Pett considered was a serious hbel. It belittled the intel- 
 ligence of Emily Aldington ; it was as if she were accused of 
 preferring the man to the master. 
 
 For there is no denying that Mr. Pett considered Sergius 
 Mihailovitch to be immensely his inferior. It must be 
 remembered that Mr. Pett, being a writer, regarded himself 
 as immensely the superior of any man who did not write 
 books. This is an attitude very common amongst politico- 
 economic writers. Mr. Pett indeed regarded himself as a 
 sort of priest. He would not have said this in pubhc, but 
 it was what he felt in his heart. And since he regarded 
 himself as the finest serious writer in the world of his day, 
 so he regarded himself as the high priest of the world. He 
 had no respect for any other man unless that man happened 
 to possess a title — and a British title at that. Thus he 
 regarded Sergius Mihailovitch with a contempt that can 
 hardly be measured. For Sergius Mihailovitch had never 
 done anything He had never written a book or a news- 
 
314 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 paper article ; he hadn't even so much as written a 
 poem. He seldom showed any gifts of argument, aitd he 
 practically never talked about Sociology, Hygienics, or the 
 New Toryism. He was therefore just nothing, though from 
 time to time in the moments of warm generosity that he 
 undoubtedly had Mr. Pett remembered that it was by taking 
 Macdonald's money that he had been able to make a start 
 as a writer. For Mr. 'Pett had commenced his career of 
 pubhc usefulness as booking-office clerk at a suburban 
 station, and it had been at a Fabian meeting that he had 
 impressed Sergius Mihailovitch with the sense of his 
 enormous gifts. 
 
 The sky above the terrace of Aldington Towers was of a jet 
 black with many stars powdered all over its face, and some 
 of them hanging twinkling between the black boughs of 
 the large elms that fringed the terraces. The night was 
 exceedingly still and exceedingly cold. The black buildings 
 rose up behind the terraces in a rigid mass that in the dark- 
 ness presented an air of venerability. Aldington Towers 
 was unfortunately a modern edifice of the very worst type 
 of Victorian architecture. The original building had been 
 destroyed by fire in the year 1873, and the present house, 
 which was supposed exactly to reproduce it, contained 
 three hundred and sixty-five windows, each one being a 
 slab of soUd plate glass four feet by three in dimensions. 
 'But all of its newness the night hid. From four of the 
 plate-glass windows a warm light poured outwards, and up 
 and down a long stone, balustraded terrace Mr. Pett marched 
 in a fur coat, in the bitter cold. He had a little champagne 
 in him, and he was upon the point of being screaming mad 
 with rage before he perceived Lady Aldington opening 
 one of the French windows, which was so brightly ht, and 
 coming out upon the terrace. 
 
 Mr. Pett plunged straight upon her. " Look here, 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 315 
 
 Lady A," he exclaimed, " this battleship business has got 
 to be stopped 1 Do you understand ? It's just got to be 
 stopped." 
 
 " No, I don't understand," Lady Aldington said. 
 
 She walked straight across the terrace and leant upon the 
 balustrade, looking out upon the darkness to the southward. 
 A very long way away on the shore of the sea a lighthouse 
 whirled round intermittently, and by its light Mr. Pett had 
 two momentary glimpses of her face. 
 
 When she stood looking out like that, and it was a charac- 
 teristic habit of hers, it always seemed to him as if she were 
 superintending the landscape itself. That was it. It was 
 as if she looked at that great expanse of country not for 
 the pleasure of looking, but just in order to see whether 
 it still remained pleasing to her, and whether she would 
 not have some of it altered. And in the two glimpses 
 that he had, Mr. Pett perceived that her face, even in 
 the darkness, preserved still that aspect of cold power. 
 Mr. Pett knew this lady had bought the whole town of 
 Berkhampstead-on-Sea so that square blocks of lodging- 
 houses should not spoil the perfection of her view to the 
 south. And when Mr. Pett considered that this cold 
 woman of great power was bowing her head not before him, 
 but before a man whom he considered to be the dirt under 
 his feet, Mr. Pett so nearly screamed with rage that his 
 voice had a high and piercing note. 
 
 " It's got to be stopped," he exclaimed ; " it's ruining 
 the whole show ! " 
 
 Lady Aldington remained looking at the view for an 
 instant longer, and then, as if she was satisfied with its 
 invisible intactness, she began to walk along the terrace. 
 Mr. Pett moved beside her. 
 
 " I have no control of this matter," she said, " and I 
 don't understand why you select this moment to talk to me 
 about it." 
 
3i6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 "I've talked to you about it thousands of times ! " Mr. Pett 
 exclaimed. " You know thoroughly well that I disapproved 
 of it from the start. Our coimter-revolution . . ." 
 
 "No, you are quite incorrect," Lady Aldington said; 
 " you have talked to me many times about your disapproval 
 of the employment of armed force. But you have never 
 talked to me about my stopping it. That is the distinction, 
 and I do not understand why you select this moment to 
 talk about that." 
 
 " It's got to be stopped ! " Mr. Pett exclaimed. 
 
 Lady Aldington reflected for a moment. " Then you 
 must stop it yourself," she said, " by using your influence 
 in a legitimate manner." 
 
 " But don't you understand," Mr. Pett urged, " that 
 these battleships are relics of barbarism ? The counter- 
 revolution which we are setting up has got to be made not 
 by the employment of mihtarism, but by the use of the more 
 subtle power of economic reasoning. It's only gold that 
 is the real force, not because it bribes, but because it is 
 the ultimate end of aU revolutions. What's the use of 
 setting out upon this affair if it's to be carried out by old- 
 fashioned methods ? What's the use ? It's no use at all. 
 It isn't a thing that any intelligent man would have any- 
 thing to do with. It will be just the old story. I don't 
 want to have anything to do with old stories. It's not my 
 business ; I'm an imaginative writer. It's my business 
 to meddle in things if something new is to be done, but it's 
 not my business if it's only a matter of doing the old things 
 in the old way. Can't you understand that ? " 
 
 " I quite understand that," Lady Aldington answered, 
 " but I don't understand why you talk to me about it. 
 That is a matter for yourself alone." 
 
 " But don't you understand," Mr. Pett exclaimed, " that 
 you have the power to stop it ? " 
 
 " I have no power at all," Lady Aldington answered. • 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 317 
 
 " But you are finding all the money," Mr. Pett said, — 
 "all the money that this fool Macdonald has at his disposal 
 for bringing about this fooUsh scheme." 
 
 " I have no power at all," Lady Aldington said, " none. 
 I am in the hands of Count Macdonald." 
 
 " But that's outrageous," Mr. Pett shrieked ; " that's 
 infamous ! " 
 
 A sudden panic overwhelmed him ; it was as if he were 
 being swept along by a dark, swift force. He seemed to be 
 exactly in a nightmare. Supposing he had been awake 
 he ought to find some damning adjectives that should 
 prove to this woman that Macdonald was a negligible 
 trifle. But he couldn't think of any adjectives. That 
 was why it was like a nightmare. 
 
 "I don't see that there is anything wrong with the arrange- 
 ment at all," Lady Aldington said ; " it is simply sound 
 common sense. It is just a business arrangement. If I think 
 he can do it better than I, I am absolutely in his hands." 
 
 " But oh, my God ! " — Mr. Pett exclaimed ; and he 
 clutched his furred motoring cap with both his hands. 
 " Don't you see . . ." 
 
 But he could think of nothing that he wanted to make 
 this woman see except that he himself was everything 
 and Macdonald nothing. He could not tell how he was 
 going to put that into words. 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " No, I don't understand what 
 you want me to see." 
 
 " Don't you see, then," Mr. Pett exclaimed hurriedly, 
 " that I am a better man than he is ? " 
 
 For him the world seemed for a moment to stand still. 
 It was absolutely still ; there was no motion in the boughs 
 of the elms, there was no rustling in the dark leaves of the 
 laurels. No beast moved in the frozen meadows of the 
 park lands below the terraces. And suddenly Mr. Pett 
 found himself continuing : 
 
3i8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Don't you see that I'm the better man ? How can 
 you confide yourself to such an empty, idle-brained, 
 useless adventurer ? He's never done a thing ; he's never 
 thought a thought ; and you, who are the most wonderful 
 woman in the world, put yourself in his hands when you 
 might put yourself into mine." 
 
 There was such a note of honest tragedy in his voice — 
 and indeed then Mr. Pett spoke more honestly than he had 
 ever spoken before — that Lady Aldington in her turn spoke 
 to him more attentively than she had ever done. 
 
 " Mr. Pett,'' she said quite gently. " I think you mis- 
 take the issue. I am quite ready to believe that you are 
 a better man than Count Macdonald. You may be more 
 practical ; you may be a much greater thinker ; you are 
 certainly the most wonderful mere talker that I have ever 
 met. But you must excuse me if I say that these are not the 
 things that I want when I set out upon such an enterprise 
 as the one in which we are interested in common. It is a 
 great responsibility that I feel that I am taking. We are 
 going to influence the lives of large numbers of persons. 
 That is nothing new to me ; I have been used to the idea 
 all my life. And what I want is to be certain of my man 
 — to be certain of his goodness of heart." 
 
 "This is all confounded nonsense," Mr. Pett interrupted 
 violently. 
 
 " No, it isn't nonsense," Lady Aldington answered 
 gently, " it's just a question of what we want You have 
 just said that it was not your business to have to do with 
 anything that wasn't something new. You said that no 
 intelligent man would want to have to do with anything 
 that wasn't something, new. It may be that, as you have 
 said. Count Macdonald isn't an intelligent man, and that 
 may be why I have selected him to put my trust in. I 
 don't know about that ; but, you see,, I don't in the least 
 wish to have anything to do with something that's new. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 319 
 
 That isn't my business in the world. I suppose that what 
 I really want to do is to preserve whatever old goodnesses 
 there may be in the world. I am not in the least ashamed 
 of being old-fashioned. There's nothing whatever that 
 even you could say that will make me ashamed of being 
 old-fashioned. And what has made me trust Count Mac- 
 donald in this matter is that he seems to have the old- 
 fashioned goodnesses, and just because he has the old- 
 fashioned goodnesses I think he is the right person to 
 re-establish a kingdom along the Unes of old-fashioned 
 happiness and contentment. Even if I were dissatisfied 
 with Count Macdonald I could not trust you in this par- 
 ticular matter. You are not to be trusted ; you don't lay 
 yourself out to be trusted. You proclaim that the only 
 business of an inteUigent man is to invent something new." 
 
 " But this fellow," Mr. Pett exclaimed, " this unintelli- 
 gent useless feUow of a Macdonald . . ." 
 
 Lady Aldington stood still for a moment. 
 
 " Count Macdonald," she said slowly, " never thought 
 an unworthy thought and never did an unworthy action. 
 He is what you and I aren't, and what almost no one is 
 to-day — he is chivalrous ! fAnd it is chivalry that I am 
 looking for in the world, and that I should Hke to reintro- 
 duce into the world. I don't know that my affairs will 
 prosper in the hands of this gentleman, but I know that he 
 will never do anything that is against my heart, 'That is 
 what I should like you to understand. And I really do 
 think that if Count Macdonald puts his mind and his whole 
 soul into any adventure, that adventure will prosper. I 
 think he will never prosper himself, and that is because he 
 is quixotic, But it is a great thing to have in any sort 
 of an enterprise a man with a quixotic spirit, if only because 
 it prevents your doing injustices that will set many 
 people against whatever your imdertaking may be. Of 
 coiu^e, I know that this is not clever talk and it is hardly 
 
320 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 worth your while to listen to me. But you seem to wish to 
 know what my attitude is in this affair, and in that case it 
 is as well that you should know that what I think of Count 
 Macdonald is that his ' strength is as the strength of ten 
 because his heart is pure.' " 
 
 Mr. Pett exclaimed in a high scream, " My God 1 " and 
 then again " My God 1 " And clutching his fur motor cap 
 with both his hands, he really reeled on his feet, and with 
 extraordinary acid laughter in his intonation he exclaimed 
 once more : 
 
 " It's outrageou's ; it's infamous I You get me here ! — 
 me I — to listen to quotations from Tennyson 1 Me ! " 
 
 " My dear Mr. Pett," Lady Aldington said, " it isn't my 
 business in Ufe to select my quotations with care. That's 
 your business." 
 
 " But it's outrageous 1 " Mr, Pett said once more. He 
 couldn't think what had become of his vocabulary. He 
 couldn't understand how it was that he had only one or 
 two words that he had to use over and over again. He only 
 knew that between himself and this cold woman there 
 seemed to stretch an invisible stone wall. He didn't 
 know what it meant. " It's outrageous ! You get me 
 here to chant your love for Count Macdonald in an early 
 Victorian dialect and with quotations from Tennyson ! " 
 
 " It seemed to be only proper," Lady Aldington said, 
 " to let you know of my love for Coimt Macdonald." 
 
 " Proper I " Mr. Pett exclaimed, and suddenly he began 
 to laugh. He laughed on and on, exclaiming from time to 
 time, " Proper ! that's a funny word." 
 
 Mr. Pett indeed was extraordinarily hard hit. His 
 successes had always been so facile that it would be safe to 
 say that he had never known what failure was, and now 
 suddenly he found himself up against this stone wall. 
 
 There had never before been anj^thing that he hadn't 
 been a,ble_to wriggle round, to creep imder, or to scramble 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 321 
 
 over. Now he was up against it, and then he did what he 
 called forgetting himself. 
 
 " Your ladyship means," he said, and his voice still had 
 the high laugh of incredulous scorn — "your ladyship 
 means to tell me that your ladyship is your ladyship. 
 Your ladyship means to tell me that your ladyship and 
 that . . . that fellow are of a different blood from me. 
 You want to say that you are a different order of being — 
 you and he. I am just a person who talks. I'm nothing, 
 that's what you mean to say." 
 
 He stopped, and then exclaimed : " That . . . fellow 
 an aristocrat I Who'd have thought it ! Why, I've known 
 him since he was twenty. In all sorts of places : Fabian 
 meetings ; low pubhc-houses when he hadn't got a 
 penny 1 . . . " 
 
 " He'd given you all his money," Lady Aldington said 
 sharply. " You victimised him." 
 
 " I dare say I did," Mr. Pett continued, " but you mean 
 to tell me that that stupid fool who let himself be victimised 
 by me is the sort of person that is too high and mighty even 
 to wipe his boots on me." 
 
 " I hadn't thought of saying that," Lady Aldington 
 said. " But I dare say that is what I really did 
 mean." 
 
 " But, my God I " Mr. Pett exclaimed. " You don't 
 understand! You don't understand how I've despised 
 this person ! I've looked down on him for years and 
 years ! It's impossible for me to take him seriously." 
 
 " I quite understand that you've despised him," Lady 
 Aldington said ; " that's the new thing that you have 
 discovered— how to despise a man for being good to you 
 and for making your fortune." 
 
 " My God ! " Mr. Pett exclaimed for the ninth time. 
 
 " Can't you see that it's a privilege for a man of that kidney 
 
 to be allowed to look after a man like me ? " 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " I quite understand," Lady Aldington answered, " that 
 there is that way of looking at it ; and you can understand 
 — ^you do understand that it is a privilege for a woman of 
 my kidney to look after Count Macdonald. And that is 
 what I am going to do." 
 
 Mr. Pett had often thought that if he had been a mere 
 writer of stories instead of a political philosopher he would 
 have written a scene between a gentleman of lowly birth 
 and a woman of high society. They were going to love 
 each other passionately and to realise that it would not do. 
 So that at the end of Mr. Pett's story there would have 
 been a regretful scene, the gentleman's head being bowed 
 and the woman of high breeding looking back over her 
 shoulder as she vanished in the distance. They would 
 speak slowly, carefully, balanced words in a rhythm that 
 gradually faded out. Now Mr. Pett was as nearly in the 
 middle of such a scene as he was ever likely to be in his 
 whole life. He spluttered violently : 
 
 " What you mean to say is that you are an atrocious 
 snob." 
 
 He had a sense in the darkness that Lady Aldington 
 was making the motion of gathering her garments 
 together. 
 
 " I dare say I am," she answered. And she went away 
 towards the lighted window. 
 
 It struck him that her emotions were so singularly 
 businesslike that she could not be imagined to have any 
 emotions at all. It was as if she had just polished off a 
 necessary piece of work at one committee meeting and was 
 going on to another. She certainly did not look back over 
 her shoulder. 
 
 For a moment Mr. Pett thought only that the scene had 
 been extraordinarily unrounded and inartistic. Then it 
 struck him that he would no longer have the run of 
 Leicester House and be able to talk to the ex-members 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 323 
 
 of the Fabian Society of Putney about it. Then he 
 exclaimed to himself : 
 
 " By God, I'll go there all the same ! She can't shut her 
 doors on me, considering what I know about her." And 
 then suddenly he pulled off his motor coat and ran 
 violently down the terraces on to the rough frozen grass 
 of the park. 
 
 It was the full bitterness of things suddenly coming 
 upon him after, for a moment, he had been numbed. He 
 felt a passionate desire to conquer that cold woman ; he 
 felt that it was impossible ; he felt that he must try it all 
 the same. He wasn't going to give up. He ran violently 
 in front of him through the black darkness. In the intense 
 cold he became covered with sweat. He pitched right over 
 the back of a cow that lay still and grunted for a moment in 
 the darkness. His hands were cut by the frozen clods. 
 He ran straight onwards for a long way. He didn't know 
 how long he had been running when he seemed to come to 
 himself ; then he remembered his fur-lined motor coat, 
 that had cost thirty-four and a half guineas, and he went 
 grimly back to the terrace to recover it, because he 
 thought that one of the gardeners might steal it in the 
 morning. 
 
 This showed that Mr. Pett was recovering his grip on 
 himself. He was not going to give up. He was going to 
 conquer, for he considered himself to be the most wonder- 
 ful man in the world. He pressed his repeater and heard 
 that it was a quarter-past twelve. The lights were out 
 in the drawing-room, but on the bedroom floor many were 
 still burning in an interrupted row. He slung his motor 
 coat over his shoulder and marched into the house. When 
 he came to his own bedroom he half opened the door, 
 flung the coat in, and went on to Sergius Mihailovitch's 
 room. He pushed the door open. 
 Sergius Mihailovitch was sitting sunk in an armchair 
 
324 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 before the fire. He was wearing an old regimental coat 
 of the Russian Guards, which he put on because he liked 
 it, instead of a dressing-gown, in houses where he con- 
 sidered that his wardrobe would not be minutely observed 
 by the servants. He was sitting looking straight in 
 front of him, and when Mr. Pett burst in he exclaimed 
 lazily : 
 
 " Holloa ! " 
 
 Mr. Pett cried : " Look here, you'd better clear out of 
 this." Mr. Pett was wet all over with sweat, blood, and 
 hoar-frost ; his eyes glared epileptically, his hot hands 
 clenched and unclenched themselves. . . . 
 
 " You clear out of this," he repeated. " I know 
 things about you. You take my tip. Clear out I I want 
 you to." 
 
 Macdonald rose lazily from his chair and went over 
 towards his dressing-table. He was looking for his smelling 
 bottle, because a sniff of very strong salts is an excellent 
 thing for temporarily recovering a friend from a strong 
 attack of liquor. 
 
 " I know this," Mr. Pett said : " You're Lady Alding- 
 ton's paid man. She keeps you. She paid sixty thousand 
 pounds to your account. She's your mistress. I know 
 all that. I shall make use of it. You quit." 
 
 Macdonald stood extremely still. 
 
 " You're starving your own wife," Mr. Pett continued ; 
 " the Countess has told me so herself. She says you don't 
 give her any money. You take money from Kintyre 
 when your own wife's his mistress. Understand ? I shall 
 use that too. Do you see ? I've got you. Quit ! Clear 
 out of here. You're not wanted." 
 
 Macdonald said : " What's that you said Lady Aiding* 
 ton had paid? . . . And then my wife I . . . She 
 said . . . She said that . . . ? " 
 
 " And the money Lady Aldington gives you," Mr. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 325 
 
 Pett continued, " you squander on a woman of the 
 streets." 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Pett was in the room. She stepped 
 swiftly in front of her husband and kept her face towards 
 Count Macdonald. In her little nightgown she appeared 
 tiny and frail, like a black sparrow with a pink body. 
 She did her best to cover her husband's body and to push 
 him backwards out of the door. She was too agonised with 
 terror to say anything at all, but her eyes implored 
 Macdonald. 
 
 " Yes, get him out," Sergius Mihailovitch said, " or he 
 will not live more than a minute." 
 
 " What ? " Mr. Pett screamed from behind his wife's 
 back. " You kill me ? You're not the sort of man to kill 
 me. I'm the sort of man to kill you. That's what I shall 
 do. I shaU kill you. First I shall blast your reputation, 
 and then I'll have you killed." 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind threats," Macdonald said. 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Pett exclaimed : " Don't be so pale, 
 Sergius Mihailovitch. You're like chalk ! " 
 
 And, indeed, in his grey mihtary cloak with the cloth 
 of gold on the shoulders, Macdonald resembled a cloaked 
 statue. Even his hands were chalk-white. 
 
 " Get him away," he exclaimed, without any expression 
 at all. " For God's sake get him away or I shall kill him. 
 There is a revolver in this drawer." 
 
 And suddenly her tragic dignity deserted Mrs. Pett. 
 She turned upon her husband, wound her fingers in his 
 necktie, and pushed him backwards through the doorway. 
 There was a little red foam between his lips, and Mrs. Pett 
 resembled a dark, enraged coster girl who might have been 
 punishing her bloke. She shut the door quickly behind 
 her. 
 
 Macdonald remained standing perfectly still, so that he 
 had the appearance of listening to sounds in the distance. 
 
326 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 He took at last, absent-mindedly, a sniff from his smelling- 
 bottle ; then he replaced it on the dressing-table and laid 
 himself down once more in his long chair. He remained 
 gazing at the fire. At last he said : 
 
 " That's the real dark forest — the heart of another, 
 because of the wolves that there are in it." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 327 
 
 IV 
 
 1 
 
 "THOUGH it was winter, and in the night there had 
 been a very hard frost, on the next day the sun 
 shone very brightly from rising to setting, and in 
 all shadows there was a colour of blue because of 
 the blueness of the sky. Macdonald and Kintyre rode over 
 that crenellated and wrinkled Sussex country where in all 
 the many small copses the oak leaves and the beech 
 leaves were brown and thick beneath the sun. Twice even 
 Kintyre pointed out a primrose flowering on the bank, well 
 sheltered beneath the dead leaves. But it was obvious 
 to Kintyre that Sergius Mihailovitch was not in the mood 
 for talking. It took them an hour and a half to ride to 
 Bodiam, where the otter hounds were, and in all that time 
 Macdonald only put up one snatch of conversation. Just 
 as they were going through Battle he asked suddenly : 
 
 " Was that cheque that you paid into my account — a 
 cheque for sixty thousand pounds — signed by you or by 
 Lady Aldington ? " 
 
 Kintyre looked at him rather apprehensively ; his 
 sallow bearded face became even a shade more sallow. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, " where the deuce do you 
 think I could get sixty thousand pounds from — at a 
 moment's notice like that ? " 
 
 Macdonald only answered " Ah I " And they turned 
 their horses down a steep hill that goes suddenly to the 
 northward. Some time afterwards Sergius Mihailovitch 
 asked : 
 
328 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " And how do you suppose that Pett got hold of that 
 piece of information ? " 
 
 Kintyre reflected for quite a long time ; at last he said : 
 
 " Has Pett been talking to you ? Has he been ragging 
 you about it ? " 
 
 Macdonald answered : " Of course he has," in a per- 
 fectly lifeless tone. 
 
 " Then I can only say," the Duke brought out cautiously, 
 " that he must have guessed it ; he is damnably sharp. 
 Damnably ! " He added after a time, " There isn't any 
 other way. Not any ! Of course I shouldn't talk, and 
 nobody at the bank would talk. It's just possible that 
 Emily may have told Mrs. Pett because they are great 
 friends, and it's just possible that Mrs. Pett may have told 
 her husband. It's just possible, but quite unthinkable." 
 
 " Oh, it's quite unthinkable," Macdonald repeated 
 mechanically. 
 
 " But, of course, Pett," Kintyre said, " would be able 
 to deduce it. He'd make a shot at it and take the risk. 
 He knows your financial position pretty well, and he'd 
 guess that I couldn't raise a huge sum of money Uke that 
 at a moment's notice. So you can take my word for it that 
 he just made a shot." 
 
 " Well, he was precious near my taking a shot at him," 
 Macdonald said. 
 
 Again the Duke grew a shade paler, and once more he did 
 not speak for quite a considerable time. 
 
 To Kintyre, Sergius Mihailovitch always appeared an 
 extremely dangerous person. Kintyre was always thinking 
 that Macdonald would burst out into a terrible fit of rage, 
 and what he feared was not that Macdonald would call him 
 out, but that he would demonstrate that Kintyre had been 
 lacking somehow, somewhere in delicacy. And Kintyre 
 had reasons for regarding himself as not the person with the 
 cleanest of hands in the world. He couldn't possibly 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 329 
 
 consider himself as being straight in the absurd way that 
 he considered Macdonald to be straight. Macdonald he 
 couldn't in the least understand. He admired him, and 
 he was afraid of him because he had met many Russians 
 of good birth not one of whom he could have considered 
 as reasonably honest men. Kintyre couldn't in the least 
 understand where Macdonald had got his peculiar scrupu- 
 lousnesses. He could only imagine that Macdonald must 
 have been brought up in some extremely distant regibn of 
 the Russian provinces, where there might have been some 
 old marshal of nobility who had influenced him to a point 
 of punctiliousness that must have vanished from the world 
 perhaps a hundred years ago. And, of course, he could 
 see that Macdonald, having been educated in his later 
 years at Harrow, had taken seriously all the points of school- 
 boy honour that he considered most English boys to regard 
 as impracticable and too visionary for daily use. He him- 
 self at Winchester had been a most unspeakable httle cad, 
 and so he had found most of his comrades. 
 
 " It's aU your confounded trying to be delicate." Kintyre 
 at last faced the matter with a boldness of desperation. 
 " It's not my fault. I should have been perfectly ready 
 to have told you that the cheque was Emily's, but you've 
 got a manner that absolutely prevents one talking to you. 
 So that it's just delicacy that's landed you into what I can 
 see to be a damnably coarse piece of blackmailing on the 
 part of our friend Pett. But I am extraordinarily sorry if 
 you're inconvenienced." 
 
 " I'm horribly inconvenienced," Macdonald said. 
 
 But they did not speak again until they came to Bodiam. 
 Indeed, two minutes later they came upon a sort of a small 
 squire in a grey woollen sweater, with hob-nailed boots and 
 a light spear tipped with steel. And as this Mr. Monk- 
 house was slightly known to Kintyre, he walked beside the 
 horses talking animatedly about a duty on hops. There 
 
330 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 wouldn't be, he said, a single field in East Sussex that 
 wouldn't be grubbed up if this damned Government didn't 
 give them the duty that they wanted. 
 
 Bodiam was like a pageant. There was the immense 
 castle like a background of stone to a group of people who 
 were assembled on the banks of the slow Rother in broad 
 green fields. There were the mottled hounds and quite a 
 number of terriers. There was the bright sky, the silent 
 glassy waters of the moat that reflected the naked branches 
 of the trees all golden in the aching sunlight. And Mac- 
 donald heard a great many Sussex names and met a great 
 many Sussex people. There were Monkhouses, and 
 Vidlers, and Stringers, and Skinners, and Fletchers, 
 and Venuses ; and there was here and there a dash of 
 scarlet and the short grey skirts of the women, who were all 
 fair and tanned and loud-voiced. And they found an 
 otter, and it went away downstream while they were 
 trying to head it up ; and there was a great deal of talk, 
 but not very much splashing in the water, because the 
 water was very cold. It was, indeed, not much more than 
 a trial meeting to see whether they couldn't get an early 
 winter hunt, for most of the otter hunting in these parts 
 is carried on in the summer. Macdonald had to hear these 
 facts many times over. They wanted him to get down 
 from his horse and to run with them, but he wasn't much 
 good at running, nor, for the matter of that, was Kintyre ; 
 but as they were both of them good horsemen, the pedes- 
 trians couldn't get anywhere that they couldn't go. 
 
 There was an odd incident of a dog otter in a mill-pond. 
 It was lying in the middle of the water with its nose pushed 
 up through a bunch of floating hay. They wouldn't even 
 have noticed it at all except the hay kept still whilst the 
 rest of the pond had a slow current. Someone observed 
 the motionless patch, and there beneath it, sure enough, 
 was the otter treading water. They disputed a good deal 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 331 
 
 about it, for not the oldest of them had ever heard the hke. 
 Some said that the otter did it to hide its muzzle, and 
 others were of the opinion that it put its nose into the bunch 
 of hay in order that the scent of the hay might prevent its 
 own scent from coming over the water to the hounds. 
 And one of these two theories they disputed and disputed 
 until well into the afternoon, whenever they were not 
 breathless with holloaing and beating the water. 
 
 But that was just an interlude that made no impression 
 at all upon the mind of Sergius Mihailovitch. It seemed 
 to be faint and distant, like looking at old-fashioned 
 water-colour sketches, and Kintyre and Macdonald left the 
 river about one o'clock, pretending that they wanted 
 something to eat, though Macdonald couldn't have swal- 
 lowed a crust. He took, instead, a great quantity of bad 
 whisky at a little inn on the road, but because of the 
 strength of his raging emotions it did not affect him any 
 more than if it had been water. 
 
 The winter sun was settling slowly down to the horizon 
 when they came within a mile of Aldington Towers. Hav- 
 ing got through a gateway they were riding in a small 
 copse where the woodmen had been lately at work on the 
 under-wood, though they had all gone home because it was 
 a Saturday. A robin was flitting along beside them, 
 giving its long note of warning, and suddenly Macdonald 
 said : 
 
 " You understand, I can have nothing more to do with 
 you. Not ever. Never in this world." 
 
 " But, my dear fellow," Kintyre exclaimed . . . 
 
 Macdonald suddenly swung himself out of the saddle. 
 
 " It's no use," he said, " you can see that for yourself. 
 It's utterly irrevocable. Go on. I am going to sit here. 
 I've got to think this out. I'll have to tell you later 
 whether I must ask you to leave the Galizian business as 
 well, or whether I must leave it. I think one of us must, 
 
332 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 but I haven't had time to grasp the situation." He was 
 looking obstinately down on the groimd. 
 
 " But, Sergius Mihailovitch," the Duke began ; " but 
 my good' fellow . . ." 
 
 Macdonald looked up at him with blue eyes in a blood- 
 shot setting. 
 
 " I don't bear you any ill will," he said. " I dare say 
 you thought she was free. I don't know what the situation 
 demands. I've only had time to hate the way it's been 
 talked about. That's silly of me, but I'll let you know 
 later if there's anything to say. Go away now or I think 
 I shall have a fit." 
 
 He sat down on a faggot of cut brushwood, and Kintyre 
 gazed down at him from the saddle. 
 
 Suddenly Kintyre raised his shoulders ahnost up to his 
 ears and let them fall with an air of deep dejection. He 
 caught up slowly the bridle of Macdonald's horse, which 
 had stood perfectly still with its head hanging down. It 
 was a very favourite mare of the Duke's that he had 
 mounted Macdonald on for the day, and Kintyre did not 
 like to think of its standing there when the coldness of 
 the night was falling. It was extraordinarily still in the 
 wood, and the slow footsteps of the horses as they went 
 away crackled on the twigs like the report of fireworks. 
 
 On all the fallen beech leaves the red sunlight lay like 
 blood and copper. The white round ends of sawn usepoles 
 gleamed out of the green moss on their boles. AU the 
 under-wood of those cants was cut for a great distance, but 
 the old timber and the fourteen-year trees that had been 
 spared spread a network of branches all over the under- 
 wood, and invested the whole place with a coloured twilight 
 through which the shafts of light pierced from the level sun. 
 
 Macdonald sat perfectly still. He had on a long Russian 
 riding-cloak, which he had taken because it might have 
 turned cold, and it had not much mattered what he wore. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 333 
 
 He sat motionless, and the robin, defiant, watchful, and 
 yet loving company, approached almost near enough to 
 peck his feet. 
 
 And then there came the soimd of footsteps running. 
 It was Emily Aldington, running as fast as she could down- 
 hill through the twilight. Her face was panic-stricken, 
 and she had an old cloak lined with grey and white fur 
 flying back from over her shoulders. She had been in the 
 housekeeper's room when Kintyre had come to tell her 
 that Macdonald was ill in the wood, and she had caught 
 up the cloak, which was an old one belonging to the house- 
 keeper herself. She had run and walked nearly a mile, 
 and, although she was always in very good condition, she 
 was out of breath with the hurry and the terror, for Kintyre 
 considered that Macdonald had gone mad and his air had 
 been full of alarm. Macdonald never turned his head to 
 see who was coming, and this alarmed her still more. She 
 cried out : 
 
 " My darling, you aren't dead ? " For she thought he 
 might have poisoned himself and was sitting there dead. 
 He looked up at her and exclaimed expressionlessly : 
 " No, I'm not even ill. I'm thinking about it all." 
 " Then if you are thinking," she said, " remember that 
 I belong to you body and soul." 
 
 And suddenly kneeling upon the ground, she took 
 hold of his hand and began to kiss it. He sat still, but 
 at last he rested his hand motionlessly upon her hair. 
 This was the first motion of affection or of trust that 
 he had ever shown her, and her face became as happy as 
 if she had been looking at Uttle children playing, for she 
 felt that this meant both affection and trust, and she 
 desired to feel in herself nothing but humiHty, as if the 
 woods were his, and the sky were his, and all of the world 
 was his to do what he liked with. She wrapped his coat 
 over his knees where it had fallen away, and, dropping 
 
334 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 her own coat over herself, she sat still at his feet. It was 
 the first happiness she had ever known, and she was per- 
 fectly happy ; she just wanted to sit still, she didn't doubt 
 that his cloud of depression would pass away from him. 
 She had nothing to do, she had nothing to think ; she had 
 nothing left either to command or devise in the world. 
 She could just sit still and look at the robin, and observe 
 that the bright red of its breast merged into a sort of mistle- 
 toe greenness of the wings, and she wondered where it slept 
 at night, for as the darkness came down it fluttered away 
 upwards amongst the indistinguishable boughs of the higher 
 trees. And she wondered vaguely where aU the beasts of 
 the wood took refuge in the dark long nights, and what 
 one would see if suddenly a bright hght could be thrown 
 upon them, or if one could see in the darkness Uttle things, 
 small birds, and rabbits, and the noisy rooks all in the 
 darkness, that must seem warm because it was so black and 
 so still. 
 
 Suddenly his hand moved with a resolute action, with a 
 quick motion that she knew to mean he was coming back 
 tO:Ufe ; and suddenly she exclaimed : 
 
 " We've found it, really." 
 
 And he said : " Yes I yes I The very centre of dark 
 forest." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 335 
 
 MR. PETT inhabited one of those discreet houses 
 of which there is a colony nestled away to the 
 south-east of South Kensington station. In 
 the tortuous and narrow streets of this district 
 there is very little traffic, and in the resulting quietness Mr. 
 Pett found that tranquillity of atmosphere which was 
 necessary to his avocation as a Thinker. He might have been 
 in a country village. His old house stood in a large garden 
 that was completely surrounded with a high wall. Before 
 the front door stood a gate with a grille, and this gate the 
 servants could open from the kitchen by pressing a button. 
 Mr. Pett believed very much in all labour-saving appliances. 
 The house itself might have been built in 1820, but in the 
 interests of hygiene and for the slajdng of all insects as 
 well as of all microbes, Mr. Pett had so filled up all inter- 
 stices with white paint and white enamels that, in a winter 
 twilight with the fire dancing, the aspect of the long, rather 
 low, rooms was really very pleasant. All the tapestries 
 were of blue curtain serge ; on the walls there were many 
 high art photographs of Mr. Pett, bearing inscriptions to 
 the effect that they were respectfully presented by ex- 
 clusive photographers. There were also many portraits 
 of Mr. Pett's distinguished contemporaries, they too bear-, 
 ing evidence in the form of inscriptions that they were 
 presented by the distinguished sitters. In the white wooden 
 book-shelves were a great many books, modern editions 
 
336 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 of classics, novels presented by their authors, modem 
 scientific works, and books concerned with economics. So 
 that, in his complacent moments, Mr. Pett could feel that 
 he was really founding a family in an ancestral home, for 
 there was none of his books and none of his pictures on the 
 walls that did not give evidence of some distinguished 
 association or another ; and since Mr. Pett ardently believed 
 that wars were at an end, and that a new era had dawned, 
 he could think contentedly that his children — for he was 
 now sufficiently wealthy to consider the possibility of 
 burdening himself with a family — might thank him for 
 placing them when they came into existence amongst the 
 aristocracy of the new era. Indeed, there was practically 
 no one, whether it were Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Galsworthy, 
 Mr. H. G. Wells, or the President of the new founded British 
 Academy, or Monsieur Anatole France, or Count Tolstoi, or 
 the President of the Fabian Society, who was not repre- 
 sented in one form or another in Mr. Pett's residence. 
 And Mr. Pett could quite justly think that he himself stood 
 not in the least below the level of these founders of the 
 Great New Things that would come. 
 
 In such a winter twilight Mr. Pett stood before his 
 polished brass mantel-shelf, in the white room with the 
 blue serge curtains ; pieces of wood burning in the fireplace 
 sent out pleasant reflections that danced on the shiny white 
 surface of the waUs. Mr. Pett was talking energetically, 
 and with a certain high spirit in the flow of his words. In 
 the shadows close at his right hand sat Mrs. Pett ; in the 
 shadows before him, the Marquis da Pinta and a Dom 
 Crisostomo Carrasco, a gentleman who. although he was a 
 Spaniard, was nevertheless the Marquis da Pinta's agent in 
 Galizia. The Dom Carrasco was a little dark man. In 
 the dancing light of the flames his face stood out from time 
 to time, vivid but exhibiting a strained attention. He 
 had a little, thin, black curly beard, and his eyes shone with 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 337 
 
 a deep, half-maniacal fury. He was of the Anarchist 
 degenerate type, but he was filled with a fervent passion for 
 Royalism and the Catholic Faith. 
 
 " A man like that ought to be killed ! " Mr. Pett ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Yes, yes, he ought to be killed," the Marquis da Pinta 
 repeated. " I will kill him myself when I am at Uberty 
 to do so. Every day I am practising with my sword. 
 He has desecrated the memory of the great Dumas." 
 
 The Dom Carrasco leant forward in his armchair and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Yes, yes, he ought to be killed." And his white 
 fingers in the fire-light crawled hke a bunch of sleepy, 
 new-born snakes. 
 
 " It's not soon enough," Mr. Pett exclaimed, " to kill 
 him in a duel after the counter-revolution. He ought to 
 be killed at once, or at the very least as soon as the King 
 is put on his throne." 
 
 " Yes, yes," Dom Carrasco exclaimed, " as soon as the 
 King shall enjoy his own again." 
 
 Mrs. Pett said agonisedly : " But, for God's sake, be 
 careful, Herbert ! " 
 
 And Mr. Pett snarled at her sharply : " What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " It's exactly," Mrs. Pett said, " as if you were asking 
 to have Count Macdonald murdered." 
 
 " No ; I'm asking to have him executed," Mr. Pett said, 
 " that's what I want. He ought to go out of the world 
 sharply and quickly, and without any romance to leave 
 a glamour round his name. He ought to be shot by order 
 of a court-martial. That's it, he ought to be shot quickly, 
 quietly, and efficiently, with no fuss about it." 
 
 " Yes, yes, quickly and quietly," Dom Carrasco muttered. 
 
 " But you can't really mean it, Herbert ? " Mrs. Pett 
 said. She appealed earnestly to the other two. " You 
 
 z 
 
338 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 must understand, gentlemen," she said, " that my husband 
 is only speaking figuratively. It's a common enough thing 
 for him to say that traitors to the State should be executed. 
 But he doesn't mean it literally. Count Macdonald can't 
 be called a traitor to the State. He's only a gentleman of 
 a different way of thinking from my husband." 
 
 The Marquis da Pinta barked out violently : " But he 
 is a traitor to the State. He will soil the opening years of 
 the new reign of the King by shedding blood. There must 
 be no blood when the King ascends the throne. Besides, 
 he has desecrated the memory of the great Dumas." 
 
 " You only got that idea of shedding blood from 
 my husband," Mrs. Pett said. " It isn't your own 
 idea." 
 
 Mr. Pett exclaimed violently : " Shut up, Anne." And 
 then he squared his shoulders to dehver his philosophy. 
 " You might say that I am expressing an old idea when I 
 say that Sergius Mihailovitch ought to be put out of the 
 way. You might say he deserves death because he is 
 setting out to take life. That would be the old Hebraic 
 shibboleth — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and 
 death for him who deals death. But that is an exploded 
 theory, though even imder that old code Macdonald 
 deserves death . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Pett exclaimed once more : " But Herbert . . ." 
 
 She was really very seriously concerned. She knew 
 perfectly well that her husband was merely taking a dra- 
 matic pose. Really, he was only trying to discredit Mac-, 
 donald. He hadn't the least intention or the least desire 
 of having any Hfe taken. But he had got upon that line 
 of talk, and he stuck to it for the sake of dramatic effect. 
 And she dishked this exceedingly, because she thought 
 that these two gentlemen would consider her husband a 
 confounded fool and a disagreeable sort of person, because 
 they couldn't help knowing that Mr. Pett had paid his 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 339 
 
 court to Lady Aldington and that Macdonald was the 
 preferred suitor. 
 
 She disliked thinking that these foreigners should con- 
 sider her husband to be what she called a dirty little swine. 
 She didn't consider 'that he really was this, but she knew 
 that in these moments of tension he gave way to unworthy 
 emotions. She had to consider her home, her children, 
 and the reputation of her little clan, and these she was 
 trying to protect. It never came into her head that these 
 foreign gentlemen would take her husband seriously and, 
 with his sanction, would attempt to murder Sergius 
 Mihailovitch. That appeared to her an extravagant idea. 
 People did not do these things. 
 
 "Even by the old code," Mr. Pett continued, "Mac- 
 donald is worthy of death in any honourable circle. He 
 has taken money from the Duke of Kintyre as the price 
 of his dishonour. In any decent society that would be 
 judged worthy of death. He's taken money from Lady 
 Aldington, who is his mistress. In any decent society that 
 would be judged worthy of death." 
 
 " Certainly these things would be worthy of death," the 
 Marquis da Pinta said. 
 
 " He has squandered Lady Aldington's money upon a 
 common woman of the streets," Mr. Pett went on with his 
 indictments. " He is what the French would call a 
 souteneur. That alone is worthy of death." 
 
 " But, good God, Herbert," Mrs. Pett said, " you know 
 perfectly well that all of these things are untrue 1 " 
 
 " I've had them all from his wife," Mr. Pett snapped 
 ■back. " He has deserted his wife and left her to starve. 
 That's enough to make any decent man want to shoot 
 him." 
 
 " Certainly," Dom Carrasco said, " that's enough to 
 make any decent man desire to shoot him. He is a blot 
 upon the face of monarchy." 
 
340 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Mrs. Pett suddenly began to laugh. It appeared to her 
 to be the only thing to do. 
 
 " You're all perfectly grotesque," she said ; " you seem 
 to forget that this is the twentieth century. You're hke 
 a set of conspirators in an Italian mediseval town, and 
 Herbert is like Henry II when he said to his courtiers: 
 ' Will no one rid me of this pestilent priest ? ' and so they 
 went and murdered St. Thomas k Becket. I really wish 
 you'd stop it, because if anybody should ever hear — at 
 least it gives me the feeling — ^you really would appear 
 rather discreditable." 
 
 A silence settled down upon the room ; the fire-Ught 
 flickered ; the branches of a leafless laburnum tapped upon 
 the window. Suddenly the door opened, and against the 
 lighted hall there appeared the figure of one of Mr. Pett's 
 efiicient servants, and behind her that oi the Countess 
 Macdonald. Mrs. Pett sprang up quickly from her cane 
 chair, and really ruiming into the hall she prevented the 
 Countess's entrance. 
 
 " Herbert's got some men on biisiness," they heard 
 her say, " let's go into the dining-room." Then the door 
 closed. 
 
 Mr. Pett continued : "He merits death for many 
 oflences even under the old code. But I do not stand for 
 anything old. I stand for the Great New Things that are 
 coming. In the New Time there won't be any death 
 penalty for the killing of a man. There won't be any death 
 penalty at all, except for the one offence that this man has 
 committed. Indeed, hardly anyone will kill a mcin, aU the 
 passions that lead to this being aboUshed by a wise govern- 
 ment. But there is one crime that is impardonable, that 
 is, an attempt to kill New Ideas. That is unpardonable 
 because it hurts not one man but the entire community, 
 and not only the entire community but the entire State 
 of which the s5Tnbol is the King. That is what this man 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 341 
 
 Macdonald has done for the counter-revolution. We had 
 the New Idea that this should take place without any show 
 of force or any danger of the shedding of blood, and to 
 repair this offence there is no penalty but that of extinction. 
 And this extinction should not take the form of execution 
 with its forms and pomps, because that would draw atten- 
 tion to the man and his ideas. Nay, it should not even 
 take the form of execution by court-martial. Some 
 private person should be selected by the head of the State 
 quickly and quietly to assassinate the wrong-doer. He 
 shouldn't, indeed, even be formally informed that he is 
 to assassinate the criminal. A wink or a nod from the 
 head of the State ought to be sufficient. I hope you foUow 
 my line of reasoning ? " 
 
 The Marquis da Pinta said : " I follow it perfectly. 
 Your logic is incontestable. We must put this man out 
 of the way quickly and quietly." 
 
 " I will attend to its being done," Dom Crisostomo 
 Carrasco exclaimed ; " you may depend upon me." 
 
 Mr. Pett suddenly had a little moment of emotion. 
 
 " But, good God," he said, " you don't suppose I'm in 
 earnest ? You don't suppose that I really want Macdonald 
 murdered ? " 
 
 The Marquis da Pinta said : " No, no, of course not," 
 in an official manner. 
 
 And Dom Carrasco repeated : " I perfectly understand 
 what you want done." 
 
 " But look here 1 " Mr. Pett said agitatedly. " You 
 quite understand that I don't want that. I strongly object 
 to murder. That was only a theory." 
 
 " Oh, I perfectly understand Your Excellency," Dom 
 Carrasco said. " It shall be all exactly as Your Excellency 
 desired." 
 
 ''That's quite certain ? " Mr. Pett asked. " You gentle- 
 men are sometimes rather ready with the knife, I believe." 
 
342 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " I should not think of letting a knife be used," the 
 Marquis da Pinta said. " You seem to forget that I am 
 a person of intelligence." 
 
 They began to talk about the affairs of the Galizian 
 counter-revolution. They were prospering even beyond 
 their anticipations. Operating from the Spanish border 
 on the north-west of Galizia, Mr. Carrasco, who, for pur- 
 poses of identification, was mounted on a white stallion 
 that had one piebald mark like a diamond on its left haunch 
 — Mr. Carrasco in three months had covered very nearly 
 the whole of the provinces of Gallegos and South Galizia. 
 The province of Batalha, where the population was really 
 densest, since it contained two and a quarter of the three 
 million Galizians, Carrasco could neglect, for that province 
 would do pretty well what Mr. Macdonald — El Rey de 
 Batalha — chose to command ; and Carrasco himself had 
 seen this Mr. Macdonald just before leaving for England, 
 and Mr. Macdonald assured him that as far as he was 
 concerned the counter-revolution might begin at any 
 moment. 
 
 April, however, had been fixed for the date of the entrance 
 into Flores, the capital. This was because the taxes of 
 the country were collected and became due in May. That 
 had been Macdonald's idea. By April the repubhc would 
 have positively no money at all in its possession, and Mr. 
 Dexter in his capacity of representative of the monied 
 king of the United States had taken all the steps necessary 
 to prevent the imfortunate repubhc from being able to 
 borrow a penny from anywhere in the world. By April 
 they simply wouldn't have a penny. The republic, seeing 
 its doom approaching, had made a desperate attempt to 
 raise extra personal taxes in November ; but even at that, 
 by the most unconstitutional methods, they hadn't been 
 able to get together more than three thousand pounds, ^nd 
 the army hadn't been paid for six months. Thus, wherever 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 343 
 
 he had gone Carrasco had been treated by the population 
 as a saviour. In many places he had made speeches in 
 the market from the back of the white stallion. He had 
 told the people that a reign of peace and plenty was coming 
 for them ; he had said that he personally was ready to 
 authorise them to pay no taxes for two whole years. At 
 first he had had to do these things with some show of 
 secrecy, but by the time he had reached Vila di Goya, a 
 large town twelve miles distant from the capital, there 
 hadn't any longer been the least need for concealment. 
 He had addressed an immense concourse in the market- 
 place, and then nearly nine thousand people had insisted 
 on following him in his ride to Flores. Nay, they had even 
 insisted on forcing him up to the very doors of the Palace 
 of the Annunciation, where the repubhcan ministry was 
 sitting ; and they had insisted on his entering and con- 
 fronting the ministers. By that time there must have been 
 from thirty to forty thousand men howhng and gesticu- 
 lating outside the long old palace of white stone. They 
 were crying out that they would tear everyone of the 
 ministers hmb from limb if the httle finger nail of Carrasco 
 were so much as tapped in an unfriendly manner. Carrasco 
 himself hadn't in the least desired to interview the ministers, 
 but he described how he had found them, sitting at a long 
 table covered with a green cloth — fourteen professors, 
 journalists, and tradesmen, all rather fat, all in black frock 
 coats, and with extremely pale faces. Mr. Carrasco had 
 remained looking at them for a minute or so in silence. 
 Then he had said : 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, I have nothing to say to you." 
 The Minister of Agriculture, a Jewish money-lender, 
 was the only one of the ministers who had kept his head. 
 He said to Carrasco with a jaunty manner : 
 
 " Senhor, we hear that you have come to every Galizian 
 to offer him thirty-six thousand peccadi and no taxes for 
 
344 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 two years. For myself and my colleagues I beg to say that 
 we shall be very happy to accept this offer when the time 
 comes." 
 
 And all the ministers at the table had muttered indis- 
 tinguishable words, with the exception of the President of 
 the Republic, a fat author — the only author in Galizia. 
 This gentleman had violently struck the table with his 
 fist, and had exclaimed : 
 
 " May God curse this day when I hear Galizians ready 
 to sell their coimtry ! " 
 
 Mr. Carrasco had calmly opened the window and, 
 stepping out on to the balcony, had addressed the immense 
 crowd that was outside. He had said : 
 
 " My brothers, go home quietly, the reign of peace and 
 plenty is at hand. For the present have patience, pay no 
 taxes, but live at peace one with the other. When the sun 
 comes — for it is winter — I pledge you my word, I Crisos- 
 tomo CaiTasco, that all I have promised you shall take 
 effect, but for the present be peaceful." 
 
 He commented to Da Pinta : " They are an astonishing 
 people, your Galizians. At my words they began to go 
 away like trained horses, each returning to his private 
 affairs, so that you would have said that in forty minutes 
 there had never been any hint of disorder at all in Galizia. 
 And for myself, if I might advise you, I should set aside a 
 siun of twenty-eight thousand pounds — two thousand for 
 each of these ministers, and then bargain about bribing 
 them to desert the President." 
 
 " The President is a gallant man," the Marquis da Pinta 
 grumbled. " He is the vice-president of the Society of 
 Worshippers of Dumas. He will never desert his post ; 
 that is what comes of studying this admirable author." 
 
 "And if you will take my advice," Mr. Carrasco continued, 
 " you will string out the negotiations about this bribe to 
 the cabinet for as long as you can, for this country is ripe 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 345 
 
 for the revolution. But we shall have two months to wait 
 until we shall be ready, and in these two months the minis- 
 ters might do something if they had some money in their 
 hands. At the present moment the Minister of Finance 
 has not one cent, and the man who sells him beans for his 
 stew will no longer give him credit I might have declared 
 the revolution a week ago from that balcony, but I had no 
 organisation behind me, and it might have confused the 
 issue, for some of the soldiers are still loyal to the repubhc." 
 
 Mr. Pett exclaimed : " What more could you ever 
 want ? It is really aU finished. It is foolish to sit here 
 and wait any more." 
 
 " I do not know so much about that," Dom Carrasco 
 answered, " for there is still in this matter a hard core of 
 republican sentiment, and they are very obstinate men. 
 I agree that this Count Macdonald is worthy of death, but 
 at the same time I personally shall be glad of his battle- 
 ships, for I am certain that without them there would be 
 much shedding of blood. This republican core consists 
 almost entirely of soldiers, and they are well armed and 
 very ferocious, whilst the rest of the population has only 
 a few daggers and some old swords. So that unless the 
 warships of this traitor, whose name I spit upon, should be 
 there to over-awe these republicans, I think there might 
 very well be much bloodshed, for on both sides this people 
 is a very determined one." 
 
 Mr. Pett immediately began violently to harangue the 
 Dom Carrasco. But although the Dom Carrasco adored 
 Mr. Pett as if he had been a god, and was perfectly ready to 
 assassinate Coimt Macdonald because Count Macdonald 
 had annoyed Mr. Pett, he nevertheless stuck quite firmly 
 to his opinion that battleships were necessary. Dom 
 Carrasco adored Mr. Pett because Da Pinta had assured 
 him that this gentleman had started the counter-revolution, 
 and to Dom Carrasco to start a counter-revolution appeared 
 
346 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 to be a thing so meritorious and so splendid that he was 
 ready to put his head under Mr. Pett's heel at any moment 
 and in the dustiest of places, and he always called Mr. 
 Pett " Your Excellency." He was the son of a shoemaker 
 in Toboso, where his name is a very old one, and he 
 was ready to go at any moment to his death in support 
 of a legitimate king or of the Holy Sacraments of the 
 Church. 
 
 A furious wrangling immediately began between all 
 these people. 
 
 In the next room the Countess Macdonald was saying 
 to Mrs. Pett : 
 
 " Who has Pett got with him ? I want to speak to him 
 urgently." 
 
 Mrs. Pett trembled a little ; she was rather exhausted 
 and very nervous, and she dreaded immensely that in some 
 way the Countess should discover the secret of the revolu- 
 tion and by betraying it to the press should ruin its chances 
 of success. The gentlemen in the next room were raising 
 their voices very loudly, and although exactly what they 
 said could not be heard through the folding doors, she very 
 much dreaded that her husband might raise his voice so 
 high as to become comprehensible. She said : 
 
 " Let us go upstairs to my bedroom ; there's a much 
 better fire there." 
 
 " Oh, the fire here is quite good enough. I prefer to be 
 here ; besides, you can always put some more wood on." 
 And this the Countess did herself, though she occupied a 
 minute or so in blowing it with the brass bellows afterwards. 
 
 " I want to speak to Pett at once," she said. " It's 
 urgent." 
 
 " But you've seen Herbert every day at least once until 
 last week," Mrs. Pett said. " Why, you saw him last 
 night after we had got back from Aldington Towers." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 347 
 
 " But I've discovered a new villainy," the Countess said. 
 " It's very urgent." 
 
 " You've discovered a new villainy every day for the 
 last two months," Mrs. Pett said ; and she began to get 
 angry. " Haven't you got villainies enough together to 
 suit you ? " 
 
 " But this is the end of everything," the Countess said. 
 
 " It's always the end of everything, you know," Mrs. 
 Pett answered. 
 
 "Do you know what Macdonald is up to ? " The Countess 
 faced her squarely. " Do you know what I've found out ? 
 He's getting up a counter-revolution in Galizia." 
 
 Mrs. Pett only said : " Ah ! " And she put her hand 
 upon her throat because her heart was fluttering so wildly. 
 She looked at the sideboard and saw the bread-knife on 
 it. She looked at the door and saw that the key was on 
 the outside. In any case she was determined that this 
 woman should not go out of her house with this secret. 
 
 " I am going to stop that," the Countess said. " I am 
 going to stop the counter-revolution altogether. I was 
 determined to find out what Macdonald was up to. I sent 
 information to all the newspapers that he was attempting 
 to get together a great opera S5mdicate. That was what 
 you told me. And letters have come to all the papers 
 from all the singers that you mentioned, utterly denying 
 that they have had anything to do with any syndicate." 
 
 " You've utterly spoiled the plan," Mrs. Pett said faintly. 
 
 " That's what I was trying to do," the Countess Mac- 
 donald answered. " But the plan never existed. You 
 were lying to me when you said that it did." 
 
 She spoke very slowly, and Mrs. Pett realised that she 
 was being treated to one of the Countess's fits of what she 
 called icy contempt. And Mrs. Pett determined to attempt 
 so to enrage the Countess that she would make an attempt 
 to strike her. Mrs. Pett in her educational thoroughness 
 
348 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 had learnt ju-jitsu. She had learnt it almost perfectly, 
 and she imagined that if the Countess should attempt to 
 strike her.she could throw her so scientifically that she would 
 be laid up with concussion of the brain for at least six weeks. 
 And although Mrs. Pett felt herself to be in an evil dream, 
 the Countess who was one of their oldest friends, by haunt- 
 ing her home day in, day out, for the last three months had 
 become such a figure of nightmare that it seemed ap- 
 propriate enough, and Mrs. Pett was prepared to do any- 
 thing in the world to prevent her husband's scheme from 
 being ruined. 
 
 " Yes," the Countess said, " I've got all the letters 
 drafted ready to post to the papers." 
 
 Mrs. Pett said, without raising her voice : 
 
 " The only thing to do with a woman of your description 
 is to lie to her." 
 
 " But you didn't do it cleverly enough," the Coimtess 
 exclaimed triumphantly. " I've done you, you see. I 
 went round this morning to one of Sergius Mihailovitch's 
 women — that person calling herself di PradeUa. And 
 what do you think that infernal villain had told the girl ? 
 Nothing less than that she had nothing whatever to do 
 with separating me from him. So when I told her it was 
 an infamous lie . . ." 
 
 " But it was perfectly true," Mrs. Pett said, " it was you 
 who were lying." 
 
 " Haven't I the right to lie ? " the Countess said. 
 " Hasn't my home been broken up ? Hasn't . . ." 
 
 " Oh, we've heard all that before," Mrs. Pett said. " So 
 you lied to that poor girl ? And I suppose if you told her 
 that she was the absolute cause of your quarrel with 
 Macdonald she'd at once be so shocked as to tell you any- 
 thing that you asked ? " 
 
 " That's exactly what happened," the Countess answered 
 triumphantly. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 349 
 
 " How could you do such a thing ? " Mrs. Pett said. 
 " How could you lead that poor innocent girl to betray 
 her benefactor ! It is the worst thing that I have heard 
 of you." 
 
 The Countess suddenly went swiftly past Mrs. Pett. 
 " I am going to tell your husband exactly what I think of 
 him," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Pett gave a sigh of relief. In the next room there 
 were, at any rate, three men. 
 
 The Countess threw open the drawing-room door. She 
 switched on the lights, and all three men appeared blinking 
 uneasily in the white room with the blue curtains. The 
 Countess surveyed them with what she called looks of 
 flashing scorn. She was dressed all in black, because she 
 had come to do a deed of denunciation. She pointed her 
 hand dramatically at Mr. Pett. 
 
 " Traitor ! " she did her best to hiss. 
 
 Mr. Pett had not yet got over the sudden turning up of 
 the light, and the only thing that he could do was to giggle 
 rather idiotically. He grasped, however, what had hap- 
 pened quite quickly. He had reaUsed that Her Excellency 
 was certain to make the discovery sooner or later. 
 
 " Traitor to the cause ! " the Countess said. " Traitor 
 to Socialism ! Traitor to all your old friends ! Double 
 traitor to me ! I have got all the letters ready addressed 
 to all the papers telling them what a dastardly traitor you 
 are." 
 
 Mr. Pett chirped with a cheerful intonation : " They 
 won't put them in, you know." 
 
 " Then if they won't," the Coimtess said, " I'll get the 
 whole infamous story printed in a pamphlet." 
 
 " I don't believe you'll be able to get it printed," Mr 
 Pett said. 
 
 The Countess sneered: "Oh, I can keep within the 
 law of Ubel ; I've studied it ' 
 
350 THE NEW HUMPTy-DUMPTY 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of the law of hbel, I was thinking 
 of the Printers' Trades Union. And I have taken precious 
 good care that the Printers' Trades Union won't print 
 anything that will damage the counter-revolution. I've 
 promised them a special law enacting that every printer 
 of Galizia shall be paid much better money and work 
 much shorter hours than even that Union could ever 
 get in England." 
 
 " What an infamous scoundrel you are ! " the Countess 
 said. " And what an infamous state of things you dis- 
 close ! " 
 
 " Oh, that's only Socialism," Mr. Pett said. " Socialism 
 logically and efi&ciently carried out. There's not a single 
 Union Printer in England that hasn't had notice not to 
 print anything dangerous about Galizia. There's not a 
 paper in London that dare print it, because it would throw 
 it's composing room into chaos in a minute. The subject 
 is absolutely dead. You won't be able to get a word said 
 about it, even in the Radical papers. That's the efficient 
 way these things are done. Of course, you may find a 
 small non-Union printer who will set up the pamphlets 
 for you, but I doubt if he could get his machining done for 
 him. You've no idea of what a splendid censorship the 
 Union can set up." 
 
 " My God," the Countess exclaimed, " I should like to 
 tear your traitorous tongue out 1 I think you are the worst 
 devil of them all in the gigantic conspiracy there is against 
 me and my wrongs. It isn't only that you have betrayed 
 all your friends ! It isn't only that you are reactionary ! 
 It isn't only that you are betraying Society ! It isn't only 
 that you are a remorseless villain murdering the New 
 Thought that you pretended to advocate 1 You wolf in 
 sheep's clothing ! " 
 
 Mr. Pett. who had become rather white, said : " Leave 
 it at that, will you ? " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 351 
 
 " Oh, I'll leave it at that," the Countess said. " There's 
 plenty more to go on with. That is enough to start your 
 miserable Uttle blood-worm of a conscience gnawing inside 
 you. You won't sleep very well, now I've pointed out to 
 you what an odious object the world considers you. . . . 
 And then I come to your infamous treacheries to myself. 
 You pretended to be my friend, and you have sold me to 
 Macdonald. It's you who've acquiesced in all I said of 
 him. You beheved me when I said that he took money of 
 Kintyre as the price of his own dishonour 1 You believed 
 me when I said that he took money of his mistress to give 
 to his creature! You beheved me when I said that he 
 had deserted me and left me to starve until now the laws 
 of my country have forced him to give me the pittance that 
 is my due I " 
 
 " Oh, so you've got your decree of restitution ? " Mr. 
 Pett said cheerfully. 
 
 " Every paper in the land," the Countess answered, 
 " echoed yesterday with the story of my wrongs. I didn't 
 leave anything out that I could get in." 
 
 " Oh, you couldn't get much into a petition for decree 
 of restitution," Mr. Pett said. 
 
 " I've got enough," the Countess answered. " You 
 should have seen the placards yesterday. There wasn't 
 one that didn't have ' Russian Count ' or ' Society Scandal ' 
 on it." 
 
 " I'm glad I was in the country," Mr, Pett answered. 
 " Macdonald's the noblest and finest soul I ever came across, 
 and you aren't fit to breathe the air on the same globe 
 with him." 
 
 Mr. Pett glanced rather nervously at the two gentlemen 
 from the Peninsula. For the moment he had forgotten 
 himself, but Mrs. Pett said : 
 
 "Thank you, Herbert. That was very good of you, 
 Herbert, to do yourself credit." 
 
352 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 The Countess cast what she would have called a look of 
 contempt one after the other at all the faces before her. 
 
 " Then you are all in this disgusting conspiracy ? " she 
 said. " I wonder if any of you can sleep at night ? But 
 I suppose you can. You are that sort of toad." — She 
 addressed Mr. Pett directly. " That's what you are," she 
 said. " A toad. Macdonald is a viper, but he's such a 
 fool that he doesn't know what he's doing. You know 
 better. That's what makes you a toad. Something 
 noxious I Something filthy 1 You know all those facts 
 about Macdonald, and yet you associate with him I My 
 God ! I shoiddn't wonder if you used them for your own 
 ends ! I shouldn't wonder if you used them to blackmail 
 him ! " 
 
 Mr. Pett stood perfectly still for a moment or so. His 
 face became rather puffy, and then suddenly he dropped 
 on to the floor. There was a good deal of confusion. Mrs. 
 Pett screamed out, and the dinner-gong rang outside, and 
 the next moment the servant came in and annoimced, as 
 she had been bidden to do : 
 
 " His Grace the Duke of Kintyre." 
 
 Mrs. Pett and no less than eight efficient servants were 
 attending to the necessities of Mr. Pett, who lay quite 
 still. The two dark gentlemen from the Peninsula removed 
 themselves imostentatiously from the house, and Mrs. 
 Pett, looking up from above the form of her husband, 
 which resembled that of a drowned man to whom they were 
 applying resuscitatoiy methods with a quiet discipline, 
 remarked to Kintyre : 
 
 " You'd better take the Countess into the dining-room." 
 
 They were no sooner in that room than the Countess 
 remarked with an expression of triumphant joy : 
 
 " Didn't I do that well ? " 
 
 Kintyre reflected for a moment. " I don't know what 
 you've done," he said. " But poor Pett faints very 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 353 
 
 easily when he's excited. And if you didn't do any more 
 than make him faint, I don't think it's much of an achieve- 
 ment for a woman of your power." 
 
 " Well, I told him he was a blackmailer," the Countess 
 said. 
 
 " That was decidedly considerate," Kintyre exclaimed. 
 
 " And I told him," the Countess answered, " that I was 
 going to blow on the whole show of the Galizian counter- 
 revolution." 
 
 " That's quite a considerate proceeding too," the Duke 
 remarked. 
 
 " I shall go," the Countess said, " to the city of Flores 
 and denounce the whole scheme to the Republican 
 Ministry." 
 
 " That would be quite a good thing to do," Kintyre 
 said, " except that they know all about it already." 
 
 " I don't believe it," she said. 
 
 " Well, you needn't," he answered. " I dare say a trip 
 to Flores wouldn't do you any harm. But you won't 
 really gain anything by it." 
 
 " I shall stop Sergius Mihailovitch's Httle game ! " she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh no, you won't," he answered, "because the poor 
 ministry, like me and unlike you, haven't got any money." 
 
 " That's a cool thing to say," the Countess said. " You 
 know very well . . ." 
 
 " If you're going to say," Kintyre interrupted, " that 
 owing to the infamous desertion of you by Macdonald 
 you're starving and penniless, you may as well save yourself 
 the trouble I know perfectly well that you've got plenty 
 of money saved up. Plenty of money ! And that Sergius 
 Mihailovitch is paying you his income from the Russian 
 Government through a third person." 
 
 The Countess smiled : " I'm giving him a pretty good 
 dance for his money," she said. " Don't you think so ? " 
 
 AA 
 
354 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Oh, I think you've done quite enough," Kintyre 
 answered. " I should advise you to drop it now." 
 
 The Countess did what she would have called starting. 
 " Do you dare to say that ? " she said. " You ! " 
 
 He reflected for just a minute, and then said cautiously : 
 " My dear Margaret, I really think the time has come to 
 drop it. You have, in fact, to drop either it or me. Do 
 you understand ? " 
 
 She surveyed him hardily and ironically for several 
 minutes. 
 
 " Which do you think I'll drop ? " she asked. 
 
 " I guess," he answered, cynically too, " it's just a toss 
 up. On the one hand, you've got the chance of making 
 yourself a little hell upon earth to half a dozen people. 
 That's a very pleasant job. You're having the time of 
 your life, I know." 
 
 " I'm not denying it," she answered. 
 
 " And, on the other hand," the Duke continued, 
 " you've got a lover with a strawberry-leaved coronet. 
 That's gratifjdng to your pride. Enormously grati- 
 fying 1 " 
 
 " I'll agree," she answered, " if you put husband instead 
 of lover." 
 
 " I've never said I'd be your husband," Kintyre said. 
 " I've said I'd give you what you wanted. You know 
 perfectly well I can't possibly afford to marry you if you 
 don't behave yourself. I don't say I shall if I can, but the 
 position is perfectly simple." 
 
 " Oh, the position is perfectly simple," the Countess 
 laughed at him. " If you don't marry me SerSius Mihailo- 
 vitch won't get his divorce." 
 
 " If you play old billy any more with Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch's schemes," the Duke said, " I can't possibly afford 
 to marry you, because I shall drop such a lot of money. 
 So that really it depends whether you prefer the chance of 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 355 
 
 making yourself a beastly nuisance to the chance of the 
 coronet that you want. It's perfectly simple." 
 
 " Oh, it's perfectly simple ! " the Coxmtess echoed. 
 
 " I didn't come here to see you," Kintyre continued. " I 
 came here to address an observation to Mr. Pett, but I may 
 as well tell you that until these things are entirely settled 
 I'm not going to come and see you again." 
 
 She seemed for a moment to drop him out of her observa- 
 tion and to be reflecting aloud. 
 
 " So the excellent Mr. Pett," she said, " has been trying 
 to blackmail Macdonald by means of the information I 
 gave him ? And you have come here with the intention 
 of horse-whipping Mr. Pett ? " 
 
 " It's only a dog-whip," the Duke said mildly. 
 
 " Yes, I saw it in the hall," she answered. Then she 
 exclaimed, " And you tell me that I didn't do it well I " 
 
 " But it was so jolly easy," the Duke remonstrated 
 mildly. 
 
 " It doesn't matter whether it was easy or difficult," she 
 said. " The point was to hit as many persons as possible 
 with one shot. And I've done that." 
 
 " You've done that almost too well," the Duke exclaimed. 
 " You've hit me too." 
 
 " Oh, I know all about that," the Countess answered. 
 " The amiable Mr. Pett has told Sergius Mihailovitch that 
 I told him that you paid Sergius Mihailovitch in order to be 
 allowed to make love to me. And that poor twopenny- 
 halfpenny fool of a Sergius Mihailovitch has told you that 
 he won't speak to you again. I know about the creature's 
 muddled brain-works. And, of course, it's hit you re- 
 markably hard. I meant it to. I know the silly way you 
 adore Sergius Mihailovitch, and I always wanted to 
 detach you from him. I guess I've done that." 
 
 " I don't know so much," the Duke said." 
 
 " But you're passionately in love with me," she remarked. 
 
356 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Now, am I ? " the Duke said reflectively. 
 " Oh yes, you are," she said, with assurance. " You 
 can't keep your eyes off me. You don't know how to talk, 
 but if you could talk you'd say that you are fascinated 
 by me as you would be by a snake." 
 
 " I mayn't know how to talk," Kintyre said, " but I can 
 put it better than that. Did you ever see a courtship of 
 spiders ? The female always eats the male, you know." 
 
 The Countess merely answered : " AH right. Put it how 
 you like." 
 
 " Well then, good-bye," the Duke said. 
 She looked at him with surprise. " You don't mean to 
 say you're afraid of being eaten ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, I'm not in the least afraid of being eaten," he 
 answered, " but I'm enormously afraid of treating Sergius 
 Mihailovitch dishonourably. If you can't put me into a 
 position to treat him honourably, I've done with 
 you." 
 
 " Well, state your terms," she said. 
 " The position is perfectly plain," he answered. " If 
 you don't make it possible for me to marry you, I've got to 
 drop you. I've got to drop you altogether. I couldn't 
 possibly make you my mistress ..." 
 " You couldn't possibly ever do that," she said. 
 " That's as it may be," he answered. " But I couldn't 
 possibly do it if you were still the wife of Macdonald. 
 That's the way he looks at it. I can't even come and 
 philander with you as I have been doing." 
 
 " That's the way he looks at it," she mocked him with 
 what she would have called a fine scorn. 
 
 " That's the way he looks at it," the Duke said seriously. 
 " I didn't look at it in that way xmtil just now. But I see 
 he's perfectly right. He can't have me philandering with 
 his wife. I did it in order to help him. But I see that it 
 was a sort of suspect — an unpleasant position." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 357 
 
 " You admire Sergius Mihailovitch as much as that ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I admire him as much as you can possibly think," 
 he answered. " And I may as well add, because you'll 
 understand that much better, that he also carries a heavy 
 financial backing from me. I don't want to lose my money." 
 
 " Oh, you think I shall understand that better than the 
 other ? " she said. " But I don't. You're a bad hat, but 
 you're such a sentimental fool that when you come into 
 contact with a man as honourable as Sergius Mihailovitch 
 is, you simply go a silly mucker over him." 
 
 " Well, you can put it Uke that," the Duke answered. 
 " I don't care how you put it. I didn't want to marry 
 you. I never promised to marry you. What I promised 
 to do was to give you exactly what you wanted." 
 
 " What's that but marrying me ? " she said. 
 
 " Oh, there are much better things than marrying me," 
 he answered. " If you married me you could only monkey 
 with my life and make me miserable. And I'm a pretty 
 tough customer You wouldn't really Uke that in the end. 
 The job you want is that of torturing a whole lot of miserable 
 weak things that can't hit back. You ought to manage 
 an orphan school. That's the job you want, and that's 
 the job I shall probably find for you one of these days. 
 You want to torture easily on a wholesale plan. So there 
 you have it. If you'll divorce Sergius Mihailovitch I'll 
 many you." 
 
 " I shall never do that," she answered. 
 
 " Then you're an entirely ruined creature," he said 
 gravely. " You're done. You're gone out. One of these 
 days you'll come crawling to me, and you'll ask me to give 
 you what you want." 
 
 The Countess laughed. " You're like a stage prophet," 
 she said. " I've got the whole lot of you." 
 " Oh no, you haven't \ " he answered. " Your goose 
 
358 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 is cooked. I tried to give you your chance. But you 
 have lost it." 
 
 " I shall leave for Flores to-morrow morning," the 
 Countess said. 
 
 " Well, that will be quite pleasant," the Duke answered. 
 " The press telegrams are entirely suppressed, so we shan't 
 be troubled with you for at least a month. That'll be a 
 rehef, for you are an extremely agitating person." 
 
 She stood still and let him look at her. She would have 
 called it exercising her full power of fascination. 
 
 " I wish you'd divorce Macdonald and let me marry you," 
 he said slowly. 
 
 She only laughed. 
 
 " Take the chance," he urged. 
 
 She laughed once more. 
 
 " You're doing it awfully well," he said, " Mucking up 
 your life and my life and all the other lives. But is it 
 really worth it ? Absolutely all you'll get out of it will 
 be that you will be able to go to poor Miss Dexter and teU 
 her aU about it with extreme detail, and then say, ' Didn't 
 I do that well ? ' Don't muck up everj^hing for the sake 
 of this silly Uttle bit of play-acting." 
 
 " You've had your answer," the Countess said. 
 
 The Duke slowly shrugged his shoulders up to his ears in 
 his habitual attitude, which expressed deep dejection. 
 
 " You understand," he said, " that if you don't divorce 
 Sergius Mihailovitch he will divorce you. You seem to 
 forget that all this time he is a Russian subject." 
 
 The Countess only laughed. " There isn't any divorce 
 in Russia," she said. 
 
 " Oh, but there is," he answered. " Don't you under- 
 stand that the Czar can dissolve any marriage by a ukase ? " 
 
 " Sergius Mihailovitch would never do it," she answered 
 contemptuously. 
 
 " Oh, but he would," the Duke said. " You've for- 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 359 
 
 gotten Emily Aldington. You've played the game too 
 long. You trusted too much in his sense of responsibility 
 to you. Now he's got a responsibility to Emily Aldington. 
 He'll do everything that he can for her — as much as he 
 ever tried to do for you. You forced him into her arms. 
 You let it go too long." 
 
 " He'll never do it," she said stubbornly. 
 
 " Then if he won't do it," Kintyre answered, " it will be 
 done for him. By a week from to-morrow you'll be an 
 unmarried woman." 
 
 " He'll never do it," she repeated. 
 
 " My dear Margaret," he answered, " do believe there 
 are interests more powerful even than Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch's will, and they're all at work here. The American 
 financial interests want it. I want it. The Grand Duke 
 wants it. The Grand Duke has only got to write the 
 ukase, or to dictate it to a secretary along with orders for 
 Court balls, and the Emperor will sign it as if it were a 
 receipt for a pound of fish, Don't you understand that 
 it's all over with you ? All those people want to be rid of 
 you. You haven't a friend in the world except for me. I 
 shouldn't have let you divorce Sergius Mihailovitch if I 
 hadn't wanted to make it as easy for you as possible. The 
 Grand Duke would have written that ukase months ago if 
 Sergius Mihailovitch hadn't begged him not to, and if I 
 hadn't supported Sergius Mihailovitch. I've offered you a 
 sporting chance, because you're a sporting woman. You've 
 refused it, but I will make you the offer again. Divorce 
 Sergius Mihailovitch and I'll marry you." 
 
 She remained silent for quite a long time. Her nostrils 
 were working up and down. And then she said slowly : 
 
 " You're the most sentimental ass that I've ever come 
 across. You pretend to be a bad hat. But I don't believe 
 you ever had the spirit to commit a crime, or so much as to 
 leave a woman in the lurch until she was sick of you. You 
 
36o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 don't want to leave ntie in the lurch. But you can. I am 
 sick of you." 
 
 " Oh no, you're not," he said. " You're only acting." 
 
 " That'll do," she answered. " You seem to forget that 
 I have principles. You seem to forget that all my life I 
 have stood for Socialism and trust in the people. Do you 
 think it is I that will join in this atrocious plan for erecting 
 a reactionary government — and making money out of it ? 
 Do you think it is I that will take reactionary money ? " 
 
 " You're taking money from the Russian Government 
 now," the Duke said. 
 
 " That's only plundering the EgjT)tians," she answered. 
 " I am going to hand all the money I have got to the 
 Gahzian Republic to buy powder for the troops. I shall 
 ruin Macdonald's vile scheme in that way. I am not 
 done with. Don't think it. I was bom a friend of 
 progress." 
 
 " No, it was Sergius Mihailovitch who made you one," 
 Kintyre answered. 
 
 " And whoever may fall away, that is what I shall 
 remain." 
 
 " Well, you're an extraordinary figure ! " the Duke said. 
 
 " You speak about Socialism. But did you ever reflect 
 that that amiable party, however stupid it may be, however 
 detrimental it may be, yet contains a few honest people- 
 people with principles ? You don't want to identify your- 
 self with people who have principles They're not your 
 sort. Can't you drop this play-acting and be a human 
 being ? Can't you let your heart act at all ? " 
 
 " No," she said. " Not ever. I shall never change." 
 
 "But can't you," he said, "consider that I love you 
 passionately, and, for the matter of that, that you love me ? 
 Isn't there any way out of it ? " 
 
 " No, none," she answered. " I am absolutely firm." 
 
 " Torture ! " the Duke said. " Well, you may torture 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 361 
 
 a few people, but you'll never torture anybody as you 
 torture yourself. And for the sake of acting ! But you 
 haven't got a solitary soul left in the world to act to — no 
 one except yourself. You'll go on acting to little Miss 
 Dexter for a little while. And then I shall marry little 
 Miss Dexter because I want some money, and then — you'll 
 have no one in the world to act to but yourself. Not a 
 single solitary soul ! It's rather pitiful, isn't it ? " 
 
 She held her head erect and looked into his eyes. " No 
 one will ever be able to say " she began. 
 
 " No one will ever say anything," Kintyre exclaimed 
 " No one will ever think of you. We shall go on our way — 
 all sorts of ways, and you'll be entirely forgotten. Who's 
 going to think of you ? There won't be anybody to do it. 
 You're nothing. You're nobody. And yet you might 
 be rather a lot. Why don't you chuck it and come over 
 to us ? " 
 
 " So that no one will ever be able to say," she answered, 
 " that I did it." 
 
PART V 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 365 
 
 THE steam yacht Esmeralda got up its anchors 
 in the harbour of Batalha at a quarter to one in 
 the morning. Macdonald and Emily Aldington 
 remained upon the captain's bridge. There 
 were besides them upon the ship Mr. and Mrs. Pett, Mr. and 
 Miss Dexter, the King of Galizia and the Queen-Mother, 
 who, however, was so incapacitated by sea-sickness as to 
 amount to nothing at all, and the chauffeur, Mr. Salt, as 
 well as the King's most powerful car. There was, more 
 over, a pope who was to marry Lady Aldington to Mac- 
 donald as soon as they could touch any kind of Russian 
 territory. The pope was a fine, fat man, with very long 
 hair and very fine curled beard ; but he was so usually 
 drunk that it was very difficult to do anything with him. 
 
 Indeed, it was very largely this pope who was responsible 
 for the delay they had had in getting off. 
 
 Kintyre had spoken quite correctly when he had told the 
 Countess Macdonald that Macdonald, as soon as the way out 
 was pointed out to him, would act entirely in the interest 
 of Emily Aldington. But he had even vmderestimated the 
 vigour with which Macdonald would act, for no sooner did 
 the idea of the ukase really formulate itself in Macdonald's 
 head than, within half an hour, he had sent at least four 
 telegrams, the one to the Grand Duke, another to the Czar 
 himself, a third to the Russian Minister of Cults, and a 
 fourth to the MetropoUtan of Moscow. And within six 
 
366 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 hours he had received a telegram from the Grand Duke 
 assuring him that the ukase would be granted by ten o'clock 
 of the following morning, and that it would reach the Russian 
 Embassy in London within the week. That was in the begin- 
 ning of March. And indeed the imperial ukase, dissolving 
 ab initio the marriage between the Count and Countess 
 Macdonald, did reach London within the seven days, and 
 three days before Lady Aldington's decree against her 
 husband was made absolute. There appeared therefore 
 to be no obstacle. But there was. For upon going to 
 the Embassy Macdonald found that he couldn't have the 
 necessary copy of the ukase without paying down fees to 
 the amount of eight hundred and ninety-seven pounds, 
 two shillings. 
 
 He hadn't at the moment really any money at all. He 
 had exhausted the last of his own cash on the telegrams 
 to Russia, which, because they had had to be very long and 
 very explicit, had cost him a great deal of money. And he 
 really couldn't for the life of him see how he was going to 
 raise anything like eight hundred and ninety-seven pounds, 
 two shillings. He was reaching that period of the quarter 
 when he began to visit Messrs. Zimmermann with his 
 dressing-cases and more portable valuables. 
 (Tt is impossible to represent Sergius Mihailovitch as 
 being in any way rational or coherent in his idealism. All 
 that can be said is that he was consistently an ideaUst. He 
 had been unreasonably generous in his treatment of his 
 wife up to this point. Now it was as if he had simply 
 switched on to a current of idealism entirely different in 
 quaUty. Until then it was as if he had tried to drift along 
 the hnes of the highest principles. But the revelations 
 of Mr. Petti had extraordinarily hardened and extra- 
 ordinarily embittered him. It does not very much matter 
 what crisis of psychology or of depression he went through 
 Immediately after Mr. Pett's attempt at blackmaiD The 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 367 
 
 psychological bitternesses of men of a sensitive nature are 
 most often experiences similar — as Macdonald had said — 
 to those which take place in a fever. They are shapes 
 horribly vivid for the time ; then they go out. ' 
 
 For many hours, for many days after Mr. ?ett's revela- 
 tions, Sergius Mihailovitch remained in such a fever. 
 The odd thing was — so horrible is the approach of any kind 
 of blackmailer — that Sergius Mihailovitch for the time 
 being really felt that he was the type of man that Mr. Pett 
 had accused him of being. He couldn't get away from the 
 feeling that if the whole world considered that he was a 
 souteneur, that he had taken money from Kintyre and from 
 Lady Aldington, that he had left his wife to starve — that if 
 the whole world said these things of him they must be true. 
 So for several days he felt that he couldn't hft up his head, 
 that he couldn't look anyone in the face. To transact 
 any kind of business, whether the affairs of the Resiliens 
 Company or those of ordering ammunition for the Galizian 
 counter-revolution, became extraordinarily painful for 
 him. He imagined, too, that aU to whom he spoke were 
 despising him ; he imagined even that Mr. Salt, the King's 
 chauffeur, despised him, and that so did the King himself. 
 
 It was, indeed, from that rather absurd boy that the 
 light really came in the end. The consolations of Lady 
 Aldington did really very Uttle for him, because he felt 
 that she was too much interested in him for her moral 
 upholding to have much value. She said that he was in 
 the right in everything ; but that was what she would say. 
 
 But one day he told the young King that he thought it 
 would be better if he gave in his resignation as director of 
 the counter-revolution, and this produced an extra- 
 ordinary storm of feeling on the part of that loyal boy. 
 For whilst he had been under Macdonald's tutelage, Pedro 
 n had become as it were very much younger, very much 
 more naive, and very much more awkwardly gracious. 
 
368 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Dom Pedro, in realising that he was really a king, had 
 become very much more afraid of making mistakes, for 
 he took his responsibilities with great seriousness. 
 
 Thus at the very first hint of Macdonald's resignation 
 he burst out with a sort of incredulous rage : 
 
 " Show me the man who has dared to breathe a word 
 against you, and with my own hands I will kill him ! For 
 how shall I be fitted to reign without your guidance ? 
 And how shall I be able to do my duty to my people if I 
 attempt to reign without it ? There is nothing whatever 
 that any man dare say against you. I say that, Dom 
 Pedro. In all these particular matters I have the right to 
 say that, for if I do not yet stand upon Galizian soil, never- 
 theless in this particular matter by the grace of God I am 
 the head. And it is certain that God, who desires my 
 restoration, would not have given me a guide who was a man 
 of dishonour. I know all these circumstances from the 
 first to the last, and by my race, my tradition, and my 
 ancestry I am very well fitted to judge in these things. 
 And when it comes to my heart, my heart teUs me . . . 
 my heart tells me . . ." And at that point the boy 
 began to blubber. 
 
 They were in the long drawing-room of the house in 
 Portman Square, and the Queen-Mother at the other end of 
 it was knitting and talking as usual to two French duchesses 
 and two English priests. 
 
 " Don't you understand ? " the King said passionately. 
 " I want to be a king again, and I can't without you. I 
 don't feel I should have the right without you. Now then, 
 isn't that enough for you ? It's your duty, I tell you. 
 Now then ; you've got to do it ! You hear ? " 
 
 The King had always struck Sergius Mihailovitch as 
 being extraordinarily pure — as stupid as you Uke, but 
 wonderfully pure in heart. And that speech could not 
 but wake him out of his lethargy. Indeed, the whole 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 369 
 
 atmosphere of that lazy Galizian Court in the London draw- 
 ing-room was, for him, singularly sustaining. They trusted 
 him so entirely. The Queen would knit away and ask for 
 news, and go on knitting as if it were none of her business, 
 because she was entirely in his hands. The English 
 priests would look at him with the round eyes of admira- 
 tion which they reserved for the saviour of the Church, 
 though oddly enough he was by upbringing an Old Believer. 
 The French duchesses would hardly notice his existence, 
 which was the greatest comphment they could have paid 
 him, since it showed him that they considered him to be 
 one of their men. So that Sergius Mihailovitch suddenly 
 squared his shoulders and said : 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 Then he had had to become a man of action, he had had 
 to regard himself as one of that corporate body of them all. 
 He had to do his best for the lot of them. 
 
 And he even felt a certain pleasure in brutally holding 
 the pistol of the ukase at his wife's head. To a rather 
 astonished Mr. Buss he said simply : 
 
 " You've put me at the end of my tether. I'm not 
 going to let the Coimtess divorce me ; I've divorced her. 
 She can have the money that I agreed to let her have, but 
 that's aU. You have got to draw up an agreement that will 
 satisfy my sohcitors. If you don't, there won't be any 
 agreement. The Countess's money is safe. That's an 
 end of it." 
 
 To Kintyre he had said that he accepted Kintyre's 
 word, that there was nothing wrong between him and the 
 Countess. And there was an end of it.. To Lady Aldingtc^ - 
 hei said that he was going to marry her as soon as he had the 
 ukase in his hands. To Mrs. Pett he wrote that he was 
 ready to forget what her husband had said. He would 
 take it that Pett had been either mad or drunk. For 
 himself he expected Pett to write to him a letter stating 
 
 BB 
 
370 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 that he knew perfectly well that Macdohald had had no 
 money from anybody, that he had not deserted his 
 wife, and that his conduct had been entirely correct in 
 every particular. Mr. Pett came to see Macdonald at the 
 garage. He tried to get out of writing a letter, but Mac- 
 donald, who didn't care twopence about the matter one 
 way or the other, simply held him firmly to it, and at last 
 Mr. Pett wrote it at Macdonald's dictation. Then Mac- 
 donald told him that he could have the run of Lady 
 Aldington's house just as he had had before. 
 
 Lady Aldington had rather objected to this. She 
 considered that httle people like Mr. Pett ought to be 
 punished, though she was sorry for Mrs. Pett. But 
 Macdonald said that if they looked over it at all they would 
 have to look over it altogether, if only for the good of the 
 cause. Quarrelling and breaking-offs weren't nice things 
 in this world. It meant a great deal to Mr. Pett and nothing 
 at all to them. Besides, he had known Mr. Pett twenty 
 years. Mr. Pett received the news with a cross beween 
 mtellectual patronage and profuse gratitude. He resembled 
 rather a brigadier-general who, being received by the 
 Secretary of State for War after having lost his 
 whole brigade of men in an engagement, received a 
 medal and no mention of the disaster that had be- 
 fallen him. 
 
 It was a grand clearing-up for Sergius Mihailovitch. 
 He even spoke with some firmness to Miss di Pradella. 
 He told her that if she would accept an engagement to 
 dance at St. Petersburg he would continue to look after 
 her financially. If she wouldn't, he wouldn't continue to 
 support her and the numerous family of the Austrian waiter 
 with the Polish name beyond that present year. Miss 
 di Pradella signed the contract, but she hadn't really 
 much idea of carrying it out. She knew she could always 
 get round Sergius Mihailovitch. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 371 
 
 So it was all cleared up with the exception of the eight 
 hundred and ninety-seven pounds, two shillings. 
 
 Macdonald made various excuses for not producing the 
 ukase, but both Kin tyre and Lady Aldington Imew perfectly 
 well what was the real reason. Kinfyre even approached 
 Macdonald on the subject. He said that it wasn't reasonable 
 for Sergius Mihailovitch to delay the marriage for a matter 
 of a few pounds. He himself was perfectly ready to lend 
 Macdonald eight hundred and ninety-seven pounds, two 
 shillings, or whatever it was. 
 
 But Macdonald peremptorily refused. It was no good 
 telling him that when he married Emily Aldington he would 
 become by automatic process of the law Duke of Batalha 
 and the eleventh richest man in the world. To Mac- 
 donald's crooked and inevitable idealism this wasn't 
 reason. He was going to raise the money commercially 
 before he married Lady Aldington. Kintyre said that this 
 was mad ; but Macdonald said that it didn't matter. He 
 went to the Jews ; but because of his transactions with 
 Messrs. Zimmermann the Jews knew too much and at the 
 same time too little about Sergius Mihailovitch. He 
 offered them five hundred per cent. ; he offered them his 
 entire income from the Resihens Car Company for three 
 years. But the various money-lenders said that they 
 were by no means certain that the Resiliens Car Company 
 would last anything like as long as three years. And they 
 couldn't see how a gentleman who was accustomed from time 
 to time to pawn a dozen socks for two shillings was going 
 to be in a position ever to repay eight hundred and ninety- 
 seven pounds, two shillings, plus five hundred per cent. 
 They were told that Macdonald had brilhant prospects, 
 but the socks were too much for them. They were 
 acquainted with all sorts of spendthrift lunatics, but 
 Macdonald's kind was much too rare ; they couldn't 
 get any kind of accountant to average out the risks 
 
372 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 attendant upon an unusually high sense of personal 
 honour. 
 
 A new mental determination of Sergius Mihailovitch's 
 impeded matters at this point. He got into his head to be 
 extraordinarily careful of Lady Aldington's reputation. 
 On the second of April they were to sail for Batalha on the 
 yacht Esmeralda. But Macdonald declared that he would 
 not sail with her unless they were actually mcirried. He 
 was determined to go by train to Toulon and sail with the 
 Russian battleship, which was to reach Flores on April 
 the fourth. It did not matter to him that this worried 
 Emily very much ; he was for the time being a man of 
 action, and he was determined to conduct his actions 
 along what seemed to him to be the most honourable lines. 
 He tried money-lender after money-lender, but he could 
 get nothing ; and at last he realised that all these gentry 
 were in commimication one with another, as well as Messrs. 
 Zimmermann, who, towards the end of the month, had all 
 his personal property in pawn. On the first of April 
 Macdonald received two hundred pounds, which was his 
 quarter's salary from the Resiliens Company. Half of 
 that sum was sufficient to get his things from the keeping 
 of Messrs. Zimmermann. But the hundred poimds that 
 remained wasn't any use to him when it came to obtaining 
 a copy of the ukase. So he had finally broken the news 
 to Emily that he was determined not to sail with her. 
 She didn't make much fuss about it, but they were both 
 of them hit to the heart. 
 
 She set off for Southampton, where the yacht was lying at 
 ten o'clock of the morning of the second. The yacht was 
 to sail at eleven that night, and they took their farewells 
 on the station platform. Macdonald went round to his 
 bank with the notes that Messrs. Zimmermann had given 
 him as the remainder. Whilst he was filling up the pay-in 
 slip it suddenly occurred to him to apply to the bank- 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 373 
 
 manager for that eight hundred and ninety-seven pounds, 
 two shiUings. 
 
 He found the manager in a remarkably cheerful frame 
 of mind. Indeed, that gentleman said that he had been 
 going to write to ask Macdonald for an interview for some 
 days. A client of theirs was interested in Macdonald's 
 property which the bank held in mortgage. The manager 
 would be able to propose a transaction that would probably 
 be satisfactory to all the three parties in common. What 
 it amounted to was that the bank's client was ready to pay 
 a large sum for the mining rights of eleven thousand acres 
 of land in the Urals. The manager said that this property 
 was a little encumbered by a law suit which was being 
 brought against Macdonald by some of the other heirs and 
 his mother. But the manager said that these heirs were 
 ready to be bought out for a small sum in cash. Macdonald 
 didn't pay much attention to what the manager had to say. 
 He exclaimed himself : 
 
 " Look here, Goodge, is it worth two thousand pounds 
 to me in half an hour ? " 
 
 The manager smiled with an inward but benevolent 
 expression. 
 
 " It's worth five thousand to you in ten minutes," he 
 said, " if you'll just sign a power of attorney to us. It 
 ought to be worth a hundred thousand in two years, if you 
 leave it quite in our hands and don't squander the lot in 
 three weeks, which I suppose is what you'll do. You haven't 
 the least idea what your property is worth. Perhaps it's 
 a good thing that you haven't known. But if you leave 
 it in our hands we can do something for you." 
 
 Macdonald really hadn't time to think, it just came into 
 his head that he had always considered himself to be a 
 wealthy man, and that, in spite of everything, he had been 
 perfectly justified in behaving as such. It was the last 
 thing that was wanted entirely to restore his self-respect. 
 
374 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 He began an extraordinary gallop, of which he remembered 
 precious little afterwards. Inside of ten minutes he was 
 rimning down the steps of the bank with a sheaf of notes 
 fluttering insecurely in his hands. The Resiliens' garage 
 was just round the comer, and in a very few minutes he 
 had signed a contract to hire the highest powered of the 
 Resiliens' cars for three months, together with the services 
 of the chief chauffeur, whom he knew very well. Inside 
 of half an hour he was in the Chancellery of the Russian 
 Embassy. 
 
 They had naturally mislaid the ukase itself, but by dint 
 of looking up the form in dictionaries they provided him 
 with a certified copy in somewhat less than three hours. 
 During these three hours Macdonald was packing his 
 luggage into the car and looking for a pope. It was rather 
 difficult to get one to start with him, because most of the 
 popes in London, whether they were connected with the 
 Embassy or with one or other of the three Greek Churches, 
 had a wholesome fear for their skins. At last, however, 
 he found in Bayswater a priest who was not actually 
 attached to either of these institutions, but was visiting 
 London as a spy in Government Service, because he was 
 personally acquainted with many revolutionaries. And 
 this gentleman, happening fortunately to be very drunk, 
 consented to accompany Macdonald amidst the perils of 
 the counter-revolution, for the first piece of Russian 
 territory that they would come across would be the Ministry 
 of Flores. Towards five in the afternoon they had reached 
 Aldershot on the way to Southampton, when Macdonald 
 remembered that he had forgotten the copy of the ukase, 
 so that it was six o'clock before they really left London. 
 They were three times held up by police traps, and once a 
 tyre burst. But just before eight o'clock it occurred to 
 Macdonald to wire to Emily that he was coming, and that 
 the yacht had better be brought up against a quay so that 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 375 
 
 they could get the car on board. The telegram, however, 
 was never delivered, because in his hurry Macdonald had 
 written the name of the yacht rather badly, and it was 
 taken on board a cutter called the Smaragda that was 
 Ijring in Hythe harbour. Thus it was only with some 
 difficulty that towards ten-thirty they discovered the 
 Esmeralda, which was lying out in mid-stream. And the 
 pope being by now helpless with drink, they had to sling 
 him on board tied into a chair. Ten minutes afterwards 
 the Esmeralda started. 
 
376 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 II 
 
 AND after that there were two days of sunshine and 
 sea, and two nights of darkness and harbours, until 
 they came to sitting alone on the captain's bridge 
 with the yacht seeming all asleep beneath them. 
 But a httle after twelve there began to be footsteps on the 
 decks and the muffled sounds of a large steamer waking in 
 the night. At about twelve-thirty the captain came on the 
 bridge, and with him the other Macdonald, who was called 
 El Rey de Batalha. He was a red-whiskered, rather sleepy- 
 looking Scotchman, with only one eye. He would have 
 preferred to talk about the Church politics of the town 
 of Auchtermuchtie in Scotland, for to tell the truth they 
 were all of them a little bit tired of talking about the 
 machined-hke affairs of the coimter-revolution. But they 
 did talk it over once more to make certain. 
 
 At a quarter to one on the following day the King was 
 to be proclaimed from the Town Hall, the Palace, and the 
 Customs Buildings of Batalha. Each of these buildings 
 was to be surrounded by a crowd of Lady Aldington's 
 Cornish miners. The troops were to be disarmed, and 
 telegrams were to be sent to every city in Galizia announc- 
 ing the peaceful accession of Dom Pedro II. El Rey de 
 Batalha anticipated no trouble of any kind whatever. 
 Who was there to make any trouble ? In Batalha there 
 was no republican soldiery. The troops would lay down 
 their arms and then, a quarter of an hour later, at his 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 377 
 
 command, they would take them up and fire a volley in 
 salute of the King's reign. They were to allow an hour 
 for the telegraphing of the news to Flores and for the 
 circulating through the streets of enormous newspaper 
 placards— which had been already printed by Dom Carrasco 
 —announcing the fall of the republic in Batalha and the 
 King's accession. At a quarter to two the battleship 
 Admiral Trogoff II would pass between the headlands of 
 Flores. The ministers of the republic were to come to 
 the palace at four o'clock to surrender their port- 
 folios to the King, who would confer them on his 
 new ministry. This ministry were all ready on board 
 the Admiral Trogoff II. They consisted entirely of 
 Galizian refugees whom the King had met and tested in 
 London. 
 
 The President of the Republic alone remained firm to the 
 republican ideal. But in purely theoretic conversations 
 Dom Carrasco had extorted from him the promise that, 
 supposing the royalist party could give a show of force 
 sufiiciently overpowering, the President would command 
 his Republican Guards to lay down their arms. 
 
 The Admiral Trogoff 11^ with Kintyre and the crew of 
 filibusters on board, was just at that moment signalling 
 by Marconigram to the yacht that she was a hundred and 
 twenty miles to the westward, and that, although a slight 
 defect had shown itself in her machinery, by easy steaming 
 they would reach the city of Flores well upon the time. 
 All the hands were reported to be in good spirits and 
 perfectly sober. 
 
 The clicking and flashing of the Marconi instrument 
 ceased ; the captain said : " Now, Mr. Macdonald ! " 
 The Scotchman went dovm the companion ; there were 
 some soft cries as his boat was cast loose ; a heavy rumble 
 of the powerful engines commenced ; some large sparks 
 went from the funnels and dropped slowly on to the 
 
378 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 black waters ; the Esmeralda's searchlight lit up palely 
 the old forts at the harbour mouth, and they steamed out 
 into the blackness of the sea. They sat there all night, 
 hand in hand, watching the silhouette of the captain and 
 one of the seamen as they moved above the illuminated 
 disc of the bridge compass. 
 
 By seven-thirty of the next morning the King's motor 
 car was being slung on to the quay of Flores harbour. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Pett got into the car, which was a very big 
 one, and then came Lady Aldington and Macdonald. As 
 she got in Lady Aldington looked at the footman who sat 
 beside Mr. Salt in a chauffeur's cap and goggles. 
 
 " Why, that's the King ! " she said. 
 
 The car itself was surrounded by twenty seamen of the 
 Esmeralda in white duck with red sashes. They carried 
 stretchers with which to open a way through the crowd in 
 case it should be very dense. As their car moved off they 
 were met by an open landau surrounded by republican 
 soldiers. It was coming to fetch, with six guards of honour, 
 the Marquis da Pinta, who was to preside at the great 
 bull-fight that the republic of Galizia was giving that day 
 in honour of the immortal Alexandre Dumas. They were 
 all going to this bull-fight, for it was deemed indispensable, 
 if the counter-revolution was to succeed in the hearts of 
 the people, that they should give this sign of courage, 
 and pay this tribute of respect to the immortal poet. 
 
 In the streets there was very little crowd, and the car 
 jolted equably over the very rough cobbles of the pavement. 
 The principal street of Flores, which ran down to the quay, 
 itself almost exactly resembled Regent Street, except that 
 it was much broader. The houses along it were all of white 
 painted stucco with square windows, and upon both sides 
 of the street the sun-blinds were already down, though it 
 was not yet eight o'clock. The sun fell straight on their 
 faces. There were hardly any idlers in the street ; there 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 379 
 
 were hardly any people at all ; and there were no vehicles, 
 so that the car might have gone at any pace it pleased 
 except for the mountainous unevenness of the roadway. 
 This reduced them to a mere walk, with the sailors walking 
 behind, whilst a little way further back came the landau con- 
 taining the Marquis da Pinta, surrounded by its soldiers 
 in their old blue uniforms with epaulettes of pink and white 
 worsted. The town appeared to be absolutely silent and 
 at rest. 
 
 It took them about a quarter of an hour to get from end 
 to end of this long street. Then they came upon a broad 
 plaza, and here for the first time they saw the republican 
 flag, drooping listlessly above the long white palace that 
 had rusty streaks here and there from roof to pavement 
 where the gutters had failed to act. In the centre of the 
 roof of this palace of the Annunciation was the inevitable 
 woman holding out a bay wreath from a three-horsed 
 chariot. This lady represented GaUzia, and above her the 
 folds of the yellow, green, and white flag drooped against 
 the bright blue sky. The palace itself was on the north of 
 the square ; facing it were the several ministries of Galizia 
 and the consulates and ministries of Foreign Powers, 
 whilst on the east of the square was a dusty brick building 
 with a green dome. This served for housing the Parliament 
 by day and the theatre at night. In the centre of the 
 square was a fountain representing Vincente Garcilasso, 
 the celebrated GaUzian explorer. He was represented 
 as being clothed in a blanket, and extending one hand 
 straight to heaven from decoratively treated waves of 
 marble, for he had been drowned off Cape Horn in 1541. 
 From four sides of the pedestal dribbled Uttle streams of 
 water that fell into an immense basin that they hardly 
 wetted. In the square itself there was not a soul to be 
 seen ; even the sentry boxes that were still painted with 
 the royal colours, and that stood in front of all of the Govern- 
 
38o THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 ment buildings — even these were empty ; and the motor 
 with its sailors, and the landau with its guard of honour, 
 went, as if they were very lonely, over the great empty 
 space. 
 
 They came immediately into a long, pleasant avenue 
 of palm trunks. On each side there were villas hidden 
 amongst olive and orange trees. And this lasted perhaps 
 three-quarters of a mile. Here there were a good many 
 people all walking in the same direction as themselves, 
 most men in black broadcloth trousers of immense breadth, 
 with short coats resembhng Eton jackets, and huge straw 
 hats with flat stiff brims. The women wore mostly stiff 
 black skirts of silk coming down to their stout ankles, that 
 were clad in white cotton stockings. Their shoes all had 
 high heels with large brass buckles, and each woman had 
 a black coarse lace shawl over her head and carried a red 
 paper fan, because it was the day of the bull-fight. Grad- 
 ually this crowd upon the side-walks between the pallid 
 grey trunks of the palace trees grew more and more dense, 
 until, looking from the driver's seat of the car, the young 
 King could see what almost resembled an ordered pattern 
 — two walls of black, picked out with the cream colour of 
 the great straw hats and the vivid red of the paper fans. 
 And Dom Pedro exclaimed to Mr. Salt : 
 
 " These are my people." 
 
 Mr. Salt, gazing straight in front of him, said with a fixed 
 expression : 
 
 " They appear to be very creditable and respectable. 
 But I wouldn't talk about it if I were you, Mr. Spenlow." 
 
 Mr. Salt was rather pale, and noticeably anxious. 
 
 As they slipped along the crowd became more and more 
 dense, though the roadway was open and of rather good 
 macadam. In places there were stalls for oranges and 
 grapes. Some had large water-melons and others great 
 polished cans of copper. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 381 
 
 " Yes, these are my people," the King said ; and 
 behind his motor spectacles his eyes became suffused with 
 tears. 
 
 Then suddenly from among the booths there began to go 
 up mutters of cheering. Mr. Salt started so violently 
 that had the car been travelUng at any speed it would have 
 jerked the wheel so as to send it into the side-walk. He 
 said suddenly : 
 
 " Damn ! " And then to the King : " Look round the 
 corner of the car and see if the road is still clear behind us. 
 We might be able to make a dash for it if I can get room to 
 turn." 
 
 The King obediently looked round the comer of the car. 
 
 " No," he said. " The crowd is filling up behind the 
 landau." 
 
 Again Mr. Salt said : " Damn ! " very energetically, and 
 Dom Pedro observed that his chauffeur was trembling as 
 much as if the car had been travelling at fifty miles an 
 ' hour. 
 
 " I said I'd never lay down my Ufe for you," Mr. Salt 
 said. " But oh, hell, this is the same as doing it. We're 
 in the lion's den ! " 
 
 The King laid his hand upon Mr. Salt's. " It is heroic 
 of you, " he said. " But my people are very gentle. There 
 is no danger. See how they all smile." 
 
 " You've changed, Mr. Spenlow," the chauffeur said. 
 " When I first entered your service, you didn't care any 
 more for your kingdom than you did for marbles." 
 
 " Oh," Dom Pedro said, " that was because I was coming 
 away then. Now I'm coming back. For me there may be 
 some danger, but I like it. For I would rather be killed in 
 this country than die in my bed in exile." 
 
 Mr. Salt exclaimed : " My aunt ! What picture post- 
 card talk ! " 
 
 " But for you," the King said, " there is no danger at 
 
383 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 all. For you are a foreigner, and it is well known that the 
 Galizians are good and kind to all foreigners, such is the 
 veneration for the laws of hospitality. They will not hurt 
 any hair of your head ; but they will bear you on the palms 
 of their hands as if you were a pigeon's egg. That is what 
 the proverb says." 
 
 " Good Lord, how you've changed ! How you've 
 changed ! " Mr. Salt said. 
 
 " No, I haven't changed," Dom Pedro said. " It was 
 always in me, but your fogs did not allow it to blossom. 
 In this sunlight it is different." 
 
 " Well, that's a very ordinary sentiment," Mr. Salt 
 commented. " They talk Uke that in every novel, but I've 
 no doubt it does Your Majesty credit. It's the sort of 
 thing that's wanted of you." 
 
 " It's the true way to feel," the King said. 
 
 " No doubt it is," Mr. Salt answered. 
 
 He was beginning to feel a little more composed, because 
 it was perfectly true that in all that crowd which now 
 surrounded them densely he could see nothing but smiles. 
 It was Uke driving through a wilderness of happy 
 children. 
 
 There began to appear different costumes. Women 
 with white veils, as if they had been Mooresses ; and 
 men with red cloaks, and black round hats Uke soup 
 plates. 
 
 " Those are the women from Sarragonza, and those are the 
 men from Alpiorge. Every one of them is fitted by birth 
 to meet the buUs." 
 
 " Who'd have thought it ? " Mr. Salt said, and he 
 repeated : " Who'd have thought it ? " He was thinking 
 not of the women from Sarragonza, or of the men from 
 Alpiorge in their red cloaks, but of the fact that he, the son 
 of the Wesleyan Minister of Stoke Pogis, should be there, 
 driving a car, and grimly enthusiastic, in a bad-tempered 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 383 
 
 way, for the cause of a little Papist boy. For whenever 
 he had driven a car in Roman Catholic countries Mr. Salt 
 had been conscious of lasting disapproval. He relieved 
 himself by saying bitterly : 
 
 " I suppose I ought to kiss Your Majesty's hand ? " 
 
 " You may do that to-morrow, Mr. Salt," the King said. 
 " And I will give you an order of knighthood." 
 
 " Gracious and everything ! " Mr. Salt exclaimed bitterly; 
 and then, seeing a break in the crowd that forked out into 
 two paths, Mr. Salt, whose nerves couldn't stand any 
 longer the slowness, called to the sailor in front of him to 
 get out of the way, and hooting energetically, pressing his 
 foot hard upon the lever and pulling the brakes, he shot 
 towards the bodies of men and out into the blinding sun- 
 light of a dusty field. It was closed in front of them by an 
 immense wall of mouldering masonry. He spun the car 
 swiftly and dexterously over the hundred yards of simlit 
 space and brought it up with a sharp curve exactly in front 
 of a body of dusty soldiery that were waiting before a 
 ruined arch in the wall. He had always taken trouble 
 to master details, and he exclaimed — for he had taken the 
 trouble to ask Lady Aldington's courier aU about it — ^he 
 exclaimed to the officer in blue and pink who barred their 
 way: 
 
 " La Duchessa de Batalha y la sua sociedad ! " for all 
 the world as if he had been in tranquillity outside Bucking- 
 ham Palace. 
 
 The officer bowed extraordinarily low, and led them, 
 car and all, beneath the ruined arch. Here he opened the 
 door like a lackey and, glancing at his frowning soldiery, 
 he whispered in Emily Aldington's ears whilst he assisted 
 her to alight : 
 
 " Viva El Rey Don Pedro el segundo ! " And then, 
 " Remember, Highness, that I was the first to say these 
 words to you 1 " 
 
384 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 And then to Macdonald : " It's all well." 
 And Macdonald answered : " It's all very well." 
 To Mr. Pett he whispered : "I kiss your hands." And 
 to Mrs. Pett : " I kiss your beautiful little feet." 
 
 Mrs. Pett tried to hide her dusty shoes beneath her 
 skirt. Then the officer called out : " Attention ! 
 Guard ! Present arms to the honourable guests of the 
 republic." 
 
 The sulky soldiers did something with their very old 
 muskets. 
 
 They were under an immense ruined arch, the whole 
 bulk of them, soldiers, ladies, officers, and guests. Mr. 
 Salt jumped out of his car and covered the King's back with 
 his own body. He was very much afraid of the bayonets 
 of the sulky soldiers, and he kept on muttering : 
 " Damn ! damn ! damn ! " 
 
 For just a moment there was an ugly feeling in the air. 
 The officer exclaimed : " Follow me," and he disappeared 
 into a dirty sort of tunnel. Macdonald pushed the two 
 ladies quickly into the opening, then the young King, 
 then Mr. Pett. But Mr. Salt refused to go ; he said that 
 he wasn't going to leave his car amongst all those blighters, 
 for he was furiously angry, though he didn't know why, 
 with the republican bodyguard of the President. And, 
 indeed, just at that moment the landau containing the 
 Marquis da Pitita rattled in under the arch, and he had to 
 move the car further up. 
 
 " Keep it in readiness," Macdonald called to him ; and 
 
 Mr. Salt said : 
 
 " I'll have the engines ruiming the whole blessed time." 
 
 There was again a httle delay with the Marquis da Pinta, 
 
 who was accompanied by the Dom Crisostomo Carrasco. 
 
 Neither of these gentlemen desired to precede Macdonald 
 
 into the tuimel. Dom Carrasco exclaimed ; 
 
 " It is dangerous to be the last. That is my position." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 385 
 
 " It is certainly dangerous to be the last," Macdonald 
 said ; " but I had rather have these angry soldiers behind 
 me than you." 
 
 Dom Carrasco exclaimed : " Ha ! " He gave a pierc- 
 ing glance to Macdonald, and then disappeared into the 
 tunnel. 
 
 Macdonald went across to Mr. Salt, who had turned his 
 car round. 
 
 " You know the way back to that square where the 
 fountain is ? " he said. " The palace is on the right, the 
 Russian Ministry on the left. You know the Russian 
 Eagle ? If I tell you to put on speed, put on speed like the 
 devil. There's no speed Umit here." 
 
 " I know ; oh, I know," Mr. Salt said. " Don't you go 
 and say that I wasn't ready to lay down my Ufe for Mr. 
 Spenlow." 
 
 " That'll do," Macdonald said. " Your business is to 
 run your car." 
 
 Before going himself into the tunnel he stopped to ask 
 one of the soldiers for a light for his cigarette. 
 
 The man grumbled and spat, but at last he produced 
 from his baggy trousers a flint and steel, 
 
 Macdonald said in Gahzian, which he had been studying 
 for six months : 
 
 " Your uniform's disgraceful ; there's a tear under 
 your armpit. You've done it with your own bayonet. 
 That's not the way to handle arms. This will have to ibe 
 altered." 
 
 The soldier glared feverishly. " And who is the Senhor 
 Cavaher to talk of these things ? " he said, 
 
 " This morning I am nothing," Macdonald said. " But 
 this afternoon I shall be the Duke de Batalha." The 
 soldiers pressed round him. "I shall be the Honorary 
 Colonel of your regiment," Macdonald said, "so if you 
 want to shake hands with me you must shake hands 
 
 cc 
 
386 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 now, for this afternoon I shall be your superior officer — by 
 marriage." 
 
 " What is all this ? " an under-officer grumbled. 
 
 " I have offered to shake hands with you," Macdonald 
 said, " for this afternoon I shall marry the Duchess de 
 Batalha." 
 
 " What is the Duchess de Batalha to us ? " the under- 
 officer said. 
 
 " Why, she is a very charming woman," Macdonald 
 answered. " And a wedding is always a wedding, and the 
 men of Gahzia are always gallant men." 
 
 " Well, I wiU shake hands with you," the under-officer 
 said. 
 
 He was a lean^ brown man with a patch over one eye. 
 But he cuddled his musket to him and held out his hands. 
 Many other hands were also held out. Macdonald took 
 from his hip-pocket a small bag that contained much silver. 
 
 Mr. Salt suddenly pushed through the soldiers to his 
 side. 
 
 " Your Excellency is in danger," he said. " They're 
 an ugly-looking crowd. What are you doing ? " 
 
 " Oh, this is only dramatic effect," Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch smiled. " I'm happy. I don't see why I 
 shouldn't make these poor devils happy — by acting to 
 them." 
 
 The soldiers were grumbling a little. There were perhaps 
 a hundred and twenty of them. And they didn't like this 
 colloquy of two foreigners. 
 
 "Now see?" Macdonald exclaimed; and he raised his 
 voice : " Friends," he cried — " for when it comes to 
 
 weddings and feasts we are all friends " 
 
 The under-officer exclaimed : " True ! But this after- 
 noon I hope to have my bayonet in your stomach." 
 
 " Oh no," Macdonald answered ; " I hope this after- 
 noon you will have a good meal of my providing in your 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 387 
 
 stomach, for I can see you are all hungry men. Now take 
 this silver. It is not forty pieces. It is more. It is not a 
 bribe. It is a wedding favour, and all gallant men can put 
 on wedding favours." 
 
 " We'll put them in, not on," a ragged soldier said. And 
 then they laughed, all of them. 
 
 Macdonald had his hand in the little bag. It contained 
 four handfuls of silver, and these he threw towards the 
 roof of the arch. Immediately all the muskets fell to the 
 groimd, and the paving stones were a welter of blue cloth 
 uniforms and pink and white worsted epaulettes. Mac- 
 donald took out another httle bag of silver and gave it to 
 the under-of&cer. 
 
 " The scrambling," he said, " is what luck does for them. 
 Now, here in this other bag is enough to give each of them 
 five hundred peccadi." 
 
 " Now that is considerate," the under-officer grumbled, 
 " for those who had to trust to luck might, some of them, 
 go hungry." 
 
 " Well, I am considerate," Macdonald said. " That is 
 what I am here to be. If you put yourselves in my hands 
 not many of you would go htmgry." 
 
 "That will be as the devil enacts," the under-officer said, 
 " If you overpower us you overpower us, and it is the will 
 of God." 
 
 " Well, I've overpowered you now," Macdonald ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 And indeed the soldiers, each with a small piece of silver, 
 were running with the gait of released convicts towards the 
 provision stalls ; even the under-of&cer ran austerely after 
 them. He was as good a repubhcan as Cato, but he was 
 very hungry. The soldiers of the Esmeralda began to 
 come by ones and twos, and Macdonald sent them into 
 the tunnel to see the bull-fight. They were all very 
 cheerful. 
 
388 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " I think they're all in now," Macdonald said to Mr. 
 Salt. "I'm afraid you'll have a dull time waiting. I'd 
 take your place if I could, but I may be wanted." 
 
 Mr. Salt grunted to save himself from saying that that 
 would be all right, for he disUked appearing gracious. 
 And then he asked sarcastically : 
 
 " What do you think you've done by giving those chaps 
 money ? You don't think you've bribed them ? " 
 
 " My dear Salt," Macdonald said, "I'm a happy 
 man. I'm a confounded happy man. And I didn't 
 hke to see those dirty leather sword-belts roxmd those 
 empty worsted stomachs. That's all. I just wanted 
 them to have a square meal. I'm not always on the 
 make." 
 
 " Well, you're the queer gentleman, as the Irish people 
 would say," Mr. Salt commented. " But if you want to 
 make everybody happy you won't have enough happi- 
 ness to get through the day with. There's not enough in 
 the world to go round. You look out that your own 
 happiness don't run out before it's time to light the 
 lamps." 
 
 " Oh, I'll take my chance," Macdonald said. 
 
 " Now, you know," Mr. Salt commented, " you can't go 
 on being Uke a Jesus Christ all your Ufe. I'm speaking in 
 this unpleasant manner because it gave me a shock to see 
 you standing amongst aU those hooligans. I didn't like 
 it. And it's turned my bowels round. I don't want to 
 see you killed. Don't go taking any more risks ! No, 
 don't ! I feel just sick, I do. That's why I'm speaking 
 indecently." 
 
 " That's just affection for me," Macdonald said. " Don't 
 you see, if you feel like that about me, you're as you might 
 say one of the family. It's very touching and it's very 
 pleasing, and I don't deserve it. But if you're one of the 
 family and feel like that, you've got to take the risks. I 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 389 
 
 mean that I've got to take the risks, and you've got to 
 sympathise and feel bad. I can't help it. That's the way 
 we are made." 
 
 Mr. Salt said : " I don't want it. I don't want to see 
 you take risks. This is all too beastly dangerous. And 
 what do you get out of it, I should like to ask ? " 
 
 " Get ? " Macdonald answered. " Mr. Salt as a 
 member of my family, that's what I get. It's quite 
 enough." 
 
 Mr. Salt suddenly grew paUid, and his eyes started out 
 of his head. 
 
 " What's that damn-fool row ? " he whimpered. 
 
 A heavy waft of sound seemed to assail them from every- 
 side. 
 
 " I suppose it's the buUs coming into the ring," Mac- 
 donald explained. " The people are cheering." 
 
 "That's not cheering," Mr. Salt said. "It's an ugly 
 sound. I tell you I'm afraid for you and her ladyship. 
 It's ugly." 
 
 Mr. Salt retired behind his car on the other side of the 
 arch and became violently sick, so that Macdonald had to 
 go after him with a small flask of brandy. 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," he said comfortingly. "There 
 aren't any shots. You can't hear any shots. It's all 
 cheering. So there's no danger." 
 
 " If there were any blooming danger," Mr. Salt said, 
 " you'd be there. Just because there isn't you aren't 
 there. But you ought to be. Go away. Go and sit in 
 your place of honour. You've kicked up all this row, and 
 you ought to be sitting on the throne, or whatever it is. 
 Instead of that the play is going on, and you're on the 
 backstairs giving brandy to a skilled mechanic whose 
 stomach isn't strong enough for his job. Hark at that 
 beastly row ! It makes my inside shake like a blanc- 
 mange I " 
 
390 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Well, somebody's got to tidy up the backstairs of 
 historic events," Macdonald said. " We can't all be 
 sitting in the stalls. I can't leave you here in this 
 state of nerves all alone, you'd be setting fire to the 
 car. And the car may be the most important thing 
 of this day. Somebody's got to look after the most 
 important thing of the day, and that somebody has got to 
 be me." 
 
 " Here's a blooming insult to a skilled mechanic," Mr. 
 Salt grumbled. " Set fire to my car ! What do you 
 take me for ? . . . But you're jolly well right. I'm 
 not fit to be left alone . . . And the car — the car is 
 the most important thing . . ." 
 
 • • • • ■ 
 
 Lady Aldington was sitting in a blaze of morning 
 sunshine. Towards the afternoon the sun would swing 
 round and they would be in shadow. For the moment 
 it was not unpleasantly hot. And the broad seats sloped 
 slowly down to the stretch of sand in the arena. The 
 seats were nearly all black and white, picked out here and 
 there with the scarlet coats of the men coming from the 
 town of bull-fighters. The immense amphitheatre was 
 so crowded that they stood. That was why the streets 
 were so empty. There was a clumsy Galizian proverb 
 which said : " If a thief could resist the seductions of the 
 Correida, the merchants of Flores would be ruined men." 
 For you would not find an adult man who could stand in aU 
 that city. The amphitheatre itself had been built by the 
 Romans, and it would hold half a million people. But 
 across the southern end the Moors had built a great flat 
 mass of stones, which had been the castle of El Huel 
 Huescan, the Moorish viceroy. It was from the mouldering 
 walls of this Moorish edifice that Lady Aldington was 
 looking down into the arena. Their seats sloped right down 
 to the white sand. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 391 
 
 They had a sort of confined pen to themselves. And of 
 her own company there were herself and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Pett. Mr. Dexter and Mis? Dexter had gone ashore much 
 earlier, and had been in their seats since six o'clock. It 
 was then only just nine, but to Lady Aldington it seemed 
 as if it must be very late in a very long day. Behind them 
 in their own division sat the sailors of the Esmeralda, and 
 in their ranks was the young King in his chauffeur's uniform. 
 The entrance to their seats was being guarded by the officer 
 of the Republican Guard. 
 
 There was a great rustle of voices dissipating itself 
 beneath the enormous space of the sky, so that at first it 
 was a little confusing. Then to the right of her Lady 
 Aldington perceived a nearly empty space of seats. At the 
 bottom of this space were the blue-and-pink uniforms of, 
 perhaps, two hundred of the Republican Guards. Higher 
 up, with a table before him, sat a solitary gentleman in a 
 black frock-coat with a dull-looking top-hat. Just behind 
 him were two girls in cheap brown skirts, white blouses, 
 and sailor hats. This was the President of the Republic 
 with his two motherless daughters. And so solitary and 
 so desolate did this obscure-looking man appear with his 
 background of empty seats that for a moment Lady 
 Aldington was struck with the feeling of his desolation. 
 Indeed, it really gave her pleasure to see at last descending 
 to the seats a company of men in bright-green coats with 
 golden palms upon the collars. They were the members of 
 the Academy of Gahzia, and they were leading in the Marquis 
 da Pinta, who, in addition to the green dress with its 
 Academic plumes, wore a great ostrich feather. For a 
 moment Lady Aldington felt a pang in the contrary direc- 
 tion ; it seemed as if this crowd of people in green and gold 
 were coming to support the President. But they were not. 
 The President gave way at the table before the Marquis 
 da Pinta. And from all the people in that immense space 
 
392 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 there went up so huge a cry that the ravens flying overhead 
 might well have fallen to the ground. Then she saw that 
 the Academicians grouped themselves round Da Pinta at 
 the table. The President with his two shabby, modest 
 daughters went lower down and sat behind his soldiers, 
 once more desolate and alone. Further along still were a 
 number of gentlemen in black frock-coats with women in 
 ill-fitting Parisian clothes. They were the repubhcan 
 ministry, and Lady Aldington disliked looking at them, 
 because she knew that she had bought them for two 
 thousand pounds apiece. Then she began to get anxious 
 about the absence of Macdonald. 
 
 Mr. Pett beside her was talking about the local colour 
 in an excited frame of mind. Mrs. Pett was quite silent. 
 Suddenly Lady Aldington perceived a white figure, in a 
 long cloak, with a long motor veil streaming behind, 
 following an ofiicer down the empty presidential seats. It 
 was Countess Macdonald. . . . 
 
 She took her place immediately beside the President, as 
 if defiantly she were determined that no one should say she 
 had not supported the republic on principle; and indeed she 
 had really given all her money to buy powder for the ragged 
 troops. And again Lady Aldington became conscious of 
 an agony of fear because of Macdonald's absence. The 
 Marquis da Pinta suddenly waved his cocked hat, and 
 amidst a very thin blare of trumpets some Httle figures 
 began to appear at the far distant end of the arena — white 
 horses, men with spears, men on foot with scarlet cloaks, 
 white stockings, black round hats, all very clear and small 
 in the limpid atmosphere. There was an enormous noise, 
 fans and little packets of cigarettes began to spout from the 
 audience on to the sands. It was the Corrieda, the caval- 
 cade of Gay El Huelto, the celebrated Madrid toreador, 
 whom they had brought there to do honour to the 
 memory of the immortal Dumas, Small, desultory, the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 393 
 
 procession streamed over the glaring sunlight of the white 
 sand. . . . 
 
 Lady Aldington's anxiety became painful. Mr. Pett 
 began to talk to her cheerfully and garrulously about the 
 lust for blood that existed in human breasts. He mentioned 
 the theory of Sclaso, the Italian psychologist, who said 
 " that a certain amount of cruelty, vicarious or inflicted 
 by one's self, was an absolute necessity to humanity in a 
 civilised state." It was for that reason that fairly highly 
 civiUsed communities indulged in painful practical jokes, 
 and that very civihsed people read tragic works. Lady 
 Aldington said that the theory appeared to her to be 
 repulsive. If we were civihsed we were civilised, and 
 there wasn't any need to shed blood in order to make us 
 know it. And all the while she was wondering what had 
 become of Macdonald. She imagined that he must have 
 been taken prisoner by the republican soldiers. Possibly 
 at that very minute he was being placed against the wall 
 of the amphitheatre and being shot. It seemed to her 
 impossible to sit stiU or impossible to think of anything 
 else. She could positively see Macdonald standing in 
 the nettles against the high white wall looking at the 
 muskets. . . . ! 
 
 But Mr. Pett thought Emily Aldington was perfectly 
 inhuman. She sat there so calmly, although she must 
 have known that some of them were in danger. But she 
 didn't appear to know it ; on the contrary, she had eyes 
 for everything. 
 
 Great guttural roars were coming from the audience. 
 The ceremony in the bull ring had come to a halt ; there 
 was no mistaking the angry tone in the voices of the 
 spectators. 
 
 " What's that ? What's that ? " Mr. Pett shivered 
 nervously. 
 
 " Oh, there's nothing to be alarmed about," Lady 
 
394 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Aldington said. " The people are only calling out for 
 the bulls. There seems to be some delay about 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, is that all ? " Mr. Pett said. " I thought it had 
 begun." And once more he talked feverishly about 
 Professor Sclaso's theory. 
 
 The audience began to get very angry. They were 
 shouting rhythmically the word " Toros ! " each syllable 
 coming like a clap of thunder. With the opera-glasses it 
 was possible to see that many men were shaking their fists 
 at the presidential box, cind more particularly the men in 
 the red cloaks. 
 
 The rather terrible rhythmic sound became at last 
 too much for Mr. Pett. Suddenly he started to his 
 feet. 
 
 " I can't imderstand," he said in an agitated squeak, 
 " how you can sit there so calmly ! I want it to begin. 
 Why doesn't it begin ? If we hadn't got to wait for that 
 battleship it might begin at once." And suddenly he gave 
 a real scream. There had come a particularly ominous 
 sound — the long rattle of musket butts upon the wooden 
 seats. The blue line of troops below the president had 
 moved suddenly like a wave. He had commanded them 
 to order arms, and they were all on their feet standing at 
 ' ' Attention . ' ' This preceded a momentary silence amongst 
 the crowd — a silence of watchful and sinister attention. A 
 high clear voice called out : " Viva Dom Pedro el segundo." 
 The boy in the chauffeur's dress, sitting amongst the white 
 sailors from the Esmeralda, suddenly stood up, but the 
 soldiers beneath the president shouted all together : " Viva 
 la Republica GaUziana," and drowned any noise that he 
 might have made. And the coxswain of Lady Aldington's 
 pinnace pulled him down to his seat again. 
 
 " I can't stand it ! " Mr. Pett exclaimed. " The soldiers 
 are going to fire ! I must go away ! " 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 393 
 
 " Well, go and ask Sergius Mihailovitch to come to me," 
 Lady Aldington said. 
 
 Mr. Pett suddenly scrambled over the sunlit seats. He 
 bolted into the tunnel past the officer, but as he turned to 
 the right and not to the left he never came across Sergius 
 Mihailovitch. He paced up and down in the darkness of 
 the Moorish buildings ; then he found himself in the sun- 
 light. His agitation had become tremendous. Like Mr. 
 Salt, whom he resembled by birth and training, he grew 
 to feel exceedingly sick. Renewed shouts from the amphi- 
 theatre seemed to galvanise his legs. He hurried straight in 
 front of him through the blinding sunhght. He walked, he 
 walked down a long avenue of palms, across a long broad 
 street that resembled Regent Street. He was just walking 
 straight in front of him. He never met a soul. Then 
 suddenly he found himself upon the quay ; he found himself 
 going down the gangway of the Esmeralda. When he 
 realised that that was where he was, he ran agitatedly down 
 the companion, scuttling like a rabbit to his own cabin. 
 He unearthed a bottle of aspirin from his cabin trunk, and 
 he swallowed five or six tabloids. The ship was absolutely 
 silent, only from another cabin he could hear the loud groans 
 of an elderly woman. It was the Queen-Mother groaning 
 about sea-sickness. Mr. Pett could not stand the sound. 
 He went into the corridor and knocked at the door of the 
 drawing-room, which had been converted into the private 
 cabin for Her Majesty. An altar, with a gilt statue of 
 St. Anthony and the Child, had been erected at the 
 forward end of the long saloon. The Queen-Mother was 
 upon her knees before this, an Enghsh priest standing at 
 her side. When Mr. Pett entered she screamed out 
 violently : 
 
 " Oh, is it over ? Is it over ? " 
 
 The priest was very pale and anxious. He explained to 
 Mr. Pett that Her Majesty was extremely afraid of dying 
 
396 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 of sea-sickness. She was sure she would die if the 
 counter-revolution did not succeed, and if she had to go 
 back to Southampton by sea. 
 
 " Will it succeed ? " the priest asked. He was quite 
 pale. 
 
 " No, it won't," Mr. Pett answered viciously. " It's been 
 lamentably mismanaged." 
 
 The Queen began to scream violently, and, like Mr. 
 Salt, Mr. Pett found nothing to say but : " Damn, Damn, 
 Damn," in a sort of mystic passion. He went back to his 
 own cabin. Then he began to cry ; then, the aspirin work- 
 ing upon him, he stumbled towards his bed and fell fast 
 asleep. 
 
 In the seats of the arena Lady Aldington had looked 
 after him as he went upwards. Mrs. Pett had moved 
 nearer to her, as if for comfort. 
 
 " What's the matter with him ? " Lady Aldington 
 asked. 
 
 " It's one of his attacks," Mrs. Pett answered. " He's 
 very miserable." 
 
 " What's he miserable about ? " Lady Aldington asked. 
 
 "Oh, it's the feeling," Mrs. Pett said, "that he's 
 betra3dng his old comrades. He hasn't been able to sleep 
 very well because he's always dreaming that dead SociaUsts 
 hke Henry George and William Morris come and reproach 
 him." 
 
 " Well, I suppose he can't help it ? " Lady Aldington 
 said. " It's a pity he's so weak. Why don't you go and 
 look after him ? " 
 
 " Oh, he'll walk it off," Mrs. Pett said. " Besides, I 
 daren't go near him when he has these fits of depression. 
 It's quite on the cards that he might turn on me and 
 strangle me. Then, of course, he'd be hung. I don't think 
 I should much object to being strangled, but it would be 
 bad for the children if he were hung." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 397 
 
 Lady Aldington patted Mrs. Pett gently on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Do you suppose," she said, " that he'll have asked 
 Sergius Mihailovitch to come to me ? " 
 
 " No, I don't suppose it for a moment," Mrs. Pett 
 exclaimed. " I'm very sorry. I'll go myself." 
 
 " No, don't," Lady Aldington said. 
 
 It did not, however, seem to be the time for any display 
 of tender feminine emotion. Mr. Dexter suddenly cUmbed 
 up from his seat, with his Mamie behind him. Mr. 
 Dexter was really quite calm. 
 
 " I think it's all going all right, your ladyship," he said. 
 " Unless the soldiers begin to fire, the counter-revolution is 
 perfectly safe. I think I'll go and shake hands with His 
 Majesty and congratulate him." 
 
 " Oh, don't do that," Lady Aldington said. " It's all 
 going all right. The soldiers won't fire on the people ; 
 that's agreed, as you know, with the President." 
 
 " It's all perfectly thriUing ! " Miss Dexter exclaimed. 
 " Now, isn't it all perfectly thriUing ? And it's all so high- 
 minded. For you are all agreed to do all you can to avoid 
 bloodshed. The poor old President won't let his troops 
 fire as long as he's got the upper hand. And he won't 
 let them fire after he's lost the upper hand, because it 
 would be so useless. Now, that's what I call fine ! 
 It's aU fine ! Aren't they a fine people with all that 
 self-control and everything ? They're hke Roman 
 senators." 
 
 Mr. Dexter said : " Now, Mamie, you sit here right 
 beside her ladyship and I guess I'U stroU round." He 
 looked, however, seriously at EmUy. " You don't think," 
 he said, " that there's the remotest danger of the soldiers 
 shooting at you ? Because if there is I guess I'll stop 
 here." 
 
 " Oh, there's not the remotest danger of that," Lady 
 
398 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Aldington said. " It would lead to too much bloodshed. 
 And the President wants to avoid bloodshed as much as we 
 do. Besides, we are only spectators. No, there's not the 
 remotest danger for us." 
 
 Mrs. Pett had been looking intently at Lady Aldington's 
 calm face. And suddenly it occurred to her to see that 
 Emily was suffering an intense anguish caused by the 
 absence of Sergius Mihailovitch. Immediately she got 
 up and, a httle common-place figure in her white duck 
 dress, she climbed up the sloping steps. She was going to 
 fetch Sergius Mihailovitch. 
 
 Mr. Dexter pierced a cigar with his stiletto, bit it, and 
 slowly strolled away, glancing about the arena. The steady 
 calls for the bulls on the part of the spectators had fallen to 
 a dead silence. From the arena there came the soimd of a 
 great number of guitars, played in unison with a strong 
 metallic twang. The poor President of the Republic, 
 hoping to add splendour to this bull-fight, had sold nearly 
 all he possessed in order to bring a famous troop of dancers 
 from Madrid. They were to have performed in the 
 audience between the successive bull-fights, whilst they 
 were dragging out the carcases. Now he had given "the 
 order that they should dance while they were waiting 
 for the bulls. Twenty women and four men were 
 performing rhythmical contortions upon a square of 
 nailed boards that some mules had dragged into the centre 
 of the arena. The guitars clanged on. The audience was 
 entirely silent out of its studied respect for all foreigners. 
 There was not even a whisper on any of the benches, so 
 singularly well disciplined in this respect was that people. 
 The spearmen supporting the toreadors and aU the figures 
 of the bull-fighters stood at attention before the President's 
 box, the white horses motionless and dejected beneath 
 their red and silver trappings. The sun had become very 
 hot, but it had shifted until all the gentlefolk were now in 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 399 
 
 the shadow of the Moorish buildings, whilst all the other 
 seats glowed with the sunUght. The twenty giris and the 
 four men who had been dancing sat down upon the boxes. 
 The audience applauded with a polite moderation. The 
 extraordinary figure of a man in grey, thin and very long, 
 but with enormous trousers tucked into his boots, began 
 springing extraordinarily high to the sound of the guitars. 
 He smacked one thigh, then the other; the rhythmical 
 clapping of hands of the other dancers became like a voUey 
 of musketry. Suddenly Miss Dexter said in Lady 
 Aldington's ear : 
 
 " I guess that Countess Macdonald is trying to get us 
 shot." 
 
 And they perceived that the Countess, in her long robes 
 made of white Witney blankets, was violently attracting the 
 President's attention towards their seats. She was point- 
 ing her hand dramatically straight at Lady Aldington. The 
 President shook his head, which he kept averted, as if he 
 did not wish to look at them. 
 
 " I guess she does want to have us shot," Miss Dexter 
 said. 
 
 The Coimtess was nmning, stumbling down the few 
 seats towards the fringe of soldiers. She caught hold of the 
 arm of one of the officers, and again pointed at the three 
 women above her to the right. Many of the soldiers looked 
 round. 
 
 " She's trying to get us shot agaiinst the orders of the 
 President," Miss Dexter said. But the officer shook his 
 head, and they heard him caU " Attention ! " 
 
 There were many cries of dissatisfaction amongst the 
 spectators, for this noise appeared to them to be a gro.ss 
 want of respect to the illustrious dancer in grey ; besides, it 
 came from the presidential enclosure. One of the President's 
 daughters hurried quickly down to the Countess. She 
 caught hold of the gesticulating white arm, and both women 
 
400 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 sat down side by side just behind the soldiers. The Countess 
 was talking violently, but the soldiers had resumed their 
 rigid gaze into the arena. 
 
 Then Sergius Mihailovitch came and sat down quietly 
 beside Emily. He was smiUng. 
 
 " The bulls haven't come, then," he said. " That's all 
 right." 
 
 Emily said, rather fiercely : " How could you leave me 
 alone Uke that ? " 
 
 " But you weren't in any danger," Sergius Mihailovitch 
 answered. 
 
 " I was going mad," she said. " You hadn't the right 
 to leave me Uke that ! " 
 
 " But I had to," Sergius Mihailovitch answered. " I 
 had duties. I've been making perfectly certain that the 
 bulls wouldn't come." 
 
 " It was you that did that ? " Lady Aldington 
 said. 
 
 " Of course it was I," he answered. " Don't you see that 
 that's the real stroke of genius ? Don't you see that it 
 discredits the President in the eyes of the people ? Infinitely 
 more than if he had stolen all the crown jewels. It's the 
 end of the repubhc I paid the buU tenders last night a 
 thousand pounds to drive the buUs clear away. They're 
 twenty miles off now, all following the Uttle donkey. There 
 isn't a bull within a radius of twenty miles. I don't suppose 
 they could even rake up a cow." 
 
 Lady Aldington looked at him with a queer analjrtic 
 glance. 
 
 " You're a perfect devil, sometimes," she said. " That's 
 why your eyelids slope so queerly. / couldn't have found 
 it in my heart to disgrace that wretched broken man so 
 utterly. Look at him 1 " 
 
 The black-coated President was sitting stifEly, gazing 
 into the arena. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 401 
 
 " Well, he's done for," Sergius Mihailovitch said. 
 " We had to do for him. Yes, it was damnably cruel." 
 Then he smiled suddenly at her. " But then," he said, 
 " I'll tell you what really gave me the idea. I knew you'd 
 hate to see bulls killed, and I knew it was essential that 
 you should show yourself here ; that was what did it. When 
 I thought of that I was determined that there shouldn't 
 be a bull in the ring. I paid my money for that. I wasn't 
 thinking of the counter-revolution." 
 
 "But you said," Lady Aldington exclaimed, "that it 
 was a stroke of genius." 
 
 Macdonald laughed. " I shouldn't have said it if it had 
 been," he exclaimed. " Don't you know me better than 
 that ? It was just a happy accident." 
 
 She rested her hand for a moment caressingly on the 
 sleeve of his light grey suit. 
 
 " Then I forgive you for keeping me waiting," she said. 
 " But that was cruel enough." 
 
 Macdonald looked out over the arena. A quite loud 
 sound of applause had come from the spectators. And it 
 was repeated when the dancers held up their hands, showing 
 that they were exhausted, and that their dancing had come 
 to an end. And then, a moment after, the other really 
 terrible cry of Toros began to sound. 
 
 " I think we'd better go and get married," Macdonald 
 said equably. " I don't like to leave Mrs. Pett alone with 
 Mr. Salt. There are a lot of soldiers there. It might be 
 an ugly job to get away later." 
 
 Lady Aldington said : " It's come, then." She was 
 looking away over the arena, and there was a faint flush 
 of colour in her cheeks. 
 
 " Yes, come ! " Macdonald said. " It's really very 
 dangerous. Look at the soldiers looking up. They're 
 not looking at us. They're looking at the King. My 
 amiable Countess has told them that he's the King. Some 
 
 DD 
 
402 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 of them believe it, some of them don't. We'd better clear 
 out. They wouldn't shoot you or me, because we're 
 foreigners. But the King is Galizian. Let's go and get 
 married." 
 
 Lady Aldington stood up. But Miss Dexter remained 
 obstinately stiU. 
 
 " I guess I'm not coming," she said. " I guess 
 Popper will be back. I guess I don't want to see you 
 married." 
 
 Lady Aldington had already climbed up three steps. 
 Macdonald caught hold of the girl's wrist. 
 
 " You've got to come," he said. " If I have to 
 cany you you've got to come. Look, there's a soldier 
 aiming." 
 
 " I shan't see you married," the girl said. 
 
 The ofi&cer suddenly flung himself upon the musket of 
 the soldier who was aiming. But another turned round 
 and Ufted his rifle. Lady Aldington was just coming to a 
 level with the King's feet. She called to the sailors to get 
 round the King, but as they did not understand quite 
 rightly who the King was, they only moved irresolutely. 
 She sprang up the three seats that separated her from the 
 King, and she stood right in front of his body. 
 
 " Get out quickly ! " she said. " The soldiers are going 
 to shoot at you." 
 
 They were all of them in a bustle. The o£B.cer came 
 running along to them. 
 
 " No, don't come here ! " Lady Aldington said. " Lead 
 the way through the tunnel to the car." 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch was pulling at Miss Dexter's 
 wrist. 
 
 " This isn't the time," he said violently, " to show 
 off personal jealousies. It's odious ! It's abominable ! 
 They'll be firing at me next. You'U be getting me 
 killed." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 403 
 
 She looked up at him with a blank and expressionless 
 hatred. 
 
 " Then you'll only draw their fire on me if you stop," 
 she said. " You'll get me killed. You'd better go away. 
 I'm not going to see you married." 
 
 Macdonald turned and walked slowly up the seats. He 
 was very angry, and he turned to look back at the soldiers. 
 The others had already got to the tunnel and were out of 
 danger. The Countess was pointing straight at him and 
 calling out, but the President's daughter was also calling 
 out. The soldiers wavered. And then, from amongst the 
 confused bunch of green and gold Academicians surrounding 
 the Marquis da Pinta, there came a single, slight report. 
 There was also a Uttle thud on the wood of the seat just 
 above him, and Macdonald perceived the hole made by a 
 revolver bullet, but he could not see the man who had 
 fixed, though there was some confusion amongst the 
 Academicians. 
 
 " By Jove ! " Macdonald said to himself. " Da Pinta's 
 put somebody up to murder me." 
 
 He stood for a moment longer looking at all the bright- 
 ness. There wasn't any doubt now that half the crowd 
 was calUng out " Viva Dom Pedro." And there couldn't 
 be any doubt that the cry was spreading. Macdonald 
 shrugged his shoulders and turned into the txmnel behind 
 the officer. 
 
 Beneath the tall entrance arch the others were akeady 
 in the car ; even the King was in his place beside Mr. Salt. 
 But there were many soldiers also there, and just in front 
 of the bonnet stood the one-eyed under-officer. The ofi&cer 
 who had led them called out : " Out of the way, let this 
 car proceed ; " but the under-officer said : 
 
 " No, no ; we do not know who these people are I " 
 
 " Come 1 " Macdonald cried out. " You know very well 
 that I am going to be married to this lady. Upon my word 
 
404 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 of honour, we are going straight to the Russian Ministry to 
 be married. As you are a gallant man who have worn my 
 wedding-favours, you will not impede us." 
 
 The under-officer hesitated for a moment, mov- 
 ing irresolutely a little to one side ; and then Mr. Salt 
 suddenly pushed his hand forward. The great car moved 
 on, the mud-guard knocking the under-officer right off 
 his feet. 
 
 Whilst they still moved slowly they heard a voice 
 crying : 
 
 " Treason to the State ! Treason to the State ! " in 
 GaUzian. The car was gathering way. They heard the 
 voice more faintly : " The King 1 the King ! " And then, 
 more faintly still : " That is Dom Pedro on the machine." 
 They were thirty yards off now and moving quickly. Then 
 quite a loud voice called out : " Fire ! " 
 
 Mr. Salt spun his wheel suddenly, and the machine went 
 away at right angles, skidding over the grass. There was 
 a loud noise of explosion. Macdonald felt his cap suddenly 
 jerked from his head. The glass shield between the 
 driving-seat and the body of the car suddenly splintered. 
 Mrs. Pett screamed. Mr. Salt was swearing at the top 
 of his voice : " They've hit my hand, they've hit my 
 hand." But the car went ahead, plunging in among the 
 booths at the top of the long avenue. 
 
 They heard Mr. Salt say : " I can't steer, my left wrist's 
 broken." 
 
 And they heard the King say : " Put on the speed, I'll 
 steer." 
 
 He leaned over with his hand on the wheel, and after a 
 moment of hesitation the great car purred down the avenue 
 at an immense speed, with the sound hke that of scissors 
 going through velvet. They swung, lurching out of the 
 shadow of the Avenue of Palm Trees to the left, into the 
 brilliant light of the plaza. And before they had taken 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 405 
 
 two breaths they were in front of a white house that had 
 in front of it, over its door, a shield displaying a double- 
 headed-eagle upon a lozenge. Macdonald jumped quickly 
 out and began to assist the King in getting out Mr. Salt, 
 for Mr. Salt had fainted in a complicated manner behind 
 his wheel. But Mrs. Pett was astonished to see the 
 nonchalance with which Lady Aldington got together her 
 wraps. She did not even forget a little map of the city of 
 Flores in a red cover that they had purchased, after some 
 difficulty in finding it, in Trafalgar Square three days 
 before. 
 
Mtt^^dfeMtidiMI 
 
 406 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 HI 
 
 THERE was an air of champagne about all the rest 
 of the counter-revolution, and, looking from the 
 windows of the ministry, they appeared to be 
 rather the spectators at a state function than 
 participators at an historic event. The first thing that they 
 noticed, after Mr. Salt's scratch on the wrist — for it was no 
 more than a scratch — had been tied up by Mrs. Pett, was 
 that a banquet of quite imreasonable profusion had been 
 spread in the large bare lower room of the ministry. The 
 minister himself was an agreeable enough young person, a 
 bankrupt prince from somewhere away in the neighbour- 
 hood of Albania. But he was not the sort of person who 
 could normally have provided so much gold plate, and 
 neither Sergius Mihailovitch nor Lady Aldington happened 
 to have given any thought to what they would eat that 
 day. In the general rush of things there was really too 
 much to do. 
 
 Macdonald had remembered to see to it that the captain 
 of the Esmeralda, with all the remainder of the crew, had 
 escorted the pope from the yacht to the ministry. And 
 they had forcibly prevented his touching anything in the 
 shape of alcohol. Moreover, there were now altogether 
 about eighty sailors and engineers from the yacht in the 
 building itself, so that Macdonald, considering that they 
 were now actually upon Russian soil, did not imagine that 
 any danger whatever remained. But there was the banquet. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 407 
 
 and although Macdonald was ready to accept the large gilt 
 pdtes de foie gras, the great silver-gilt dishes of sweetmeats 
 and the sixteen different kinds of champcigne that stood 
 upon a side-table, he was nevertheless somewhat astonished 
 to iind that it was the Greek orthodox Archbishop of 
 Neicomesia, and not the pope that they had brought with 
 them, who was prepared to receive Lady Aldington into 
 the Russian Church, a formality which necessarily preceded 
 the wedding. 
 
 And then he was exceedingly astonished, though really he 
 need not have been, as he realised in the next minute, for 
 there came from the plaza a most extravagant rattling and 
 jingling — a suggestive and unpleasant sound that could only 
 mean one thing. And when they went quickly to the 
 window they could see the broad wheel bases, the long 
 brown barrels, of half a dozen unmistakable field-guns. It 
 felt like an absurd dream coming comfortably right. For 
 there must have been at least two hundred sailors in white 
 duck with rather silly looking caps, all hauling the guns 
 into position. Once in position the muzzles pointed straight 
 from the front of the ministry upon the white and rusty 
 front of the Palace of the Annunciation. And then Mac- 
 donald perceived, amongst the white duck of the sailors, 
 the larger form of the Grand Duke in the dark blue and 
 gold uniform of a Russian admiral. He stood for a 
 moment on the cobbles outside, giving a glance of satisfac- 
 tion at the guns, then he strolled into the house. At the 
 door of the banqueting-room he exclaimed to Macdonald : 
 
 " I hope it's perfectly regular ? I hope you've been 
 fired at." 
 
 " Oh, I've been fired at all right," Macdonald said. 
 
 The Grand Duke took off his cocked hat and wiped his 
 forehead with a purple pocket-handkerchief. He was very 
 hot. 
 
 " Then it's all perfectly regular," he said. He looked 
 
4o8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 round the room. " If there's anybody here," he said, " who 
 represents the GaUzian authorities, I beg to report that I 
 have landed half a park of Imperial Naval field-guns to 
 protect the valuable life of a Russian subject who has 
 been fired upon during a rising in the country." 
 
 The young King had taken off his motor coat. He was 
 in grey tweeds, and he was exceedingly angry. 
 
 " I am the King of this country," he said. " I object in 
 the very strongest manner to my claims being asserted by 
 means of any foreign artillery." 
 
 " That's aU right, that's all right," the Grand Duke said. 
 " This is one of the Uttle troubles of being a king. I'm not 
 helping you, you understand ; I'm insulting you. Don't 
 you believe that those guns are meant to help in putting 
 you on the throne. Not a bit of it. They're just an 
 insult." 
 
 " I don't understand," the King said. " But I won't 
 have foreign guns turned upon my people in order to 
 help me." 
 
 " But I'm telling you it's an insult," the Grand Duke 
 said painfully. " It's an unpleasant diplomatic incident. 
 That's what it is. We had reason to beUeve that the life 
 of a very valuable Russian subject. Count Sergius Mihailo- 
 vitch Macdonald, was in great danger. We were upon 
 the battleship Marie Nikolaevna, which is temporarily the 
 Russian Imperial yacht. What is more natural than in 
 om: anxiety to protect Sergius Mihailovitch, who is the 
 spoilt child, as all the world knows, of the Russian Court — 
 what is more natural than that we should land half a park 
 of field-guns and plant them in front of the house in which 
 he happens to be. It is surely not our fault if, because 
 the guns stand in front of your ministry and because the 
 Government Palace happens to be in front of the ministry, 
 the guns should point towards the Government Palace. If 
 Your Majesty feels insulted, as undoubtedly Your Majesty 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 409 
 
 is insulted, Your Majesty's Foreign Minister will to-morrow 
 make proper representation to our Foreign Ministry, and 
 will discover that the proper person to complain to is not 
 the Imperial Foreign Ministry, but the Field-Gun Depart- 
 ment of the Admiralty, who will then refer Your Majesty's 
 Ministry to the Russian Imperial Home Office. So that, 
 at the end of thirty-seven months. Your Majesty wiU 
 receive a proper apology from the proper quarter, unless in 
 the meantime Your Majesty sees fit to declare war upon 
 the Empire of all the Russias . . ." 
 He began to fan himself with his cocked hat. 
 " Phew ! " he exclaimed, " it's extraordinarily hot ! 
 Sergius Mihailovitch, my good fellow, knock the top off a 
 bottle of champagne, and explain to His Majesty that every- 
 thing is perfectly in order. And then introduce me to 
 Marie Feodorovna, the Duchess of Batalha. I intend to 
 be her godfather, if you will permit it." 
 
 The young King remained, however, singularly angry. 
 As there was no particular reason for Sergius Mihailovitch 
 to be present at the baptism, he remained with the King 
 alone in the room with the banquet, which now had upon 
 its floor a great quantity of broken glass ; for the Grand 
 Duke in toasting Lady Aldington had insisted that they 
 should throw six bottles of champagne and aU their drink- 
 ing glasses on to the stone floor. This was the proper 
 custom. The young King looked moodily out of the 
 window. 
 
 " By God ! " he exclaimed, " I wish the repubUcan soldiers 
 would blow the heads off every one of those rotten 
 Russians ! " 
 
 Sergius Mihailovitch didn't, of course, like the guns 
 being there. It seemed to spoil the clean neatness of his 
 scheme. But there wasn't anything that he could do or 
 say, for the Grand Duke had acted with an impeccable 
 diplomatic correctitude. 
 
410 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " But dear Dom Pedro," he said, " that's the sort of thing 
 that has to happen. You must understand that the Grand 
 Duke has really a very deep affection for me. That's the 
 only way to look at it." 
 
 " But hang it all, Mac," the boy exclaimed, " he hasn't 
 half the affection for you that I have. But I wouldn't go 
 landing half a park of guns on Russian soil . . ." 
 
 Macdonald suddenly laughed. " Wouldn't you ? " he 
 said. " Wouldn't you land guns on Russian soil if there 
 was a revolution and I was in danger and you wanted to 
 protect me ? It wouldn't be a very regular thing to do, 
 but I hope you'd do it. It's the sort of thing I had hoped 
 you'd do. It's what one would expect of you." 
 
 " How could you be such a fool I " the King exclaimed 
 suddenly. " Of course it's what I'd do." 
 
 " Well, then," Macdonald said, " that's all that Nicholas 
 Alexandrovitch has done." 
 
 The King wavered for a minute. He was looking at the 
 gims, for any object of machinery fascinated him. 
 
 " By Jove," he exclaimed suddenly, " I don't believe 
 those guns have got any breech-blocks ! " 
 
 Macdonald opened the window and called out to the 
 officer in charge of the guns : 
 
 " Hi you, you there ! Where are your breech- 
 blocks ? " 
 
 The officer was drinking champagne from a very bng 
 glass. 
 
 •• Good God ! " he grumbled. " What's this ? Who are 
 you?" 
 
 " I am Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald," Macdonald 
 said, " aide-de-camp to his Imperial Majesty ; and I want 
 to know what the devil you've done with your breech- 
 blocks ? " 
 
 " Breech-blocks ! " the officer grumbled. " What are 
 breech-blocks ? I don't know what breech-blocks are. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 411 
 
 The guns are guns. They're what we've got. I don't 
 know anything about breech-blocks." 
 
 Macdonald had talked in French, so that the King should 
 understand him. And then the King began to laugh. 
 
 " That's it," Macdonald said ; " that's typical of it. Now, 
 have you any more to say ? " 
 
 " I'm blest if I have," the King said. 
 
 " You won't," Macdonald said, " have to make any 
 representations to any foreign officer. Those guns aren't 
 guns. They're just decoration. Those sailors aren't 
 troops, they haven't even got their side-arms on. That's it, 
 you see. Even when the Admiral Commander-in-Chief of 
 the Russian Navy tries to get up a diplomatic incident he 
 can't really do it. It's all all right." 
 
 The King remained regarding the guns with a fascinated 
 glance. 
 
 " It's the most extraordinary thing in the world ! " he 
 said. " It's really most extraordinary ! " 
 
 Macdonald sat down and fell into a long reverie. A 
 great many noises began to come from the street, but he 
 didn't pay much attention. He was really very tired. 
 The President with his daughters and the Countess 
 Macdonald drove back to the palace. The republican 
 troops surrounded his old landau. When he came in front 
 of the ministry he sent a footman to ask the officer in charge 
 of the guns who they were and what they were doing. The 
 ofi&cer was by this time quite drunk enough to be sensible. 
 He replied that the Grand Duke had landed the guns to 
 protect a Russian subject, who was then in the ministry. 
 The Russian imperial yacht was lying in the harbour. The 
 Russian subject in the ministry had been fired upon. 
 
 That was all that was needed to put the President, who 
 was of a very academic turn of mind, into a violent rage. 
 He ran up to the ministerial rooms and suddenly appeared 
 on the balcony. 
 
412 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Brothers ! " he shouted down to the troops, who to the 
 number of three hundred and twenty were massed along the 
 steps of the palace. " Brothers ! " he said, " you are dogs ! 
 You are the mad swine of Galilee. Above us floats the 
 sacred tricolour of the republic. From under its folds yoi| 
 have spat musket fire upon the first of our commandments, 
 which bids us deal hospitably with all foreigners. Now, 
 in the name of my sacred ofiice, I command you to offer 
 violence to no man. You know very well the compact we 
 have made with these enemies of the republic. At the pre- 
 sent moment our show of force is overwhelming, so it was 
 till, swine as you are, you broke the laws of hospitaUty. 
 Now it is all over with us. Upon this house, the sacred 
 Temple of the RepubUcan Justice, there are pointed such 
 engines of destruction that with one spit from their filthy 
 mouths they can blow to pieces the last vestige of liberty 
 in this vinhappy land." 
 
 " That man appears to be mad," the King said. " Or is 
 it only this sunlight, the wine of the south, that makes us all 
 drunk ? " 
 
 Macdonald smiled suddenly. " No, it's only the dark 
 forest," he said. 
 
 But the King exclaimed : " It isn't dark. Look at all the 
 sunUght." 
 
 Great crowds coming from the buU-fight were pouring 
 into the plaza, and perceiving the President upon the 
 balcony they began to howl and moan rhythmically. The 
 whole place was full of men, and street bos^s even crawled 
 over the Russian gims. And then an acolyte came to ask 
 Macdonald to come to his own wedding. The King would 
 not be present, because he was a Roman Catholic, but he 
 was ready to sign the protocol of the wedding after it had 
 taken place. The only hitch in the ceremony itself came 
 from Mr. Dexter. He strolled into the small back room 
 that had been turned into a chapel with his hands in his 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 413 
 
 pockets, and an immense cigar in his mouth. He had been 
 walking round the town, and had only reached the ministry 
 with some difficulty. His cigar very much irritated the 
 Archbishop of Nicomesia, who interrupted his extremely 
 beautiful intoning to say, in a harsh voice, that this was 
 the^^House of God, and not a place for a man to make a 
 beast of himself in. 
 
 And as Mr. Dexter did not understand him, the Grand 
 Duke pulled the enormous cigar from his mouth and threw 
 it into the Holy Water font. After that it all went very 
 quietly. 
 
 Then came the banquet, at which, of course, were the 
 little lampreys of the Don. The Grand Duke was ex- 
 tremely affable, and he offered Macdonald four, fingers of 
 his hand to shake, because, as he explained, Macdonald 
 had now become the reigning Duke of BataUia and Viceroy 
 of North Galizia. Then he kissed Macdonald three times 
 on each cheek, and he explained that each kiss represented 
 a million pounds sterhng which he, the Grand Duke, stood 
 to make out of the revolution by speculation, bets, and 
 investments with the American Company. Then he kissed 
 Lady Aldington's hand, and he explained that although he 
 was a httle drunk, which was quite unusual with him, but 
 excusable on such a happy occasion, when the spoilt baby 
 of the Russian Court was really being spoilt by fortune 
 and getting more than he deserved, though by enabling 
 the Grand Duke to make some millions he had for once 
 done something useful in the world— although he, the 
 Grand Duke, was a little drunk, he was not so drunk as to 
 forget that English ladies were rather prudish, otherwise 
 he would have kissed her too upon both cheeks. 
 
 " Yes, I don't think I particularly want you to do that," 
 Lady Aldington said. 
 
 And the Grand Duke grumbled that he remembered to 
 have heard it said that the Duchess of Batalha had once 
 
414 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 said of him that he wasn't respectable enough to call 
 upon. 
 
 " So that you see," he said sardonically, " I've got a 
 royal memory if I haven't got anything else." 
 
 Suddenly Macdonald looked at his watch. It was a 
 quarter to two. He whispered in his wife's ear : 
 " You'll have to excuse me. I've got to go out." 
 She said : " Where to ? " 
 And he answered : " To the palace." 
 She said : " Oh no," and put her hand over her heart. 
 But he was gone. 
 
 The King came after him. They pushed their way, both 
 laughing a little, through the immense crowd. There were 
 Russian sailors who smelt of smoke, and GaMzians who 
 smelt of garlic. The King was uproariously happy. He 
 kissed three old women upon their cheeks and shouted into 
 their ears, " I am your King." But the crowd was so 
 dense, and all the GaUzians were so tall, that they could 
 hardly see where they were going. But one man and 
 another helped them. 
 
 There was an enormous roaring at half a dozen windows 
 round the plaza. Newspaper placards were being hung 
 out bearing the words : " Proclamation of Dom Pedro in 
 Batalha." The King kept pointing to these, and ex- 
 claiming : 
 
 " That's me ! that's me ! " It is very probable that he 
 would have got shot, but the soldiers were all jammed up 
 in the crowd. 
 
 The inside of the palace was as still as the grave and as 
 silent and as cool. The grey plaster of the corridors 
 was falling off in places, and it smelt all very earthy. 
 An ofl&cer led them to the ministerial chamber. The 
 President was sitting there alone. He said harshly : 
 " Who are you ? " 
 And Macdonald answered : 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 415 
 
 " I am the Duke of Batalha, and I have the honour to 
 introduce you to your King." 
 
 The President said sharply : 
 
 " No, I am the ruler of this country. I will never 
 resign." 
 
 Macdonald pulled the revolver out of his hip-pocket. 
 The President was a very obese man, with a pasty face 
 and with black whiskers. He sat inertly in a red velvet 
 chair looking into the muzzle of the revolver. 
 
 " I am afraid I must shoot you," Macdonald said, 
 " unless you will acknowledge that this is overwhelming 
 force. It was agreed that you would resign if you came 
 face to face with overwhehning force." 
 
 "No, that is not overwhelming force," the President 
 said. " It is force that will annihilate me, but it wiU not 
 kill my country. I will resign when you show me that 
 force." 
 
 " Will you take my word for it," Macdonald said, " that 
 a first-class battleship with eight himdred men is in the 
 harbour ? " 
 
 "No, I wiU not take your word for it," the President 
 said. " Ten minutes ago I telephoned to ask if the battle- 
 ship was there, and they said that she was not yet in the 
 harbour. Now they do not answer any more on the 
 telephone." 
 
 " I am afraid that I must shoot you," Macdonald said, 
 " in order to show your dead body to the people if you 
 will not go to the window and announce your resignation." 
 
 " I will not do it," the President answered—" not until 
 the battleship is there. That was our agreement. I will 
 not resign one minute before the force is overwhehning," 
 He sank lower and lower in his chah, his pale eyes gazing 
 into the barrel of the pistol. 
 
 " You will not shoot that old fat man," the King said 
 suddenly. " I don't want to see him shot." 
 
4i6 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 A folding-door behind the President's back opened for a 
 minute, and a girl's face peered round the leaf of the door. 
 
 Macdonald shpped the revolver under the table. 
 
 " Tell them to go away," he said to the President. " We 
 are talking business." 
 
 The President nodded his fat head. " Go away, 
 Chiquita," he said. " We are talking business." 
 
 " You had better say your prayers. In two minutes," 
 Macdonald said. 
 
 The girl's face had gone, but there were loud sobs coming 
 from behind the door. 
 
 " I don't understand," the King said querulously, " why 
 you want to shoot this old fat man. I don't want to see 
 it done ! " 
 
 " 1 do not say my prayers," the President said. " I am 
 an atheist." 
 
 " Majesty," Macdonald explained to the King, " I do 
 not want to shoot this man, but otherwise he will never 
 resign, and there will be a great deal of bloodshed in the 
 square. I do not doubt that the Trogoff II is in the 
 harbour. But nothing will convince this man, and if this 
 man will not announce his resignation to the troops in two 
 minutes, when it will be on the stroke of two, or if we do 
 not show this man's dead body to the troops, the troops 
 will fire upon the people. There is no way of showing this 
 man the Trogoff II. So there is no way but to shoot 
 him." 
 
 The King hung his head. " I would almost rather not 
 be the King than have him shot I " he said. 
 
 " It is too late for that," Macdonald answered. " This 
 man is a brave man, but many hundreds of men as brave 
 will have to die if the troops begin to shoot on account of 
 this man's obstinacy." He looked at the President. 
 "When the palace clock strikes two," he said. " I must 
 shoot you." 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 417 
 
 The President stammered : " Vaya, it is your duty." 
 
 There came a quaking, muttering sound. Macdonald 
 imagined that one of the girls had fallen to the ground in a 
 faint behind the door. A deadly silence fell upon the crowd 
 outside. The sunlight was extraordinarily bright, and it 
 was as still as the inside of a church. Macdonald's finger 
 pressed slowly on the trigger of the revolver. His eyes 
 were fascinated by the fat man's pale pupils and by 
 his pallid forehead at the place where the bullet would 
 go in. 
 
 There was a sharp snap from over their heads. The 
 President gnmted suddenly with his eyes upon the window. 
 Macdonald threw up his hand, and the bullet from the 
 revolver knocked the nose off a plaster figure of Justice 
 that stood behind the presidential chair. A cloth of green, 
 white, and yellow stripes had dropped on to the balcony 
 with half a flagstaff attached to it. 
 
 Macdonald said : " My God ! " 
 
 There came again a quaking, grunting noise. 
 
 " That drunken idiot ! " Macdonald said. He looked 
 at the President . . . "I have the honour to inform 
 you," he said, " that a shell from a thirteen-inch gun on the 
 first-class battleship the Trogoff II has broken your flag- 
 staff in two." 
 
 Commander Grant of the Trogoff II was firing his three 
 shots. But the other two were directed good and true at 
 the Flagstaff-Hill behind the town. 
 
 The President sat for a long minute with his head hang- 
 ing forward. Then he pulled himself out of his chair and 
 staggered towards the balcony. 
 
 " You'd better go behind him," Macdonald said to the 
 King. 
 
 The President took Dom Pedro by the wrist. They 
 heard him whisper in a sick, ironical voice : 
 
 " Sirs, I here present to you . . ." 
 
 EE 
 
4i8 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 He was parodying the English Coronation Service, 
 which he had read with great disgust six months before. 
 But they did not hear any more of his voice, because the 
 cheering was so loud. Then he shook his fist at the clear 
 blue sky. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMFl^Y 419 
 
 IV 
 
 WHEN Mr. Pett woke it was very black night, 
 and by pressing the head of his repeater he 
 discovered that it was a quarter to eleven. 
 He had slept for fourteen hours. That 
 showed that he had been very much overwrought. 
 
 There was not a sound to be heard on the ship and it 
 was entirely in darkness. He switched on the hght in his 
 cabin. He felt cool, calm, and very well. There was not 
 a sound to be heard on the ship, but through his porthole 
 he could see reflected on the dark waters of the harbour 
 sudden flashes of light, and he could hear sharp crackling 
 soimds. He made his way up the companion and on to 
 the deck. There was no light on the ship at all, but all 
 over the sky, close at hand and far away, there were the 
 dropping stars of rockets, and from the Signal Hill behind 
 the town there went up a murky glare of light. Mr. Pett 
 recognised it for a bonfire. He went down the gangway 
 on to thfe quay. It was very deserted and dark, but he 
 found an old man sitting upon the lowest of a pyramid of 
 barrels — some sort of watchman. The old man had 
 practically no English ; all he could say was " God save the 
 King ! " which he had no doubt learnt from the crews 
 of tiie English ships. Mr. Pett had no Gahzian, but he 
 realised very well that the counter-revolution must have 
 succeeded. He returned to the ship thinking hard. 
 
 He couldn't get away from the fact that he didn't come 
 
420 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 very well out of the whole matter, but he didn't care very 
 much. He remembered that in the end he was really a 
 philosophic writer, and it affected him rather more as a 
 scientific fact than as a personal detail. He would be able 
 to describe in a future book exactly how a man of genius 
 behaved when it came to action. His stomach had betrayed 
 him. That was what you had to expect, because thought 
 had deprived his stomach of blood and taken it to the 
 brain. 
 
 And suddenly Mr. Pett felt a warm admiration for 
 Scrgius Mihailovitch. There was no doubt that Macdonald 
 had carried off this affair extremely well. No, there Wcisn't 
 any getting away from it. And, indeed, Mr. Pett's admira- 
 tion for Lady Aldington having died a natural death— her 
 ladyship had on board a very pretty, pert, and vulgar lady's 
 maid who had captured Mr. Pett's vagrant attentions— Mr. 
 Pett began to see that everything had worked out in a 
 satisfactory and scientific manner. It really supported his 
 own theories exactiy, for in the end Macdonald, with 
 Emily Aldington and Kintyre, belonged to the ruling 
 classes. You couldn't get away from it. It was an 
 authaitic fact ; they worked in that way really without 
 thinking of it. He remembered how Macdonald had 
 protected the poor girl on the top of the 'bus whilst he was 
 humming a tune. That, after all, was how the ruling elates 
 ought to behave. 
 
 He went slowly back along the ship, turning on the 
 electric lights on the main-mast down the principal deck, 
 down the saloon way, down the companion. On the great 
 dark yacht he left a httle trail of light to mark his passage. 
 What he had to decide was, how to act with exact correct- 
 ness as became an English gentleman, because, jf he hadn't 
 got the ruhng tradition in his own blood he hoped to teans- 
 mit that habit of mind to his sons and their children. He 
 hoped that he was going to found a ruling house. |That 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 421 
 
 would be in the proper fitness of things. He supposed 
 that the King of Galizia would give him a title, because it 
 was just a mark ; a visible sign to the world that one 
 belonged to the ruling classes. 
 
 He decided that what he would have to do was to dress 
 himself in his evening clothes and to go to the palace. He 
 would felicitate the King and the Queen-Mother in three 
 words of proper respect. He would congratulate Lady 
 Aldington warmly, and to Macdonald he would make a 
 perfectly sincere speech of extreme admiration. He was 
 going to act with perfect correctness to the others, and 
 with extreme generosity to Macdonald. He went into the 
 saloon to get a drink of soda water, for he felt extremely 
 thirsty. 
 
 The idea of Macdonald was extremely strong upon him. 
 It was so strong that it seemed odd. He seemed to re- 
 member a chain of Macdonald's hopefulnesses, generosities, 
 delicacies, and attempts to be of service. He could almost 
 see the smiUng, rather tender face. He remembered their 
 first meeting. Mr. Pett had been speaking at an assembly 
 of the Putney Fabian Society. He had spoken with 
 extreme passion about equal opportunities for all. At 
 that time he had been a booldng-office clerk. The meeting 
 had been breaking up, and then, pushing through the 
 departing people, there had come this long, fair, enthu- 
 siastic Russian, overwhelming him with praises of his 
 speech. . . . 
 
 At that date Mr. Pett had considered Macdonald to be 
 weak and flexible. He had discovered him also to be 
 enormously rich, and, with quite a deliberate purpose, Mr. 
 Pett had set to work to use Macdonald's riches for his own 
 advancement. He didn't in the least repent of it ; it had 
 been exactly the right thing to do. Mr. Pett had made 
 himself famous. Macdonald, owing to Mr. Pett's ex- 
 hortetions, had found exactly the right billet. Without 
 
422 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 Macdonald he himself would have been nothing ; without 
 himself Macdonald would have remained negligible and 
 purposeless. He remembered very vividly how strong and 
 how determined Macdonald had been of late. His last 
 interview with Sergius Mihailovitch had been in the 
 garage, when Macdonald had insisted on Mr. Pett's writing 
 that letter of apology. And Mr. Pett laughed to himself 
 to remember that affair. He was laughing to think how 
 well Macdonald had done it. He was not particularly 
 ashamed of himself. He had not come very well out of 
 the blackmailing incident ; but then that sort of thing was 
 not what he was calculated to do well. 
 
 It wasn't really his sort of business. He had been 
 making experiences for himself. And he had made the 
 experience. Fortunately he had done no harm at all, and 
 in any emotional experience of that sort in the future he 
 was perfectly certain that he would act not like a black- 
 guard and little cockney cur, but like an English gentleman. 
 That was the only way one could rise from the ranks — by 
 learning how to act well. 
 
 With himself Mr. Pett was extremely frank, and indeed 
 he was really very practical in his determination to learn 
 how to behave weU. The only thing that he really re- 
 gretted in the whole matter was the way he had harangued 
 the Marquis da Pinta and Dom Crisostomo Carrasco 
 against Macdonald. And that he did not so much regret, 
 because he had not really and personally meant anything 
 more than a nonsensical rodomontade. But it left a sort 
 of uneasy sting in his consciousness. He couldn't get 
 away from the feeling that that Dom Carrasco really meant 
 to shoot Macdonald in the back. He even had an uneasy 
 feeling over his own loins as if a revolver bullet were 
 lodging itself there. 
 
 He was just pottering about, thinking and trsdng to find 
 a. soda-water syphon. But there wasn't one in the saloon 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 423 
 
 at all. Then he found his way into a steward's pantry — a 
 sort of cupboard giving out of the saloon. Here, sure 
 enough, was a syphon. He found also a very long fragile 
 glass, and then he noticed an ice-locker. The ice was 
 nearly all melted, but he got enough of small flakes to 
 make an agreeable tinkling in his long tumbler. He 
 squirted the soda-water into it, and was just about to 
 drink when he heard a slight noise in the saloon. He 
 looked out of the cupboard. The Countess Macdonald 
 was standing at the head of the dining-table. He drank 
 his soda water, and then came out with the glass in his 
 hand. 
 
 " So you're back already," the Countess said. She was 
 extraordinarily pale for her. " I suppose the others will 
 be coming soon ? " she continued. " I followed you along 
 the deck when you lighted the lights." 
 
 " That's all right," Mr. Pett said. " Have some soda 
 water ? " 
 
 " No ; I don't want any," she answered. " Give me th6 
 glass." 
 
 He handed the glass to her and she set it down upon the 
 table. He noticed that she had already laid there a Gahzian 
 country basket made of rush work. She said : 
 
 " Sit down. I want to address some remarks to you. 
 When will the others be back ? " 
 
 " I don't want to sit down," Mr. Pett said. " I've got to 
 dress and go to the palace. I don't know where the others 
 are. I've been asleep." 
 
 He was really very anxious to get to the palace, he was 
 so dommated by the absurd idea that Dom Carrasco would 
 shoot Macdonald in the back. He felt himself extremely 
 full of affection for Sergius Mihailovitch. He wanted to 
 make such a speech to him in the presence of the whole 
 Court that Dom Carrasco should be convinced of what a 
 fine fellow Macdonald was. 
 
424 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 " Sit down," the Coimtess exclaimed rather more peremp- 
 torily. 
 
 She took from the rush basket a revolver, a long envelope, 
 and a little bottle of yellow fluid. 
 
 " You had better sit down," she said. 
 
 Mr. Pett felt the strongest possible disinclination to sit 
 down, but he took a chair at the table just facing her. She 
 had an engrossed and perfectly quiet manner. In the long, 
 wide-mouthed glass there were stiH some fragments of ice. 
 She emptied them on to the red velvet table cover. Then 
 she uncorked the bottle of yellow fluid. She poured it into 
 the wide glass, and to Mr. Pett's nervous eyes it appeared 
 to bubble and to smoke. 
 
 " What's that ? " Mr. Pett exclaimed. 
 
 " Vitriol," she answered. She looked at Mr. Pett calmly 
 and resolutely. Then she placed the long envelope over the 
 mouth of the glass. " You can't throw it so well out of a 
 bottle," she explained. " This large glass was exactly what 
 I wanted." 
 
 Mr. Pett exclaimed : " Good God ! " 
 
 She looked at him with the calm satisfaction of a person 
 who is at once a just judge and a passionless executioner. 
 
 " ,I've debated it with the President's eldest daughter," 
 she said. " She's a stupid weak fool, but she agrees with 
 me. I have told her the whole story of this man." 
 
 " Sergius Mihailovitch ? " Mr. Pett answered. 
 
 " Sergius Mihailovitch Macdonald, Duke of Batalha," 
 she said passionlessly. 
 
 " So they're married ? " Mr. Pett asked. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " they're married. But don't thmk 
 that I am going to revenge my private wrongs. You know 
 me better than to think that. I have never wanted private 
 revenge. I am here in the capacity of a pubhc executioner. 
 I have hated this man's detestable morals, not because they 
 hurt me ; they didq't hurt me. I am too proud to be hurt. 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 425 
 
 But it is his hateful and deleterious example that must be 
 visited with the vengeance that it merits." 
 
 Again Mr. Pett ejaculated : " Good God ! " 
 
 " This envelope," the Countess continued, " contains an 
 exact statement of my attitude. It relates the whole base- 
 ness of this man from beginning to end. I have written it 
 out so plainly that I never can be misunderstood again. I 
 have written it out because probably one of you will murder 
 me when I shall have executed justice on this man. When 
 he comes in at that door. . . ." 
 
 " He mayn't come in at that door," Mr. Pett said. 
 
 "Oh yes, he will," the Countess answered. "I have 
 ascertained that there are no bedrooms ready at the palace. 
 Sooner or later he must come here. And when he comes 
 in at that door I shall cover him with this revolver so that 
 he will not dare to move, and then I shall tell him what I 
 think of him, and he will see the vitriol in the glass. And 
 when I have talked enough I shall pour it over his face. I 
 shall be perfectly calm. I shall keep the rest of you covered 
 with this revolver, so that you won't dare to go to his assist- 
 ance. And then, when the liquid has done its avenging 
 work, I shall do my best to escape. I don't want to have to 
 shoot myself. I'm not in the least afraid of death. But that 
 would be too much like heroics. I may shoot him ? I don't 
 know. That will depend on how I feel at the moment." 
 
 It came into Mr. Pett's head that this woman must be 
 mad, and that you can generally defeat mad people by some 
 petty strategem. He stood up and said : 
 
 " Well, all this doesn't concern me. I've got to dress 
 and go to the palace." 
 
 The Countess took up the revolver. Then she sat down, 
 and resting her elbows upon the table to steady her aim, 
 she pointed it straight at Mr. Pett's mouth. 
 
 " Oh no, I'm not mad," she said, " not in the least. I'm 
 perfectly cahn, you see ; my hands don't tremble at all, 
 
426 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 though the revolver's rather heavy. If you attempt to go 
 away I shall shatter your jaws with a bullet. It won't kill 
 you ? Why should I want to kill a worm Hke you ? You're 
 a dirty little member of the lower classes. You're an accom- 
 pUce of the disgusting practices of this shameless man, just 
 because you're a member of the lower classes, and you're 
 only too glad to be taken up by these smart people on any 
 kind of dishonourable terms. That's what you are I So I 
 shan't kill you, but I shall shatter your jaw. You won't be 
 able to play the informant then." 
 
 Mr. Pett looked at the door. He wished desperately to 
 make a dash for it, in order to save Macdonald, but the 
 dark muzzle seemed to paralyse him. He couldn't take 
 his eyes away from it. A cold sweat prickled out all over 
 his forehead, then he sat down again. And again he made 
 a mental note of the way of the mind of a man of genius 
 worked in such a situation. He was in an agony, but he 
 knew that he had done all that could have been expected 
 of him, and what worried him most at the moment was 
 that he couldn't remember whether oil was the proper 
 thing to apply to vitrol bums. He couldn't positively re- 
 member whether vitriol was an acid or an alkali, and 
 whether oil would float it off the skin ? He knew that 
 water was a very bad thing. And then suddenly he began 
 to talk. Positively he felt himself such a cur that he hoped 
 he would force this woman to shoot him. He said : 
 
 " The whole of the trouble comes from your being a 
 member of the shopkeeping classes. That's what you are, 
 a shopkeeper's daughter. That's what's in the blood ; 
 that's what's in the profession. Your father was a tailor. 
 If a customer brought him cloth to make a suit of he 
 would steal a yard and a half of cloth and justify himself 
 because it was the custom of the trade ; that's like you. 
 You will take any advantage you can, and you will justify 
 yourself because it's the custom of a person in your 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DU MPTY 427 
 
 — — 
 
 position. That's all you care about. 'When Sergius Mi- 
 hailovitch has been generous to you, you've despised him, 
 because you do not understand what generosity is. When 
 Sergius Mihailovitch lost his affection for you, you up- 
 braided him like a tradesman who sees a customer take 
 his custom away and give it to another establishment. 
 That's what you are, a product of tradespeople. The 
 difference between you and gentlefolk like Macdonald 
 — Good God ! — the difference between both you and me 
 and him is that we haven't'got a spark of generosity in us. 
 We've both conspired to injure that fine gentleman mor- 
 tally. I'm ready to say that I'm Judas. But I'm ready to 
 say too that all you've ever thought of in your Ufe is the 
 forty pieces of silver, of your own dirty personal vanity. 
 We aren't either of us fit to loosen the shoe latchets of 
 Sergius Mihailovitch. That's how the world has always 
 been. That is how it will always be^ If you manage to 
 get your vitriol on to him, he'll still be fifty thousand 
 fathoms above the heads of you and me. We're the lower 
 classes, that's what we are, because we haven't got in the 
 whole of our compositions a spark of generosity." 
 
 His voice was getting higher and higher, and suddenly it 
 broke altogether. The Countess appeared to be listening to 
 him with a polite attention. When he had definitely stopped 
 speaking she began calmly : 
 
 " I'll admit that in a conventional sense vitriol is not a 
 proper thing to use. It sounds vulgar. But I argued the 
 matter very carefully with the President's daughter. We 
 agreed that this man is entirely infamous. He is iafamous 
 in his private life ; his example would debauch the young 
 of any nation. He is infamous in his public hfe. He has 
 fought victoriously against the sacred cause of Freedom. 
 And in all the principles of justice the implement used 
 against an offender is roughly adjusted to his offence. A 
 nobleman is hung with a silken rope, a common murderer 
 
428 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 gets hemp ; a soldier is shot ; certain infamous felons are 
 inlamously flogged. Vitriol is the weapon of infamy because 
 it makes both the criminal who uses it and his victim in- 
 famous. So I shall use it as an infamous implement 
 against an infamous man. You will acknowledge that that 
 is justice." 
 
 Terror and agony seized upon Mr. Pett. He heard 
 sounds upon the deck : they became more numerous. 
 There was a brushing footstep in the passage itself. The 
 Countess's fingers closed calmly round the large glass; 
 she pushed the envelope off it with the mu2zle Of the 
 revolver. Suddenly Mr. Pett screamed out : 
 
 " Sergius Mihailovitch, don't come in ! Don't come in, 
 Sergius Mihailovitch, on peril of your Ufe ! " 
 
 Then Mrs. Pett came in through the door. There was 
 an extreme strangeness about the aspect of Mrs. Pett. 
 She appeared to be bluish in the shadows of her face ; her 
 , outline was oddly stiff ; she tottered a httle as she walked 
 over the carpet, and her eyes never winked, they were 
 perfectly stiff. She came in and sat down at the table. 
 She passed her hand over her face as if her hair had fallen 
 across it. She looked curiously at the ice that was melting 
 in Uttle pools upon the table-cloth, then she said without 
 any expression at all : 
 
 " Sergius Mihailovitch is dead. They've diot him in 
 the back." 
 
 They were quite silent for fuUy three minutes. Then 
 suddenly the Countess flung the revolver on the floor. It 
 thumped heavily on the carpet. 
 
 " So may all traitors die ! " she said. " I could have 
 predicted that that would be his end." 
 
 "No, you couldn't," Mrs. Pett said drearily. "You 
 have had nothing to do with it. Not you. I loved Sergius 
 Mihailovitch ; when I used to see him plajTing with chilckexi, 
 I wished he'd been the father of mine," 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 429 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Pett began to whimper like a child crying. 
 They couldn't make any sense of his words. He tore at his 
 collar to get it undone, but the Unen was too thick. And 
 he forgot about the stud. He went on whimpering and 
 whimpering. . . . 
 
 The Countess was trying to think of something effective 
 to say. She could think of nothing, but she was convinced 
 that she was the central figure of that scene. She had been 
 dramatically avenged. 
 
 Then Kintyre came in. His face was very tired and his 
 eyes were red. He sat down at the table ; from outside 
 they heard the gurgle of the falling tide. There fell upon 
 them a dreary silence that comes after a death-struggle. 
 A steward in his shirt-sleeves walked across the saloon to 
 the closet. He came back with a half-filled bottle of 
 brandy and went away. Some one threw down a coil of 
 rope on the deck overhead, but they were all too dull even 
 to start. 
 
 Mr. Dexter came in. He was smoldng an enormous 
 cigar that he had just begun. He tiptoed across the room 
 and sat down at the far end of the table as if he desired 
 companiondiip and yet did not wish to intrude upon a family 
 in grief. He thought of saying : " Mamie's real ill, and 
 they've sent me away," so as to explain his presence ; but 
 he didn't say it. He took some notes out of his pocket 
 and began to study them— a number of numbers in pencil. 
 He found that he could not read them because his eyes 
 were blurred. He thot^ht he was responsible for the 
 death of Macdonald because he had found the greater part 
 of the money for the scheme. 
 
 The Countess moved over to his €nd of the table. She 
 could not see any signs of grief upon his face, so she imagined 
 that he might be the proper person to talk to about her 
 wrongs. But he did not look up from his notes. 
 
 At last Kintyi-e asked Mrs. Pett : " What was the 
 
430 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 name of the man who did it ? Have they caught 
 him ? " 
 
 " No," Mrs. Pett said. " No one is to be caught at all. 
 Didn't you hear his last words ? " 
 
 " I thought they were ' The dark forest,' " the Duke said. 
 
 " Oh, that was to Lady Aldington," Mrs. Pett said. 
 " He looked at her and he smiled, and he just whispered : 
 ' The dark forest.' But I was thinking of what he said to 
 the King." 
 
 " What did he say to the King ? " the Duke asked. 
 
 Hearing conversation, the Countess moved over behind 
 them. 
 
 " He was lying in the garden," Mrs. Pett said. "He 
 had been walking there with the King to give him the 
 last directions for the day. The man shot him from a 
 dark clump of orange trees. Macdonald fell down. We 
 were looking out of the upper window, Emily and I. She 
 said just before that it was what she liked best in the 
 world — to see her man doing things. That was the only 
 speech of the sort that I've ever heard her say about him. 
 She said it as if she didn't think anyone was Ustening-r-or 
 perhaps she was thinking that I felt in the same way. It 
 was beautifully cool, after the day had been so hot." 
 
 She looked at Kintyre and asked : " Where were you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I wasn't in the palace at aU," Kintyre said. " I 
 was seeing to the unmooring of the Trogoffll. Macdonald 
 insisted that I should get her off to-night for fear they 
 should loot. She's a hundred miles away by now. What 
 happened then ? " 
 
 " Oh, we ran down," Mrs. Pett said. " Macdonald was 
 lying there. At first he was in too great pain to speak at 
 aU. The King was holding up his head and crying out for 
 some one to come and search the garden, but there was 
 such a noise and disorder in the palace that no one came. 
 It was rather up towards the end of the building, in the 
 
THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 43 1 
 
 ^ark where the trees are. Then a man came out of the 
 orange Tiushes ; he said that it was he that killed the 
 traitor. A ^rk man in a long cloak. He spoke a little 
 indistinctly, and the King was shouting out all the time, 
 so he didn't hear. There was a Uttle moonhght ; 
 we could see rather distinctly. You know how clear 
 the nights are. Then Lady Aldington knelt down beside 
 him. He'd been making bubbling noises with his mouth, 
 or as if he were shivering. That was just the pain. And 
 then the nerve exhaustion came — I don't know if you know 
 anything about the spine — sensation ceases a minute or two 
 after it's been injured. And Macdonald looked at Lady 
 Aldington. ' Just excuse me a minute,' he said, ' I must talk 
 to the King first.' She said : ' Ah ! always the others 
 first ! ' That was the only thing she said to-night. Then 
 Macdonald said : ' Prop me up so that I can talk to the 
 King,' and Lady Aldington lifted up his shoulders and the 
 King knelt over him. . . . The man who had shot him was 
 still looking down. ' Listen a minute, Pedrocito . . .' 
 Macdonald said : his voice was quite clear. I went and 
 knelt beside Lady Aldington and helped her to hold him 
 up. I've got his blood on the knees of my skirt. And 
 then he said to the King : ' Listen, this is cancer of the 
 spine. An old complaint with me. It's cancer of the spine. 
 An old complaint with me. It's cancer of the spine, you 
 understand.' The King said, ' No, no.' But Macdonald 
 answered : ' These are my last words to you. I command 
 you to recognise that it was cancer of the spine. The 
 Galizian doctors aren't very good. No one knows 
 what cancer is. It's a foreign body introducing itself 
 somehow into the tissues.' I said, ' Good God, Sergius 
 Mihailovitch, how can you talk hke that ! Think of 
 Emily ! ' And then he said, ' My dear ' — he said ' My 
 dear ' to me ! — ' I'm doing the best I can for Lady Alding- 
 ton. I'm trying to keep my figure clean for her memory, 
 
432 THE NEW HUMPTY-DUMPTY 
 
 it's very urgent ! ' The man who had shot him said : ' No, 
 it is not cancer of the spine. I shot you.' Then Sergius 
 Mihailovitch looked up at him. ' My friend,' he said, 
 ' don't boast about it. Don't put your personal credit 
 before the credit of the King. No doubt I die of a necessary 
 disease. Letitgoatthat. You don't want to discredit the 
 King by a trial at the opening of his reign. That's what's 
 got to be avoided.' Then he spoke to me. Yes, he said to 
 me — ' Anne, you're the coolest person here.' That was 
 true, I think, because the King was crjring so that he 
 seemed to have lost his senses. He said, ' Understand, 
 Anne, there mustn't be any trial. I shall be dead in three 
 minutes ; these are my last words. There mustn't be 
 bloodshed on the King's threshold.' I said : ' But there 
 has been bloodshed.' But he didn't Usten. He turned his 
 head into Lady Aldington's lap and he said : ' The daric 
 forest ! The dear dark Forest.' Of course he may have 
 said something more, but I didn't hear, because I took the 
 King away and tried to explain to him what Macdoncdd 
 wanted. Then Lady Aldington said that he was dead, and 
 we all ielped to carry him into the palace." 
 
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THE WORKS OF 
 ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 T has long been a reproach to 
 England that only one volume 
 by ANATOLE FRANCE 
 has been adequately rendered 
 into English ; yet outside this 
 country he shares with 
 TOLSTOI the distinction 
 of being the greatest and most daring 
 student of humanity living. 
 
 H There have been many difficulties to 
 encounter in completing arrangements for a 
 uniform edition, though perhaps the chief bar- 
 rier to publication here has been the fact that 
 his writings are not for babes — but for men 
 and the mothers of men. Indeed, some of his 
 Eastern romances are written with biblical can- 
 dour. " I have sought truth strenuously," he 
 tells us, " I have met her boldly. I have never 
 turned from her even when she wore an 
 
THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 unexpected aspect." Still, it is believed that the day has 
 come for giving English versions of all his imaginative 
 works, as well as of his monumental study JOAN OF 
 ARC, which is undoubtedly the most discussed book in the 
 world of letters to-day. 
 
 V MR. JOHN LANE has pleasure in announcing that 
 the following volumes are either already published or are 
 passing through the press. 
 
 THE RED LILY 
 
 MOTHER OF PEARL 
 
 THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS 
 
 THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD 
 
 BALTHASAR 
 
 THE WELL OF ST. CLARE 
 
 THAIS 
 
 THE WHITE STONE 
 
 PENGUIN ISLAND 
 
 THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE 
 
 BROCHE 
 JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT 
 THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL 
 THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE REINE PEDAUQUE 
 THE OPINIONS OF JEROME COIGNARD 
 MY FRIEND'S BOOK 
 THE ASPIRATIONS OF JEAN SERVIEN 
 LIFE AND LETTERS (4 vols.) 
 JOAN OF ARC (2 vols.) 
 
 V All the books will be published at 6/- each with the 
 exception of JOAN OF ARC, which will be 25/- net 
 the two volumes, with eight Illustrations. 
 
 IT The format of the volumes leaves little to be desired. 
 The size is Demy 8vo (9 X 5|), and they are printed from 
 Caslon type upon a paper light in weight and strong of 
 texture, with a cover design in crimson and gold, a gilt top, 
 end-papers from designs by Aubrey Beardsley and initials by 
 Henry Ospovat, In short, these are volumes for the biblio- 
 phile as well as the lover of fiction, and form perhaps the 
 cheapest library edition of copyright novels ever published, 
 for the price is only that of an ordinary novel. 
 
 f The translation of these books has been entrusted to 
 such competent French scholars as mr. Alfred allinson, 
 
THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 MR. FREDERIC CHAPMAN, MR. ROBERT B. DOUGLAS, 
 MR. A. W. EVANS, MKS. FARLEY, MR. LAFCADIO HEARN, 
 MRS. W. S. JACKSON, MRS, JOHN LANE, MRS. NEWMARCH, 
 MR. C. E. ROCHE, MISS WINIFRED STEPHENS, and MISS 
 M. P. WILLCOCKS. 
 
 f As Anatole Thibault, dil Anatole France, is to most 
 English readers merely a name, it will be well to state that 
 he was born in 1844 in the picturesque and inspiring 
 surroundings of an old bookshop on the Quai Voltaire, 
 Paris, kept by his father. Monsieur Thibault, an authority on 
 eighteenth-century history, from whom the boy caught the 
 passion for the principles of the Revolution, while from his 
 mother he was learning to love the ascetic ideals chronicled 
 in the Lives of the Saints. He was schooled with the lovers 
 of old books, missals and manuscript ; he matriculated on the 
 Quais with the old Jewish dealers of curios and objets d'art; 
 he graduated in the great university of life and experience. 
 It will be recognised that all his work is permeated by his 
 youthful impressions ; he is, in fact, a virtuoso at large. 
 
 IT He has written about thirty volumes of fiction. His 
 first novel was JOCASTA & THE FAMISHED CAT 
 (1879). THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD 
 appeared in 1881, and had the distinction of being crowned 
 by the French Academy, into which he was received in 1896. 
 
 HI His work is illuminated with style, scholarship, and 
 psychology ; but its outstanding features are the lambent wit, 
 the gay mockery, the genial irony with which he touches every 
 subject he treats. But the wit is never malicious, the mockery 
 never derisive, the irony never barbed. To quote from his own 
 GARDEN OF EPICURUS : « Irony and Pity are both of 
 good counsel ; the first with her smiles makes life agreeable, 
 the other sanctifies it to us with her tears. The Irony I 
 invoke is no cruel deity. She mocks neither love nor 
 beauty. She is gentle and kindly disposed. Her mirth 
 disarms anger and it is she teaches us to laugh at rogues and 
 fools whom but for her we might be so weak as to hate." 
 
 IT Often he shows how divine humanity triumphs over 
 mere asceticism, and with entire reverence ; indeed, he 
 might be described as an ascetic overflowing with humanity, 
 just as he has been termed a "pagan, but a pagan 
 constantly haunted by the pre-occupation of Christ." 
 He is in turn — like his own Choulette in THE RED 
 LILY — saintly and Rabelaisian, yet without incongruity. 
 
THE WORKS OF ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 At all times he is the unrelenting foe of superstition and 
 hypocrisy. Of himself he once modestly said : " You will 
 find in my writings, perfect sincerity (lying demands a talent 
 I do not possess), much indulgence, and some natural 
 affection for the beautiful and good." 
 
 II The mere extent of an author's popularity is perhaps a 
 poor argument, yet it is significant that two books by this 
 author are in their HUNDRED AND TENTH THOU- 
 SAND, and numbers of them well into their SEVENTIETH 
 THOUSAND, whilst the one which a Frenchman recently 
 described as " Monsieur France's most arid book " is in its 
 FIFTYvEIGHT-THOUSAND. 
 
 SI Inasmuch as M. FRANCE'S ONLY contribution to 
 an English periodical appeared in THE YELLOW BOOK, 
 vol. v., April 1 895, together with the first important English 
 appreciation of his work from the pen of the Hon. Maurice 
 Baring, it is peculiarly appropriate that the English edition 
 of his works should be issued from the Bodley Head. 
 
 ORDER FORM. 
 
 19 
 
 To Mr .^ 
 
 BookselUr. 
 Please send me the/olloTmng works 0/ Anatole France: 
 
 THAlS PENGUIN ISLAND 
 
 BALTHASAR THE WHITE STONE 
 
 THE RED LILY MOTHER OF PEARL 
 
 THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS 
 
 THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD 
 
 THE WELL OF ST. CLARE 
 
 THE MERRIE TALES OF JACQUES TOURNE- 
 
 BROCHE 
 THE ELM TREE ON THE MALL 
 THE WICKER-WORK WOMAN 
 JOCASTA AND THE FAMISHED CAT 
 JOAN OF ARC (a Vols.) 
 LIFE AND LETTERS (4 Vols.) 
 
 for which I enclose. 
 
 Name _ 
 
 Address __ 
 
 JOHN LANE, PUBUSHKR The Bodley Head, Vigo St., London, W. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY ARTHUR H. ADAMS. 
 
 GALAHAD JONES. A Tragic Farce. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 With i6 full-page Illustrations by Norman Lindsay. 
 
 *,* Galahad Jones is a middle-aged bank clerk, with a lamfty. One day, en 
 bis way home, a letter falls to his leet from the balcony cl a house he is passing. 
 It is addressed " To You," and on reading it he di^ooTers that he ia requested 
 to meet the writer in, the garden, ol the house at 10 o'clock that night. In a spirit 
 of knight-errantry, he decides to do so, and learns that the writer— a young girl- 
 is kept practically in prison by her lather, because ol her aflection for a man of 
 whom he does not approve. The chiraliy ol Galahad Jones plunges him into 
 many difficulties, and leads to some very awkward and extremely amusing situations. 
 
 A TOUCH OF FANTASY . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 A Romance For Those who are Lucky Enough to Wear Glasses. 
 
 BY GIRO ALYL 
 
 THE SAINT'S PROGRESS: A Novel. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Translated from the Italian of Giro Alvi by Mary Gibson. 
 
 *«* Signor Giro Alvi has written a long and most sympathetic novel dealing 
 with the life ol one of the noblest spirits of the Christian Church who was perhaps 
 the most extraorddnaxy man ol his age The somewhat dissolute early life of the 
 founder of the Franciscan Order is deftly outlined, the young man's innate goodness 
 of heart and kindly disposition being dearly apparent even in the midst ol bis 
 ostentatious gaiety and sudden impukes. 
 
 BY W. M. ARDAGH. 
 
 THE MAGADA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Oazttte—" ' The JUagada ' is a store-house of rare and curious learn- 
 ing ... it is a well-wirjtten and picturesane story of high adventure and deeds 
 ol derring-do." 
 
 Observer—" The book has admirably caught the spirit of romance." 
 Daily Chronidt—" ' The Magada ' is a fine and finely told story, and we 
 congratulate Mr. Ardagh." 
 
 THE KNIGHTLY YEARS. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 *,* In "The Knightly Years ' the author ol "The Magada" takes us back 
 once more to the Canary Islan/ds in the days of Isabella the Catholic. The tale 
 deals with the aftermath of conquests, when " the first use the islamiers made of 
 their newly-acquired moral code was to apply it to their rulers." The hero ol the 
 story ia the body-servant ol the profligate Governor of Gomera, whose love affairs 
 become painfully involved with those of his mast«r. In the course of his many 
 adventures we cotme across Queeu Isabella herself, the woman to whom every man 
 was loyal save her own husband; aud countless Spanish worthies, seamen, soldiers, 
 governors ajid priests, all real men, the makers of Empire four hundred years ago. 
 The book abounds in quaint sayings both of Spaniard and native, while the love- 
 making of the simple young hero and his child-wife weaves a pretty thread of 
 romance through the stirring tale of adventure. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY ALLEN ARNOT. 
 
 THE DEMPSEY DIAMONDS; A Novel. Crown 8vo. - 6/- 
 
 *»* This is the story ol the secret tnuisltrence ol a fortune; and the scene is 
 laid mainly in two old housee in two Soottiah Tillages, one fm the east coast, one 
 bilried in midland woods. The tale is of the old slow days ol twenty yean ago 
 belore the tyranny of speed began, bat ft is swayed tbronghout and borne to its 
 close by the same swift passions that sway the stories ol men and women tonday, 
 and will sway th^m till the end of time. 
 
 BY GERARD BENDALL. 
 
 PROGRESS OF MRS. CRIPPS-MIDDLEMORE. Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Author of Mrs. Jones's Bonnet," *' The Old Home," etc. 
 *** This book deals with the ragariea of a middle-class family suddenly 
 enriched. The progress of Hrs. Cripps-Middlemore is under the direction of various 
 ecclesiastics^ each reTered and belored, from small ahopkeeping and dissent to 
 papacy and the peerage. The derer precocious children of the family attempt to 
 emulate in the higher spheres of literature and art the xemarkable financial success 
 of the capable father. Mr. Cripps-Middlemore's greatest success is that he carries 
 hie family with him. He entertains larishly at his marble pcUace at Hampstead. 
 ' He was in man^ respects a genetrous, just, honouxable and sincere man. His 
 ancillary adTcntures I consider nniortunate." is the Ber. ICoore Curtis' delightfully 
 phrased post-mortem tribute. Mr. Bendall hae a wicked wit which, with his ability 
 to assume the attitude of the interested looker-on almost amounting to inspiration, 
 stamps him as a humourist. 
 
 BY PAUL BERTRAM 
 
 THE SHADOW OF POWER. Third Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* This is a Romance of the days when the Duke of Alra held the Netherlands 
 fast in his iron grasp, and the power of King and Church oast its shadow OTer the 
 land, sometimes orer those eren who were chosen to uphold it. There was no 
 hope of progress and the most enlightened could only smile grimly, sceptically 
 upon the errors ol the age. Such also was the man whose story is here told; 
 proud, daring, ruthless, like all the lieutenants of the great Duke— yet lifted by 
 his education aboro tlie blind fanaticism of his time, seeking truth and treedom, 
 . Jlke his great contemporary the Prince of Orange. The publisher claims for " The 
 Shadow of Power " that it is one of the most powerful historical romances ever 
 submitted to him. 
 
 Timet --" Few readers hare taken up ' The Shadow of Power ' and come face to 
 face with Don Jaimie de Jorquera, will lay it down oc refuse him a hearing until 
 the book and his adventures come to an end." 
 
 Dail-/ Mail—" This is a book that cuts deep into nature and experience. We 
 commer it moet heartily to discerning readen, and hope it may take its place 
 with the best historical novels." 
 
 BT HORACE BLEACKLET. 
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Author of " Ladies Fair and Frail," etc. 
 •»• As the title iinpliea, this is a Tery gallant noTel: an eighteenth century 
 fitory ol abductions, lonely inne, hichwaymen and hangmen. Two men are in lore 
 with Margaiet Crolton: Colonel Thonley, an old rUlain, and Dick Maynaid, who 
 is aa youthlul e£ he is yirtnouB. Thomley nearly snooeeds in compelling Margaret 
 to marry him. lor be has in bil- possession a docnment sadly Incriminating to her 
 lather. Maynaid settles Thornley, but himaeli In his tnm la " np against it." He 
 is arrested lor complicity in the highway thefts oi a glad but graceless young 
 ruffian. Both ore Beotcnced to death, but a great etlort is made to get them 
 repiiered. It would be a pity to divulge the climax caanlngly oontrired by Mr. 
 Bleaclcley, save to say that the boolc ends in a scene of breathless interest before 
 the Tyburn gallows. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY H. F. PREYOST BATTERSBY. 
 
 THE LAST RESORT. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY EX-LIEUTENANT BILSE. 
 
 LIFE IN A GARRISON TOWN . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Also in Paper Cover i/- net. 
 The suppressed German Npvel. With a preface written by the 
 author whilst in London, and an introduction by Arnold White. ' 
 
 Truth—" The disgracelnl eipesures ol the boek were expresely admitted to 
 be true by the Minister ol War in the Beichstag. What the book will probably 
 suggest to you is, that German militarism is cutting its own throat, and will one 
 day oe hoist with its own petard." 
 
 BY SHELLAND BRADLEY. 
 
 ADVENTURES OF AN A.D.C. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 WestminsUr Gazftte—" . . . makes better and more entertaining reading than 
 nine out ol erery ten nsvels ol the da;. . . . Those who know nothing about 
 Anglo-Indian social lile will be as well entertained by this story as those -who 
 know everything about it." 
 
 Timgg—" Full ol delightful humour." 
 
 BY EYELYN BRENTWOOD. 
 
 HECTOR GRAEME. Third Thousand Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* The outstanding feature ol " Hector Graeme " is the cosTincing picture tt 
 gives ol military lile in India and South Alrica, written by one who is thoroughly 
 acquainted with it. Hector Graeme is not the great soldier ol fiction, usually 
 depicted by norelists, but a rather unpopulu- officer in the English army who 
 is given to strange fits of unconsciousiie£B, during which he shows extraordinary 
 psychic powers. He is a man as ambitious as he is unscrupulous, with the desire 
 but not the abHity to become a Napoleon. The subiect matter of the story ie 
 unusual and the atmosphere th»rough)y convincing. 
 
 Morning Ltader—" Provides much excitement and straightlorward pleasure. 
 A remarkable exception to the usual boring novels about military life." 
 
 BY JAMES BRYCE 
 
 THE STORY OF A PLOUGHBOY. An Autobiography. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 •*• As will be seen from the title of its parte— " The Farm," "The Mansion," 
 " The Cottage "—the characters whose passions and Interests make the plot ol this 
 story are drawn from the households of the Labourer, the Farmer and the Squire; 
 the book is thereloie an attempt to present oountxy life in all its important 
 aspects. In this, again, it differs Irom all other novels ol the soil In our own or 
 perhaps in any language: its author writes not from book- knowledge or hearsay or 
 even observation, but from experience. He has lived what he describes, aad under 
 the power of his realism reader;; will lee! that they are not so much glancing 
 over printed pages as mixing with living men axid women. But the story has 
 interest for others than the ordinary novel-reader. It appeals as etrongly to the 
 many earnest minds that are now concerned with the questions of liand and 
 Industrial Relonn. To such its very laithfulness to lile will suggest answera 
 startling, perhaps, but certainly arresting. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY DANIEL CHAUCER. 
 
 THE SIMPLE LIFE, LIMITED. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* This novel has a very decided quality of satire, which is inspired by the 
 conventions ol the unconTeutional. Evidently Mr. Chaucer knows the Simple Iiife 
 Itom the inside, and his reflections will both amuse and amaze those who know it 
 only from ca^^uai allusions. Many well-known figures will be recognized, though not 
 in all ca.ses under their proper names, and,, as in the case of Mr. fifallock's " New 
 Republic," Society will be busy dotting the " i's " and crossing the " t's." 
 
 THE NEW HUMPTY DUMPTY Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON. 
 
 THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 With 6 Illustrations by W, Graham Robertson, 
 
 Daily Mail—" Mr. Chesterton, as our laughing philosopher, is at his best in 
 this delightful fantasy." 
 
 ^ Westminster Gazette—" It is undeniably clerer. It scintillates— that is exactly 
 the right word— with bright aad epigrammatic obiieTTatioiis, and it is written 
 throughout with undoubted literary skill." 
 
 BY PARKER H. FILLIMORE 
 
 THE YOUNG IDEA: A Neighbourhood. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Author of " The Hickory Limb." With Illustrations by- 
 Rosa Cecil O'Niel. 
 
 BY RICHARD GARNETT. 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS AND OTHER STORIES 
 Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chreniclg—" A subtle compound ol philosophy and irony. Let the 
 reader take these stories aa pure iun— lively incident and, droll chaiacteT— and he 
 will be agreeably surprised to find how stimulating they are." 
 
 Timet—" Here ia learning In plenty, drawn from all ages and moat languages, 
 but ol dryness or dulness not a sentence. The book bubbles with laughter. . . . 
 His sense of humour has a wiie range." 
 
 BY A. R. GORING THOMAS. 
 
 MRS. GRAMERCY PARK. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Werld^" In the language ol the heroine hersell, thia, her story, is dellghtluU; 
 ' bright and cute.' " 
 
 Observtr—" Fresh and amusing." 
 
 THE LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 •,• In his new novel Mr. Groiing-Thomas relates the history of a young girl 
 whose beautiful lace ia a mask that- allures. R<-und the history of " The Lass with 
 the Delicate Air ' is woven the story oi the Hicks family. Mrs. Hicks keeps a 
 lodging house, in Chelsea, and haa theatrical ambitions. The author has keen 
 powers oJ observation and a faculty ol " gettiog inside a woman's mind "; and the 
 same witty dialogue that was so commented upon in " Mrs. Gramercy-Paik " is 
 again seen in the new work. The scene of the b»ok is laid part^ in London and 
 partly in Paris. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY A. R. GORING TEO^ AS-continued 
 
 WAYWARD FEET. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *** This book IB a depaxtuie on the part of Mr. Gormg-Thomas, and is a 
 brilliant piece of work. The scene of the book alternates between St. Wulphy- 
 surmer, a mediseral fortified town in the Pas-de-Calais, and Paris. The two 
 heroines Toinette Moreau and Joan Dombiay, both come from St. Wulphy and 
 both go to Paris. Their histeries contrive a sharp contrast: one being by character 
 sweet, yielding and affectionate, while the other is combatiTe, rebellious and 
 intellectual. The character drawing, as in Mr. Goiing-Thomas' other books, i.s 
 notably clear and interesting. His already celebrated wit, his original humour, 
 and ins^ight into character again illuminate his latest book. The hiEt<»-y ol Joan 
 Dombray, especially, is a strong, original, and striking piece of work. 
 
 BY HENRY HARLAND. 
 
 THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF BOX. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 lUustrated by G. C. Wilmhurst. 165th. Thousand. 
 
 Academy—" The drawings are all excellent in style and really iUustrative of 
 the tale." 
 
 Saturday Review— " WhoWy delightful." 
 Pall Mall Gazette—" Dainty amd delicious.'" 
 Timen—" A book wmong a thousand." 
 Spectator—" A charming romance." 
 
 MY FRIEND PROSPERO . Crown ,8vo. Third Edition. 6/- 
 
 Timeg—" There is no denying the charm of the work, the delicacy and 
 fragrancy of the style, the sunny play of the dialogue, the riracity of the wit, and 
 the graceful flight ol the fancy." 
 
 World—" The reading of it is a pleasure rnre and linalloyed." 
 
 THE LADY PARAMOUNT. Crown 8vo. 55th Thousand. 6/- 
 
 Times — " A fantastic, delightful love-idyll." 
 
 Spectator-" A roseate romance without a crumpled rose leaf." 
 
 Daily iiai/—" Charming, dainty, delightful." 
 
 COMEDIES AND ERRORS. Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 6/- 
 
 Mr. Henry Jaues, in Fottniahtly Review—" Mr. Haxland has clearly thought 
 out a form. . . . He has mastered a method and learned how to paint. . . . His 
 art is alt alive with felicities and delicacies." 
 
 GREY ROSES. Crown 8vo. Fourth Edition. 3/6 net 
 
 Daily Telegraph-" ' Grey Roses ' are entitled to rank among the choicest 
 flowei-s of the realms of romance." 
 
 S^jectator—" Beally delightliil. ' Castles near Spain ' is as near perfection a& it 
 could well be." 
 
 Daily Chronicle—" Charming stories, simple, full ol freshness." 
 
 MADEMOISELLE MISS . Crown 8vo. Third Edition. 3/6 
 
 Speaker-" All through the book we are pleased and entertained." 
 Bookman—"' An interesting collection of early work. In it may be noted the 
 undoubted delicacy and strength of Mr. Harland's manner." 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BT CROSBY HEATH. 
 
 HENRIETTA TAKING NOTES. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* Henrietta is the eleren year old daughter (A a dramatic critic, who, with 
 her delightlnl younger brothor, Cyras, are worthy ol a place beeide " Helen'i 
 Babies " or " Elizabeth's Children." They cau£e the " Olympians " many anxious 
 and anguished moments, yet their pranks are loreiven because ol the endeariag 
 cbaxm of their generous natures. Miss Heath writes ol children with the skill that 
 cornea ol a thorough understanding ot the child mind. 
 
 BT MURIEL HINE. 
 
 HALF IN EARNEST. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* Derrick Kilmarney, th>» secretary »I a famous politician, is a young man 
 with the disposition to take the best that life offers him, and shirk the respon- 
 sibilities. He falls In lore with a girl, but shudders at the idea ol the bondage of 
 marriage. His lore is emanciiiated, unfettered. He is ambitions, politically, 
 allows himself to become entangled with his chief's wife, and is too indolent to 
 break with her eren in justice to the girl he loves. Erentually there comes a 
 time when all the threads hare to be gathered together, when lore hss to be 
 weighed with ambition, and in Kilmarney's case the denouement is unexpected 
 and startling. 
 
 EARTH. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *«* Muriel Hine'a prerioua norel " Halt in Earnest " achioTed a considerable 
 success, " £artb " seema likely to aohioTe a greater. The story deals with the 
 awakening ol a pure young girl to the realities ol life and what they mean. With 
 a proper understanding ol human nature corner sympathy: to know all is to pardon 
 all. " Earth " is a society noT^ with a seciety atmosphere that is oonrincing. 
 
 BY ADELAIDE HOLT. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF REGRET. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *«* Betty FerereU's childhood is lull of pathos. For the best reason in the 
 world she is unable to oaptore the sympathy of her supposed father, and runs 
 away to make an Imprudent marri^e with a very charming but rather weak young 
 man who is addicted to " dxink." Fastidieus to a degree, this failing does not 
 seem to spoil the gentleness and refinement of his disposition, until, enraged by an 
 insult to bis T.'ife, he kills a man in a fit »f aloohoUc frenzy. With her husband 
 sentenced to penal serritude for seren years, the problem of Betty'e life is full of 
 difficulty. After Are years a second man, John Earle, wins her lore, knowing 
 Little or nothing of the obstaclee in the way »f its fulfilment. Finally, newa 
 arriveb that the oonrlct will return in a few weeks, and the story ends suddenly 
 and unexpectedly. This is a delightful norel. It has incident and freshness; and 
 the directness of the style gires the book a remarkably artistic impression of life. 
 
 BY MRS. JOHN LANE. 
 
 KITWYK. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 A Story with numerous illustrations by Howard Pyle 
 Albert Sterner and George Wharton Edwards. 
 
 Tim$8—" Mrs. Lane has succeeded t« admiration, and chiefly by reason ol 
 being so much interested in her theme that she makes no conscious effort to 
 please. . . . Ereryone who seeks to be diverted will read ' Eitwyk ' for its 
 obTious qualities of entertainment." 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY MRS. JOHN U^lXE—conHnued. 
 THE CHAMPAGNE STANDARD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Horning P08t—" The author's champagne OTerflows with witty sayiuBS too 
 nameroua to cite." 
 
 Pall Mall Gaz9tte-~" Mra. Lan«'i papers on our social maiuieTs and loibles are 
 the most eatertainiog, the kindest and the traest that hare been oflered us tor a 
 long time. . . . The book shows an airy phUoBOphy that will render it o! serTloe 
 to the social student." 
 
 ACCORDING TO MARIA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle—" This deUshttol norel, sparkling with humottr. . . . Maria's 
 world is real. . . . Mrs. Lane is remarkably true to life in that world. . . . Maria 
 is priceless, and Mrs. Lane i» a satirist whose lile may be Indetatigably joyona in 
 satiric art. Fox her eyes harrest the little absurdities, and her hand makes 
 eheares ol them, . . . Thackeray misfat hare made such 'shearea il he had been 
 a woman." 
 
 BALTHASAR AND OTHER STORIES . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Translated by Mrs. John Lane from the French of Anatole France 
 
 Daily Oraphie — " The original charm and distinction ol the author's style has 
 surTired the difficult ordeal ol appearing in another language. . . .' The Cure's 
 Mignonette ' is as perfect in Itsall as some little delicate flower." 
 
 TALK O' THE TOWN. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *«* Mrs. John Lane's new book " Talk ol the Town " is on the same lines 
 as " The Champagne Standard," that sparkling and brilliantly witty study ol 
 English and American llle, and haa the delightlul and refreshing humour 
 we hare a right to expect ot the anther of " According to Maria," and that power 
 of obserration and keen Insight into eyaryday life which made " The Champagne 
 Stand^d " one o! the most successful and one of the most quoted hooka of its 
 season, both in England and America." 
 
 BT RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. 
 
 THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL. Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Fifteenth Edition. 
 
 Mr. Max Beebbohh, In Daily Mail—" Mr. Le Gallienne'a gentle, high spirits, 
 and his symi>atby with existence is exhibited here. . . . His poetry, like his 
 humour, suflusei the whole book and gires a charm to the most prosaic objects 
 and incidents of life. . . . The whole book is delightful, for this reason, that no 
 one else oould hare written a book of the same kind." 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF ZION CHAPEL. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Second Edition. 
 
 St. James's Gazette—" Mr. La Gallienne's masterpiece." 
 
 Tim§8—" Extremely clerer and pathetic. As for sentiment Dickens might 
 have been justly proud of poor Jenny's lingering death, and readers whose hearts 
 have the mastery over their heads will certainly weep over it." 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY W. J. LOCKE. 
 
 DERELICTS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle—" Mr. Locke tells his story in a itay trae, very movisg, and 
 Tery noble book. If anyone can lead the last chapter with dry eyes we shall be 
 snrpTised. * Derelicts ' is an impressire and Imiiortaiit book." 
 
 Morning Post—" Mr. Locke's clever novel. One ol the most effective stories 
 that have appeajed lor some time past." 
 
 IDOLS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph—" A brilliantly written and eminently readable book." 
 Daily Mail—" One ol the most distinguished novels of the present book season." 
 Punch—" The Baa-on strongly recommends Mr. W. J. Locke's ' Idols ' to all 
 
 novel readers. It is well written. No time is wasted in superfluous deecriptiona ; 
 
 there is no fine writing for fine writing's sake, bat the story will absorb the 
 
 reader. ... It is a novel that, once taken up, cannot willingly be put down 
 
 until finished." 
 
 A STUDY IN SHADOWS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 DaiVy Chronicle—" Mr. Locke has achieved a distinct success in this novel. 
 He has struck many emotional chords and stouck them all with a firm sure hand." 
 
 AthencRum—" The character-drawing is distinctly good. All the personages 
 stand well defined with strongly marked individualities." 
 
 THE WHITE DOVE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Timeg-" An interesting story, lull of dramatic scenes." 
 
 Morning Post—" An interesting story. The ohaxacters are strongly conceived 
 and vividly presented, and the dramatic moments are powerfully realized." 
 
 THE USURPER. Crown 8vo, 6/- 
 
 World—" This quite uncommon novel." 
 
 Spectator—" Character and plot are most ingeniously wrought, and the ooocln- 
 slon, when it comes, is fully satisfying." 
 Times-" An impressive romance." 
 
 THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE. Cr. 8vo. 3/6 
 
 AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Chronicle—" The hetroine of this clever etory attracts our int^est. . . . 
 She is a clever and subtle study. . . . We congratulate Mr. Locke." 
 
 Morning Post-" A cleverly written tale . . . the author's pictures ol 
 Bohemian life are bright and graphic." 
 
 WHERE LOVE IS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Mr. James Douglas, in Star—" I do not often praise a book with this 
 exultant gusto, but it gave me so much spiritual stimulus and moral pleasure that 
 I feel bound to snatch the addational delight of commending it to those readers 
 who long !o(r a novel that is a piece of literature as well as a piece of life." 
 
 St'indard—" A brilliant piece of work." 
 
 ri/n««— "The author has the true gift; his people are alive." 
 
 THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE , Cr. 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Mr. C. K. Shorter, in Sphere—" A book which has just delighted my neart." 
 Truth—" Mr. Locke's new novel is one of the best artistic pieces of work I 
 
 have met with for many a day." 
 
 Daily Chronicle—" Mr. Locke succeeds, indeed, in every crisis of this most 
 
 original story." 
 
 8 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY W. J. LOCKE— continued. 
 
 THE BELOVED VAGABOND . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Truth—" Certainly it is the most brilliant piece o! work Mr. Locke has dcme. ' 
 Evening Standard—" Mr. Locke can hardly fail to write beaatiloUy. He has 
 Dot tailed now." 
 
 SIMON THE JESTER. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *** The central figure ol Mr. Locke's new novel is one Simon de Gez, M.F., 
 who having met lile with a gay and serene philosophy is suddenly called upon to 
 lace Death. This he does gallantly and jests at Death until he discoveis to bis 
 confusion that Destiny is a greater jester thaoi he. Eventually by surrendering 
 his claims he attains salvation. The heroine is Lola Brandt, an ex-trainer ol 
 anjmals, and an important figure in the story is a dwarf, Professor Anaatasius 
 Fapadopoulos, who nas a trouiw ol performing cats. The scene of the novel is 
 laid in London and Algiers. ^ 
 
 THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA WING. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Observer—" Mr. Locke's best. . . . Clementina Wing and Dr. Quiztus are the 
 two most adorable characters that Mr. Xx)cke has ever brought together in holy 
 wedlock. The phrased are Locke's most debonairly witty." 
 
 THE JOYOUS ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL. 6/- 
 
 BY LAURA BOGUE LUFFMAN. 
 
 A QUESTION OF LATITUDE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* The author of " A Question of Latitude " takes an English girl from the 
 comfortable statelinesB of a country house in the Old Country, and places her in a 
 rough and ready environment in Australia. The girl finds her st^uidard of values 
 undergoing a change. She learns to distinguish bet\«een English snobbery and 
 Colonial simplicity and manliness, she also lesms how to wash up dishes, and that 
 Ausis'alia is not aU kangaroos and giant cricketers. The atmosphere of the story is 
 convincing, and there are many vivid pictures of Melbourne life. The book depicts 
 Australia as it really is, its strength and its weakness, its refinement and its 
 TulEarity. 
 
 BY A. NEIL LYONS. 
 
 ARTHUR'S. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Tim98~" Not only a very entertaining and amusing work, but a very kindiy 
 and tolerant work also. Incidentally the work is a mirror ol a phase of the low 
 London life of to-day as true as certain of Hogarth's transcripts in the eighteenth 
 century, ajid far more tender." 
 
 Punch—" Mr. Neil Lyons seems to get right at the heajt oi things, and I 
 confess to a real admiration for this philosopher of the coffee-stall." 
 
 SIXPENNY PIECES. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette—" It is pure, fast, sheer life, salted with a sense ol humour." 
 
 Evening Standard—" ' Sixpenny Pieces ' is as good as ' Arthur's,' and that 
 
 Is saying a great deal. A book full ol laughter and tears and hits innumerable 
 
 that one feels impelled to read aloud. * Sixpenny Pieces ' would be very hard 
 
 indeed to beat." 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY A. NEIL LYO^S— continued 
 COTTAGE PIE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *«* Mr. Lyons' lonner books dealt with East London characters. Now he 
 draws the Tarying types ol a small country community. The humour of the 
 whole is enlorced, Inimitable, and there is the nnd^rlyuag note o! tragedy nerer 
 wholly absent Irom the lires ol the poorer classes. 
 
 W. J. Locke, in Outlooh—" . . ■ That book ot beauty, truth, and artistry." 
 Edwin Pdoh, in Outlook—" I hare nerer missed an opportunity to express my 
 admiration lor bis Inimitable talent." 
 
 CHRONICLES OF CLARA. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY ALLAN McAULAY. 
 
 THE EAGLE'S NEST, Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Athenasum—" We should describe the book aa a brilliant tour d» fore*. . . . 
 The story is spirited and interesting. The lore interest also is excellent and 
 pathetic" 
 
 Sptetator—" This is one ol those illuminating and stlmulatkig romances which 
 set people reading history." 
 
 BEGGARS AND SORNERS . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,*" Beggars and Somera " is a norel which deals with what may be called the 
 back-wash ol the " Forty FiTe." It commemorates the d^hdela of a great romance, 
 and in describing the liyes, the struggles, the make-shilts, the intrigues and the 
 crimes of a small circle ol Jacobite exiles In Holland between the years 1745 and 
 1750, it str-ires to show the pathos of history while rerealing its seamy aide. The 
 characters are imaginary (with one important exception] ; they hare imaeinary 
 names and commit imaginary actions, lor the stonr la not confined to, but only 
 lounded on, lact. II some readers oZ Jacobite history find among their number 
 some old friends with new taces, this need not detract bom the interest ot others 
 to whom all the characters are new— acton in a drama drawn trom the norelist'a 
 [a<ncy. To Bnglish readers it may hare to be explained what the word S<aner 
 means— but the story makes this sufficiently plain. The norel ia ol a lighter 
 character than those preriously written by this author, and is not without 
 sensational elements. In spite ol adrerse oironmatances, grim characters, and all 
 tlie sorrows of a lost cause, it ooutrlres to end happily. The scene ia laid in 
 Amsterdam. 
 
 BY KARIN MICHAELIS. 
 
 THE DANGEROUS AGE. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
 Translated from the Danish. 
 
 Thia book baa been:— 
 (11 Sold, to the extent of 100 editions In 6 months in Germany. 
 
 (2) Translated into II languages. 
 
 (3) Translated into French by the great Mabcel Fbetost, who aays in his 
 introduction to the English Bdition— " It Is the teminine soul, and the lemlnine 
 soul ol all that is rerealed In these extraordinary documents. Here indeed is a 
 strange book." 
 
 ELSIE LINDTNER. A Sequel. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY IRENE MILLER. 
 
 SEKHET, Crown 8vo. 6/— 
 
 •«* Sekhet deals with that topic o! unwearying interest to readers ol romance— 
 the adrentures and struggles ol an exquisitely lorely woman upon whom the 
 hand ol Fate is laid heaTily. From the days ol her beautHnl girlhood when hei 
 Guardian himself prores her tempter, Erarne has good reason to beliere herself 
 one ol Tictims of " Sekhet," the ancient Egyptian Goddes of Lore and Cruelty. 
 Ereu though the main theme of this story is the tragic outcome ol a too passionate 
 lore, portions of Erarne's experiences, such as those with the bogus Theatrical 
 manager, are lull ol humour, and throughout there is a relieving lightness ol touch 
 in the writing. The book grows tn interest as it proceeds, and the final portion— 
 a long duel between ETarne and the eril genius ol her life— is dramatic in the 
 extreme. The result remains uncertain till the last page or two, and though 
 decidedly ghastly is entirely original and unforeseen. 
 
 BY HECTOR H. MUNRO (Saki) 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Author of "Reginald," 
 A NEW HUMOURIST. 
 
 *** ClOTis is an embodiment of the Modern Man in his moat frivolous, cynical, 
 mischief- loving vein. He moves through, or inspires, a series of congenial adventures 
 in the world of country-house and restaurant life. The chronicle of his sayinga 
 and misdoings lorm a feast of wit and humour that will convince many that it is 
 no longer necesflary to go abroad tor our humourists. 
 
 BT LOUIS N. PARKER 
 
 POMANDER WALK. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Author of "Rosemary," etc. With numerous Illustrations by 
 
 J. Scott Williams. 
 
 •,*Novelised by the author ol the delightful play of the same name, which has 
 met with so much success both in England and the United States. A picture ol 
 one ol the quaint out-of-the-Tvay corners of London ol the olden times. The volume 
 contains a tinted trontiapiece and title page, and numerous other cbarmiDg 
 illustrations. 
 
 BY JOHN PARKINSON. 
 
 OTHER LAWS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 •»• This book is distinctly the outcome ol the latest " intellectual *' movement 
 in novel-writing. The hero, Hawkins, is an African explorer. During a holiday in 
 England he lalls in love with and captivates Caroline Blackwood, a woman of 
 strong personality. Circumstances prevent him Irom entering upon a lormal 
 engagement, and he departs again lor Africa, without proposing marriage. Caroline 
 and Hawkins correspond fitfully lor some time; but then a startling combination 
 ol events causes Hawkins to penetrate further and lurther into the interior; a 
 native village is burned, and a report, based apparently upon fact, is circulated 
 ol his death. Not until seven months have elapsed is he able to return to England. 
 He finds Caroline married to a man who has found her money useful. Here the 
 story, strong, and moving throughout, moves steadily to the close, describing 
 delicately and analytically the soul conflict of a man and a woman, sundered and 
 separate, with a yearnlrg for each other's love. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY F. INGLIS POWELL. 
 
 THE SNAKE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *^* For countless generations the aoal o! Feasant India has been steeped in 
 weird, fantastic superstitions, some grotesque, some loathsome, all strauEely 
 fascinating. Though the main theme <^ this story is the unhappy love ol a 
 beautiful, eril woman, and the bTUtal bankness with which she wiitra ol her 
 nnoontroiled passions iu her diary, yet the whole tale hinges on. some of the most 
 giuesome superstitions of the siast. This book should appeal to all who take an 
 interest in the strange beliefs— not of the educated classes— but of the simple- 
 minded and ignorant peasants of Behar. 
 
 BY F. J.. RANDALL. 
 
 LOVE AND THE IRONMONGER. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Telegraph—" Since the gay days when Mr. F. Anstey was writing his 
 inimitable series of humourous novels, we can Teeall no book ol purely farcical 
 Imagination so full of excellent entertainment as this first effort of Mr. F. J. 
 Xlandali. ' Lore and the Ironmonger ' is certain to be a success." 
 
 Times—" As diverting a comedy of errors as the reader is likely to meet with 
 for a considerable time." 
 
 Mr. Cleuent Shobtbb, in Th* Sphere—" I thank the author for a delightlni 
 hour's amusement." 
 
 THE BERMONDSEY TWIN. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *«* A humourous story of the reappearance of a twin brother, who is supposed 
 to be dead. Prosperous, respected, and well satisfied with himselE, a suburban 
 tradesman is contemplating matrimony and the realisation of his ambitions, when 
 the twin brother appears. He is thrown into a state of panic, for n-ot only is 
 his fortune thus reduced by hall and his marriage prospects endajigered, but the 
 twin is to all appearance a disareputable character, whose existence threatens to 
 mar the tradesman's respectability. The good man's attraapts to hide this 
 undesirable brother make amusing reading, and the pranks of the unwelcome twin 
 serve to complicate matters, for the brothers are so much alike as i>o be easily 
 mistaken one for the other. The new arrival is really a man of integrity, his 
 depravity being a%umed as a joke. Having played the farce out he is about to 
 " coDless," when the tables are turned upon him by accident, and he is forced to 
 p&y heavily lor his fun in a series of humiliating adventures. 
 
 BY HUGH DE SELINCOUBT. 
 
 A FAIR HOUSE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Author of "A Boy's Marriage," **The Way Things Happen," '*The 
 Strongest Plume." 
 
 *,* The outstanding idea of Mr. Hugh de S^linconrt's new novel is the 
 jjossibility of absolute love and confidence between father and daughter. It is the 
 main thread of the story and all the incidents are subordinated to it. The book 
 falls naturally into three sections. The fi;r&t opens with the birth of the daughter 
 and the death of the mother, the father's utter despair, until an idea comes to 
 him, to make the child bis masterpiece and to see how much one human being can 
 mean to another. The second deals with the growth ot the child from five to 
 fifteen. In the third, the girl becomes a woman. Her first experience of love is 
 unhappy and threatens to destroy the confidence between father and daughter. 
 But she Is enabled to throw herself heart and soul into stage-work, and in tbe 
 excitement of work she finds herself again. And the end ol the book leaves ber 
 with the knowledge that one love does not necessarily displace another, and that a 
 second, happier love has only strengthened the bond between her father and 
 herself. 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF ^ FICTION 
 BY ESSEX SMITH 
 
 Wind on the heath. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 ',* No paragraph or desoriptire note can give an idea of Miss Essex Smith's 
 atory. It depends upon style, psychology, woodland atmosphere, and more than 
 anything else upon originality ol outlook. It will make a direct appeal to that 
 public that has a taste lor the unusual. There is underlying it a tone ol passion, 
 the passion ol a fantastic Bichaid Jefleiies. 
 
 BY HERMANN SUDERMANN. 
 
 THE MASTERPIECE (Das Hohe Lied). Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 A new Translation by Beatrice Marshall. 
 *** The first English translation ol this work, published under the title ol 
 " The Song ol Songs," proved to be too American for the taste ol the British 
 public, and was eventually dropped. But it was ledt that the work was too great 
 an. one not to be represented in the English language, and accordingly this entirely 
 new translation has been made, which It is hoped will fairly represent the wonderful 
 original without unduly offending the susceptibilities ol the British public. In 
 this colossal novel, Sudermann has made a searching and masterly study of feminine 
 Irailty. The character and career ol Lily Gzepanck are depicted with such pitiless 
 power and unerring psychological insight, that the portrait would be almost 
 intolerable in its realism, if it were not for its touches ol humour and tenderness. 
 In. these pages too may &e lound some ol SudermaJin's most characteristic and 
 charming passages descriptive ol country life, while his pictures of Berlin Society 
 in. all its phases, the glimpses he gives us into what goes on beneath the tinsel, 
 spick and span surface of the great modern capital are drawn with Tolstoyan 
 vigour and colour. 
 
 THE INDIAN LILY and other Stories. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 Translated by Ludwig Lewisohn, M.A. 
 *#• A series ol characteristic storira by the great German Master which exhibit 
 his art in every phase. Sudermann is chiefly known in this country as a writer 
 of novels and of plays, but this volume will place him in a new light lor English 
 readers— as a writer ol short stories of the first rank. In lact he may with iustice 
 be termed the German Maupassant. 
 
 BT MARCELLE TINAYRE. 
 
 THE SHADOW OF LOVE. Crowii Svo. 6/- 
 
 Translated from the French by A. R. Allinson, M.A. 
 
 *»* 01 the newer French novelists Maroelie Tinayre is perhaps the best known. 
 Her work has been crowned by the French Academy, and sae possesses a very large 
 pubj-ic in Europe and in America. The story deals with a girl's love and a heroic 
 sacrifice dictated by love. " The Shadow ol Love " is a book ol extraordinary 
 power, uncompromising in its delineation ol certain hard, some might say repulsive 
 facts of life,' yet instinct all through with an exquisitely tender and beautiful 
 passion of human interest and human sympathy. 
 
 BY GEORGE YANE. 
 
 THE LIFTED LATCH: A Novel. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 •,• " The Lifted Latch " ia a story of strong situations. The hero is the son 
 of an Italian attach^ and a girl of whose frailty he takes advantage. The mother 
 decides to hide her shame by handing the child over to a foster-mother together 
 with a sum of money for its maintenance. When the boy grows up he becomes by 
 a curious sequence of eyents and circumstances reunited to his parents, and a 
 series of plots and counterplots follow. The scene is set principally in diplomatic 
 circles in Kome. 
 
 13 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 
 BY GEORGE W AV'E— continued 
 THE CHlMiERA. Crown 8vo, 6/- 
 
 ^^T^^^^^'^oo^^'^™®** some Sicilians ol old lineage and considerable wealth 
 settled in a Bloomy manor in England. The lamily consists o! an a^ed and partly 
 demented Princess, obsessed by a monomania for revenee, her grandson, an attach^ 
 ol the Italian Embassy to the Court ol St. James, and bis hall sister, a tasclnating, 
 winning, wayward and fickle creature. This girl captures the heart ol Lord Drury— 
 whose lather murdered the Principe Baldaseure di Monreale— son ol the old Princess. 
 The contrast between these Southerners and their English neighbours is strongly 
 accentuated. Uon Sforsa and his half sister Donna Giacinta are no mere puppets 
 with Italian names; they gire the reader the impression ol being people the author 
 has met and drawn from life. The tragedy in which they are involTed strikes one 
 as ineritable. Poor Lord Driiry, in his utter inexperience, has taken a beautiful 
 chimsra for reality and starts in the pursuit ol bappiness when it was ail the 
 time within his grasp. The lore-interrat nerer fiags to the last page when the hero's 
 troubles come to an end. The glimpses ol diplomatic circles in London are 
 obriouEly not written by an outsider. 
 
 BT CLARA YIEBIG. 
 
 ABSOLUTION. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Timt»-~" ThereTfs considerable strength in ' Absolution.' ... As a realistic 
 
 study the story has much merit." 
 
 Daily TeUffraph—" The tale is powerfully told . . . the tale will proTe 
 
 absorbing with its minute characterisation and real passion." 
 
 OUR DAILY BREAD. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 AthenaLiin—" The story is not only ol great humim interest, but also extremely 
 valuable as a study of the conditions in which a large section ol the poorer classes 
 and small tradespeople of German cities spend their lires. Clara Viebig manipu- 
 lates her material with extraordinary Tigour. . . Her characters are alive." 
 
 B^ H, B. MARRIOTT WATSON. 
 
 THE TOMBOY AND OTHERS. Crown 8vo. 3/6 net 
 
 Author of "Galloping Dick." 
 
 BY H. G. WELLS. 
 
 A NEW MACHIAVELLI. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *«* Tht N»tD Hachiave'lli is the longest, most carefully and elaborately 
 constrticted and most ajnbitious noTel that Mr. Wells has yet written. It combines 
 much of the breadth and variety oi Tono-Bungay with that concentrated unity 
 of effect which makes Love and itr. Ltwisham, artistically, his most satisfactory 
 work. It has the autobiographical form which he has already used so effectively 
 in Tono-Bungay, but this time the hero who surveys and experiences the 
 vicissitudes ol our modern world is not a commercial adventurer but a Trinity man, 
 who directs very great ambitions and abilities to political ends, who is wrecked 
 in raid-career and driven into exile by a passionate love adventure. From his 
 retirement in Italy he reviews and discusses his broken Ifle. The story he tells 
 opens amidst suburban surroundings, and the first book gives a series ol vivid 
 impressions and criticisms ol English public school and university lile. Tbence, 
 after an episode in Staffordshire, it passes to the world of Westminster and the 
 country bouse. The narrator recounts his relations with the varying groups and 
 forces in contemporary parliamentary life and political journalism in London, 
 and the growth and changes in his own opinion until the emotioBis ol bis passionate 
 entanglement sweep the story away to its sombre and touching conclusioin. In 
 addition to the full-length porteaits of Margaret, the neglected wile— perhaps the 
 finest of Mr. Wells's feminine creations— Isabel Rivers, and Remington, there 
 are scores of sharply differentiated characters, sketched and vignetted: Remington 
 the lather, Britten, the intriguing Baileys, the members of the Pentagram Circle, 
 Codger the typical don, and Mr. Evesham the Conservative leader. It is a book 
 to read and read again, and an enduring picture ol contemporary English conditions. 
 
 14 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY MARGARET WESTRUP. 
 
 ELIZABETH'S CHILDREN. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Daily Teltgraph—" The book is charming . . . the author . . . has a delicate 
 fancifal touch, a charmiiiK imaginatiOQ . . . skillnlJy Buggesta character and 
 muods ... is bright and witty, and writes about children with exquisite know- 
 ledge and sympathy." 
 
 HELEN ALLISTON. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Pall Mall Gaz9Ut—" The book has viyacity, fluency, colour, more than a touch 
 ol poetxy and pasfiion. . . . We shall look foiwoid with interest to future work 
 by the author ol ' Helen A-Iliston,' " 
 
 THE YOUNG O'BRIENS. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Saturday Rtview—" Delightful . . . the author treats them (the Young 
 O'Briens) Tery skillully." 
 
 PHYLLIS IN MIDPLEWYCH. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *** It is Eome years since " Elizabeth's Children " was published and 
 Immediately raa through edition alter edition. In her new book the author showE 
 that same sympathetic touch and sure knowledge ol the real child that stamped 
 " Elizabeth's Childien " aa a lire book. The doings and misdoings of Phyllis are 
 told with understanding and with tumorous and deft touches the little 
 idiosyncracies oi the Middlewichites are admirably bit off. 
 
 ELIZABETH IN RETREAT, Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 BY EDITH WHERRY. 
 
 THE RED LANTERN : Being the Story of the Goddess of the 
 
 Red Light. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 *«* The most exciting norel ol recent years. It deals with the Rebellion in 
 China and is of extraordinary anticipation. Sun Yat Sen is riridly depicted under 
 the name of Sam Wang in Miss Edith Wherry's startling novel. 
 
 BY IDA WILD. 
 
 ZO£ THE DANCER. Crown Svo. 6/- 
 
 •»• The scene of the story is laid in Brussels, where Zoe, little more than a 
 child, shows her remarkable aptitude lor dancing. Her wonderful yellow hair 
 secures lor her a position in a hairdresser's window to the constant delight ol the 
 good citizens. Chalice leads to ber adoption of dancing as a profession. The bock 
 is full ol comedy and tragedy, and yet it is the charm and originality of the telling 
 which holds the reader thxoughoat. 
 
 15 
 
JOHN LANE'S LIST OF FICTION 
 BY M. P. WILLCOCES. 
 
 WIDDICOMBE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Evening ^itandard—" Wondeilully alire and pulsating with a carious letTDor 
 which brings round the reader the very atmosphere which the author describee. 
 ... A fine, Tather unusual nor^. . . There are some striking studies of womeu." 
 
 Truth—" A first novel ol moat nnnsual promise." 
 
 Que«n-~" An unusually cleTer book." 
 
 THE WINGLESS VICTORY. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Times—" Such boolte are worth keeping on the shelves even by the classics, 
 lor they axe painted in colours that do not lade." 
 
 Daily Talegraph—" A novel ol such power as should win for its author a 
 position in the front rank ol contemporary writers of fiction." 
 
 A MAN OF GENIUS . Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 Dadly Ttltgraph—" ' Widdicombe ' waa good, and ' The Wingless Victory ' 
 was perhaps better, hut in ' A Blan of Grenius ' the author has given, us something 
 that should assure her place in the front rank of our living novelists. In this 
 latest novel there is so much of character, ao much ol incident, and to its writing 
 has gone so much insight and observation that it is not easy to praise it without 
 seeming exaggeration." 
 
 Punch—" There is no excuse lor not reading ' A Man ol Genius " and making 
 a short stay in the ' seventh Devon ol delight," " 
 
 Globt—" Exquisite." 
 
 THE WAY UP. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 DaiJy Slail^" It is admirably done. . . . Eminently worth leading, lull ol 
 
 extremely clerer cbaracteiisation, ol sharp and picturesque contrasts in personality 
 
 . a merciless exhibition ol almost all the lollies known as modem thought." 
 
 WINGS OF DESIRE. Crown 8vo. 6/- 
 
 *,* When the curtain goes up on "Wings ol Desire" It is to show Simon 
 Bodinar dancing a hoin-pipe in a seaman's Mission Hall. For Simon, the Ulysses 
 ol the novel, is in one sense the motiye power ol a tale which carries its cbiel 
 characters irom the Narrows ol the Dart to the South o! South America, to a lonely 
 cove in the Straits of Magellan. It is Bodinar's doggerel rhyme, 
 " OH Diego Bamiiea, where the Ilde-fonos roar, 
 There's gold, there's gold, there's gold galore," 
 that draws the men of the story Southward-ho. For " Wings ol Desire " is in 
 Irame-work the tale ol a treasure-hunt, while in subject it is a study ol the 
 character-interactions ol a group ol ultra-modern people— people prepared to bring 
 each social law to the bar oi reason and there try it for what it is worth This ol 
 course, brings them up against the most hotly contested question ol to-day— 
 marriage and divorce. " Wings of Desire " vrritten in 1911, the year among other 
 things ol the Divorce Commission, puts the case ol Archer Bellew, novelist and 
 poseur, and of Sara his wile, the grave-eyed woman who stoops, not to conquer, 
 but to save Or so she thinks. The unconventional cutting ol the knot many 
 will probably call by a harsher name. But the book is a human instance not a 
 dogma. It ends with a question. The answer, the verdict, is with the reader- an 
 answer, a verdict, which wiU diHer according to whether his eyes are turned 
 backward into the past or lorward into the future. 
 
 I6