i4^i^^. 
 
 -jiSjidd: 
 
 mm^m- 
 
 ■i£-rf,iip^T,'P, 
 

 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE G[FT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR6007.U19M51900 
 
 Men of Marlowe's, 
 
 3 1924 013 607 936 
 
The original of tliis book 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/cu31924013607936 
 
By MRS. HENRY DUDENEY 
 FOLLY CORNER 
 
 3d Impression iimo $<.3S 
 
 A STORY OF SUSSEX TO-DA Y 
 
 " A work of art which is not only permeated with 
 an extraordinarily sympathetic understanding of the 
 human heart, but displays also from beginning to 
 end the sort of vigor and sanity that can employ the 
 most delicate instruments and the subtlest methods 
 without becoming intellectually nearsighted and 
 without losing even for a moment a sense of true 
 proportion. . . . Mrs. Dudeney is the equal of Thomas 
 Hardy, as she is his literary congen^T."— Professor 
 Harry Thurston Peck in the Bookman. 
 
 "It shows the same deep Insight into the compli- 
 cations of the human soul [as did the author's earlier 
 novel]. . . . This story from the opening page is 
 tense with sustained power and is surely destined to 
 be one of the most important contributions to this 
 season's fiction."— iV^ Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 MEN OF MARLOWE'S 
 
 l2mo $x.S5 
 
 Contents.— Introductory— The One in Red — Ar- 
 nold's Laundress — Why ?— Jimmy— Game Feathers— 
 An Interlude — Mortgaged — A Political Woman — 
 Beyond the Gray Gate — The Set at Seven— Hopkins. 
 
 These stories of residents in one of the English 
 "Inns," like those of "The Temple," are so inter- 
 related as almost to constitute a continuous novel. 
 They show more humor than anything the author has 
 done, and a variety of powers hardly foreshadowed 
 even in "Folly Corner.''^ 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. New York 
 
 IX, X900 
 
MEN OF MARLOWE'S 
 
 / 
 
 ^Weu, ^MRS. HENRyIdUDENEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "FOLLY CORNER," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 1900 
 
Copyright, 1900, 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory i 
 
 The One in Red, 9 
 
 Arnold's Laundress, 39 
 
 Why? 71 
 
 Jimmy 93 
 
 Game Feathers, 117 
 
 An Interlude 135 
 
 Mortgaged, 161 
 
 A Political Woman 185 
 
 Beyond the Gray Gate, 201 
 
 The Set at Seven. 233 
 
 Hopkins 263 
 
 iii 
 
MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 " As a woman in search of sensation, you should 
 not have come to me. I can tell you tales, but they 
 are not exactly sensational — ^hardly a detective in 
 them." 
 
 " The detective is a slur on any story. He is 
 merely the author's fool." 
 
 " But they are not even love stories of the kind 
 you're accustomed to." 
 
 " Of course not. Here in an Inn of Court you 
 have no opportunities — no conservatory, no ball- 
 room, no garden parties. Gerald proposed to me 
 on the Underground Railway — and deserved to be 
 refused. But he had the grace to apologize." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you all I know — or nearly. Some 
 very droll things that I could tell would not interest 
 you." 
 
 " I don't mind being startled. You promised not 
 
2 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 to irritate me by being chivalrous. Chivalry! 
 That subtle grip of the Middle Ages on my sex." 
 
 "But a woman — don't interrupt; I use the word 
 in a superior sense — can never appreciate the fine 
 humor of a tipsy man. She expects him to be ob- 
 vious : to fall in the gutter, to be towed home by the 
 policeman, or fined for being disorderly. Tales of 
 buoyancy, funny from the man's point of view, 
 would bore you." 
 
 "Humph!" 
 
 " There are other tales — quite of the feudal period 
 — which Gerald would rather I did not tell. Merry 
 tales, with an undercurrent of sadness: the most 
 perfect form of humor." 
 
 " I hope you don't tax me with immodest 
 prudery." 
 
 " I tax your husband. Some of the tales may be 
 rather mad." 
 
 " Lunatics are the salt of the earth. Come and 
 dine with us once a week. Tell me a story after 
 dinner — Gerald goes to sleep." 
 
 " I must tell them in the Inn or they'd lose their 
 flavor." 
 
. INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 " Here ! Once a week — that is settled. I'll 
 come. Marlowe's Inn is charming. These quiet 
 squares, just off Holborn; these sedate houses, with 
 their old staircases and sets of chambers, each with 
 its stout black door, appeal to me. I like the arch- 
 way, the porter at the gate. I never saw such a 
 green garden. I love rooks. Everything is gay, 
 cool, monastic; a most fascinating place. And 
 such queer people ! I met a man with the face of a 
 mystic " 
 
 " Probably Guy Blockley, the comedian." 
 
 " There was another man with a striped waist- 
 coat, closely cropped hair, and a bulldog jaw. He 
 looked like a prizefighter." 
 
 " That's Paradale, the poet." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! Then I met a woman, very 
 fat.. She carried a pail of dirty water. No doubt 
 she was a political hostess, famous for her parties, 
 or a popular lady novelist." 
 
 " She was only a charwoman — laundresses we call 
 them in the Inn. She has probably ' seen better 
 days.' " 
 
 "Well— about the tales 2" 
 
4 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 "Sad tales, remember — ^partly sad. But you'll 
 get a laugh out of them." 
 
 " I prefer sad tales; there is more strength in a 
 sob than in a giggle. Anything, so long as they are 
 not commonplace. So long as the people don't 
 marry in the last chapter. I'm so sick of sane, re- 
 spectable people who do exactly what they ought to 
 do. Gerald has a regular income — that blight on 
 originality. I was doomed to middle-class ease 
 from my very cradle." 
 
 " I wonder if you really are broad-minded. I 
 wonder! You are not very young " 
 
 " Nowadays a woman only comes of ?ge at 
 thirty." 
 
 " After thirty she is often a prude." 
 
 " But I am not so very much after. Why waste 
 time in parrying? Tell me a story at once. Let 
 this be the first sitting." 
 
 " It was very stupid of me to clutch your arm like 
 that — to scream. A scream is the admission of 
 small intellect, of nerves, of everything that went 
 out with smelling-bottles. But that noise startled 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 me — it was the prologue to your tale — ^too realistic. 
 What was it? I think it came from that house 
 across the way, from that open window on the third 
 floor, with the blue window box." 
 
 " From No. 7. Yes; of course." 
 
 " How somber you look ! " 
 
 " I must go and see what is up. Promise me to 
 keep quite still. Don't even look out of the win- 
 dow." 
 
 " I promise. I'll look at the album instead. 
 That is a most harmless, a most creditable thing to 
 do. My heart thumps still. Do you think it's a 
 suicide? I'd like a smelling-bottle, if you had one. 
 But a drop of whisky is the modern substitute. 
 Thank you. And in this little cup. How pretty ! " 
 
 " It belonged to Kinsman. You will hear about 
 him later. Here is the album. There are por- 
 traits of Adeline Pray and Minnie Chajrtor — 
 wpmen whose acquaintance you'll make. I won't 
 be long." 
 
 • • • • « 
 
 "What was it? Here, talce the rest of the 
 whisky; you look as if you wanted it." 
 
6 MEN- OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " It was Dick Simpson. He's shot himself. Let 
 me take you out and put you in a hansom. This is 
 our first installment; a melodramatic one." 
 
 "Why did he shoot himself? How shocking! 
 Love? There's a girl going in at the door 
 now." 
 
 " Why ? You will understand when I tell you 
 about that set of chambers in which he lived. Poor 
 Dick ! He's left a note, just saying that all his ac- 
 counts are in order; He was in the City; some of 
 the men of Marlowe's are. The odd thing is — 
 there is always a quip in our tragedies — that he had 
 dressed for the occasion. Frock coat, flower in his 
 buttonhole, new tie — he only bought it last night; 
 showed it to me; asked if I admired the pattern. 
 They'll never let that set again; it is the most ex- 
 traordinary thing— that's the fifth man that / know 
 of, counting Drummond and Jimmy. 
 
 " He was such a thrifty, cautious little chap, too ! 
 No debts, no difficult position. He wasn't hard 
 up — as most of us are. He lived within his in- 
 come." 
 
 " He seems to have been a commonplace person." 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 " Poor Dick ! Here you are. Where shall I tell 
 the man to drive to ? " 
 
 " To the Circus. Good-by. I'll come again, 
 about this time this day week. Poor man! How 
 shocking ! " 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 
 
 Orion was mean. He gave a party once. The 
 whisky was watered. He came to me confidentially 
 in the course of the evening and whispered angrily : 
 
 "You see that fellow Pearson? My word! how 
 he's helping himself to whisky. He's drinking it 
 neat. I've watched him. Don't you call that con- 
 founded impudence? " 
 
 He was also one of those men whose brains never 
 seem to develop; a weak-minded chap who, when he 
 had his hair cut, allowed the barber to wheedle him 
 into buying a bottle of hair wash — half a Crown the 
 small size, but only four-and-sixpence for one con- 
 taining more than double. Brains ! Men like that 
 have only just enough to grub along with — ^just 
 enough to see that they get th^ir proper change 
 across the counter, and are given the right brand of 
 tobacco. 
 
 I knew a barmaid — a nice girl, without the least 
 harm in her. I gave her flowers — a bangle once. 
 
10 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 For some years she has been the mistress Of a flour- 
 ishing pubhc-house off New Oxford Street; married 
 a barman who had dropped in for a legacy. Doubt- 
 less by now she is the mother of an appallingly large 
 family. Yet, whenever I met Orion, he used to 
 snigger, bob his silly face forward, and chuckle : 
 
 "Well, old man, seen anything of Rosey lately? 
 Fine girl, Rosey ! " 
 
 I should have forgotten the girl's very name, but 
 Orion would not let me. He always said the same 
 thing. 
 
 One Christmas Eve I took her to his rooms — it 
 was the only time he ever met her. He was sitting 
 by a tremendous fire cooking a fine turkey. The 
 table was set out most elaborately, with flowers, 
 crackers, serviettes folded into shape. 
 
 We sat and chatted; he basting the bird, Rosey 
 dimpling about with appetite. He told us how 
 much he had paid for that turkey in Smithfield 
 market, he showed us the sausages that were to be 
 eaten with it. He went to the cupboard and 
 brought out a very dainty tin of fancy biscuits. 
 Rosey half put out her plump hand and then drew 
 
THE ONE IN RED. ii 
 
 it back awkwardly. He lifted the rice paper so that 
 we might admire the sugar on the top row. He 
 pointed out bottles of ginger wine, boxes of pre- 
 served fruit — all sorts of things. They made poor 
 Rosey's blue eyes glisten. But he never offered her 
 so much as a fig. What is more, I ascertained 
 afterward, as a positive fact, that he never had a 
 soul to dine with him that Christmas. That's the 
 sort of fellow Orion was. 
 
 He had the third floor set at No. 7. We all won- 
 dered why he lived in the Inn at all. It held no ad- 
 vantages for him. His oak was never sported, ex- 
 cept when he was out. 
 
 Perhaps you see liothing so very important, noth- 
 ing, certainly, that is romantic, about that heavy 
 black door on which my name stands white. But 
 a man's oak guards faithfully the secrets of his life. 
 Generations of secrets, of sins, of sorrows are held 
 by those stout doors — ^black and inscrutable, two by 
 two on every landing. The oak shuts out duns; 
 shuts in a pretty woman. The stories those black 
 doors could tell ! I wonder they never crack — with 
 laughter or great, splitting sobs. 
 
12 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 The oak knows everything. It is like a fashion- 
 able woman's toilet. I love to hear them clang to 
 somberly at night; when a man goes out, when he 
 creeps in late. The oak is the bachelor's discreet 
 parlor-maid. It says " not at home." When we 
 sport it — which is simply shutting it — we defy the 
 world. 
 
 Yet Orion only used this potential thing, this 
 sacred and confidential black door, to protect his 
 electro plate. He had no debts, no compromising 
 visitors, no delicate difficulties. What a man! 
 What a mean, drab life! 
 
 We all chaffed him about his electro plate; the 
 box in which he kept macaroons, the fish slice, the 
 sugar tongs — all the useless things. He really 
 ought to have lived in a neat villa. No doubt he 
 would have done if his aunt had not happened to 
 live in Great Ormond Street, close by. 
 
 He took me to dine with her once. It was a wet 
 Sunday. The aunt, Mrs. Grigg, was a terrible 
 woman of seventy or so. She was dressed in the 
 height of fashion — as it had been in the fifties. No 
 doubt you have seen mold-spotted fashion plates of 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 13 
 
 the period. She had a muslin chemisette, musUn 
 under-sleeves, a wide skirt of some bhnding, bright 
 red stuff. Great rings stretched the lobes of her 
 ears. On her neck she wore string after string of 
 jet and on her bony wrist a hair bracelet. Her 
 brooch was set with braids of sandy hair. I suppose 
 it was Grigg's. 
 
 How that ancient woman leered and bridled at me 
 all through dinner ! We had cold mutton and mint 
 sauce, gooseberry tart and tapioca — cold water to 
 drink. That leering, mincing meal! Those vapid 
 gulps of plain water! There is nothing in this 
 world more ghastly than the labored archness of an 
 old coquette. For days afterward I never looked at 
 a woman, except at my laundress — and they are 
 hardly women. 
 
 Orion apologized for the water as we walked 
 home. 
 
 " The old girl's stingy," he said with satisfaction. 
 " But it suits me, my boy. When she kicks the 
 bucket, I'm in for a good thing. And it can't be 
 long, can it ? What did you make of her ? I don't 
 like the way she wags her head about — ^paraly- 
 
14 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 sis. She'll go off like a champagne cork some 
 day." 
 
 " I suppose she will," I said wearily. 
 
 " Of course she will. She can't last long. She's 
 over seventy, and she was a beauty once; you 
 wouldn't think it." 
 
 I groaned, remembering those old eyes with red, 
 lashless lids; that mouth with the infantile, pearly 
 false teeth. 
 
 We crossed Lamb's Conduit Street. In Chapel 
 Street, Wood, who was a decentish fellow and al- 
 ways in low water, had two back rooms on the 
 second floor at No. 8. 
 
 " I'm going in here to get a whisky," I said, none 
 too graciously, to Orion. 
 
 He put out his hand. His face, with the weak 
 mouth and watery eyes, looked quite haggard in the 
 moonlight which speared down into the narrow 
 street. He bore a horrible family likeness to Mrs. 
 Grigg. 
 
 Did I mention that he was a thin fellow? He 
 had a straggling, straw-colored mustache and his 
 skin matched it. Everything about him was ill- 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 15 
 
 hung and undecided. With his yellow face, yellow- 
 hair, fawn-colored overcoat and soft hat, he looked 
 as if he had been just flipped into a weak solution of 
 saffron and drawn out again. Why will fair men 
 persist in wearing fawn? 
 
 " When she dies," he went on, " that house in 
 Great Ormond Street will be mine; that and a snug 
 bit — ^the old girl banks at Barclay's. She hasn't 
 got a relation in the world but me. Some sort of 
 second cousin of Grigg's used to live with her, but 
 they rowed; she'd row with an archangel. I don't 
 know where Clara Citron — that was the cousin's 
 name — is now." 
 
 " Well, good-night, old fellow," I said. 
 
 " Wait a bit. You see property's going up at 
 such a devil of a rate in Bloomsbury. The house 
 alone will bring in a tidy income, let out in flats. I 
 shall do it up and charge good rents and keep it 
 select. Everything on the square, you know." 
 
 He gave his suggestive grin and dropped my 
 hand. I wiped it mechanically as I pulled Wood's 
 bell, and drummed on his knocker. The landlady 
 kept me waiting; it was a trick she had. When at 
 
i6 MEN OP MARLOWE'S. 
 
 last she opened the door she asked me acrimoni- 
 ously : 
 
 " Aint the bell enough, but you must go playin' 
 on the knocker and bringing a person's 'art into their 
 mouths ? " 
 
 A week later Orion came to my roofns. It was 
 about nine in the evening — Saturday" evening. I 
 was just off to the "Oxford," and told him so. 
 But he caught me by the sleeve ^nd said fever- 
 ishly : 
 
 "Haven't you heard?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " My aunt — Mrs. Grigg, you know. She — she's 
 murdered." 
 
 He sat down in the saddlebag chair by the fire. 
 Yes, the same saddlebag. That shabby old thing 
 you are sitting in, with the fallen springs and the 
 shiny mark of many fingers on the arms. Don't get 
 up. I brought out the bottle and gave him a nip 
 of whisky. He was shaking all over like a little 
 clay-tinted marionette. 
 
 " Murdered ! " I said, the vivid image of the old 
 woman coming back. " Murdered ! " 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 17 
 
 "Yes; just now." He made a gesture for more 
 whisky. 
 
 The glass he held was dancing a jig in his hand. 
 I noticed — it seemed an odd thing to notice at such 
 a time — how clean his hands were. One does notice 
 unimportant things. 
 
 " The old woman— her servant — has just come 
 round to tell me," he continued. " Haven't you 
 heard?" 
 
 "Heard! How could I?" 
 
 " I forgot. Of course you couldn't. It's 
 enough to confuse a fellow, isn't it ? Murdered ! " 
 
 "Yes. But how?" 
 
 " I'm going to tell you. Is there any more 
 whisky? Thanks. It is Saturday night and the 
 servant had gone out to shop. She always shops 
 late on Saturday — when she doesn't do it on Sun- 
 day morning. On Sunday morning in the Lane 
 you can get a very decent fowl cheap. My aunt 
 was left alone in Great Ormond Street. Am I mak- 
 ing myself quite clear? She must have been cook- 
 ing some mess over the dining-room fire; a pot had 
 boiled over on the hob. She was stabbed — ^just 
 
i8 MEN OF MARLOfVB'S. 
 
 above the heart. Isn't it awful? Thanks, old 
 man. It — it pulls me together. Come up to my 
 place. The old woman's waiting. I don't know 
 what to do first. She came straight to me. She — 
 the other one, my aunt — is lying on the dining-room 
 hearthrug. Well — ^thanks." 
 
 I followed him upstairs. Late as it was, one of 
 the Inn laundresses — those travesties of women, all 
 flesh, sacking apron, and dusty hair — was scrubbing 
 the third floor flight. Saturday is the great day for 
 stair scrubbing. She moved her pail for us to pass 
 and looked at Orion's face curiously. As we went 
 up we were followed by the rasping swish of her 
 brush. 
 
 Mrs. Grigg's servant was waiting in the sitting 
 room. She had seated herself. Orion did not 
 seem to like this. 
 
 It was such a swell room — all varnish, gewgaws, 
 and rose-colored lights. He had stuck squares of 
 leather paper on the panels of the walls and put 
 white porcelain finger plates painted with roses on 
 the doors. He burned gas in the grate instead of 
 coal — it was cleaner. It looked like an old maid's 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 19 
 
 room. I believe that he helped his laundress to clean 
 it. She was a rather clean woman herself, who al- 
 ways wore a stiff bow of white muslin tied under 
 her chin. 
 
 There was a shiny sideboard, on top of which was 
 set out the electro plate. The looking-glass above 
 the sideboard was cracked. Pearson, his nerves 
 strung by the respectability and smugness of that 
 room, had flung his glass at it on the night of the 
 party — as a graceful return for watered whisky. 
 Emily Higgins, a girl that Orion knew — she served 
 in a fancy shop in Hampstead Road — ^had skillfully 
 painted a cobweb and a trail of flowers across 
 the crack. Orion never spoke to Pearson after- 
 ward. 
 
 " A fellow who will come into one's rooms and 
 do a thing like that is a dirty cad," he would say in 
 his thin, piping voice. 
 
 He was always saying it. He never said more 
 than three things at the same period. He had at- 
 tacks of sentences and worked them off. He said it 
 every time you went to his set. He said it to all 
 new acquaintances. He took them in to look at the 
 
20 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 sideboard, and while they looked he enlarged on the 
 rank villainy of Pearson. I actually waited fof him 
 to say it on that Saturday night. But he didn't. 
 He only lifted the old woman's leg of mutton from 
 the center table where she had set it. It was for- 
 eign meat and the blood had run out freely, pulping 
 the newspaper and making a patch on the tablecloth. 
 He carried it, with an air of reproof, to the cup- 
 board and set it carefully on a dish. 
 
 The woman looked at him and then she looked at 
 me. There was defiance and self-vindication and a 
 lurking terror on her face. It was a long, horselike 
 face, I remember. People of her class always look 
 like that when anything suspicious occurs. She 
 seemed to be saying in a terrified, insolent way : 
 
 " Don't you think I did it, because I didn't." 
 
 It is pathetic; this perpetual assertion of inno- 
 cence — ^before they are accused — of such people. 
 
 " It give me such a orful turn ! " she burst out at 
 last, addressing herself to me, as Orion remained 
 half in the cupboard, carefully putting a wire cover 
 over the joint. " I've never been mixed up in no 
 sich thing before. I've never been to prison. Not 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 21 
 
 me ! Nor any of my relations. It's made my 'eart 
 that bad — I suffers with the palpitations." 
 
 Orion remained in the cupboard, deaf to the hint. 
 
 " I come straight off to Mr. Rine," she went on. 
 " I didn't even think to take the joint from under 
 my arm. I'd only bin gone 'arf an hour down Tib- 
 balds Row marketin' with another lady — ^"er as is 
 'ousekeeper in Chapel Street, where Mr. Wood 
 lives. She could tell you the same. I'll take my 
 Bible oath I wasn't more'n 'arf an hour. The larst 
 place I was in was the fish shop at the corner of 
 Devonshire Street." 
 
 " We'd better go to Great Ormond Street," I said 
 to Orion. 
 
 The servant stood up, pulling her gray and black 
 shawl closer round her throat. She gave a critical 
 glance round the room before she left, and paid it 
 her feminine tribute. 
 
 " You'll excuse me," she said, " but what a pretty 
 room this is. Quite a doll's 'ouse, to be sure. I 
 never see but one like it, and that was Mrs. Abra- 
 ham's in North Street — 'er whose 'usband was in 
 the ready-made line." 
 
22 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 It wouldn't interest you to hear the rest, but I 
 have all the newspapers put aside if you would like 
 to read the reports some day. The murder of Mrs. 
 Grigg was one of London's many mysteries. There 
 was no clew. The servant was able to clear herself 
 conclusively of all suspicion. Scotland Yard was 
 bafHed. Ambitious journalists, with a taste for in- 
 trigue and interviewing, started wild theories, and 
 there ended. Great Ormond Street was blocked 
 with the crowd that gaped stolidly all day at the 
 shabby house with the drawn blinds opposite the 
 hospital. 
 
 Orion didn't go to the City. He was junior 
 partner — so he said — in a shipping- house near 
 London Bridge. He stayed at home in the jaunty 
 room with the pink-tinted gas globes and drank all 
 day. Orion was in a bad way. You might guess 
 that when he drank whisky at three and something 
 a bottle as if it had been water. 
 
 We'll skip the inquest and so on, and pass to the 
 funeral. 
 
 Orion begged me to go, and I went. One 
 couldn't refuse a poor, invertebrate, pleading fool 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 23 
 
 like that. His aunt's death had absolutely doubled 
 him up. 
 
 There was the uncomfortable atmosphere of death 
 about the place when we got there. I'll show you 
 the particular house next time we are in Great Or- 
 mond Street. There is a narrow passage paneled 
 t6 the ceiling with wood that is painted stone color. 
 There is a sitting room to your left as you go in, 
 and a flight of stairs ready to your feet at the end of 
 the passage. 
 
 We went into the sitting room. There was a 
 smeary decanter half full of thick port on the table. 
 There were wine glasses and an uncut cake. Orion 
 sat down. By and by we heard deprecating, creak- 
 ing shoes coming downstairs, heard unctuous words 
 of sympathy in the passage. Then we heard a 
 woman's shrill voice — a sharp, short voice, like the 
 keen snap of ice. Orion started. 
 
 " That's Clara Citron," he said in a frightened 
 way. 
 
 She came in, a little middle-aged, shrewish-look- 
 ing woman. She gave Orion her hand — it was 
 thin and red and knuckly. 
 
24 'MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " I saw it in the papers," she said, without any 
 circumlocution. " I came up from Southsea at 
 once." \ 
 
 "I didn't know your address," he stamrtiered 
 feebly. 
 
 Mrs. Citron looked at him in a meaning way. 
 She solemnly poured out three glasses of muddy 
 port and cut three slices of cake. 
 
 " We must leave enough for the undertaker and 
 his men," she said, measuring the bottle with her 
 little alert eye. " Yes, I came at once. It was my 
 duty. She was my relation, too, by marriage. 
 And all the money was my cousin Grigg's." 
 
 The hearse and the one coach drew in at the curb. 
 They threw an added shadow across the room where 
 those two sat solemnly munching and sipping — the 
 small, prim room with the putty-colored walls and 
 the bits of fancywork, a sampler, mats, a beaded 
 footstool — worked, no doubt, by Mrs. Grigg her- 
 self half a century before. 
 
 Clara Citron bustled up. 
 
 " The undertaker is such a very s)mipathetic 
 man," she said, wiping the loose crumbs of cake 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 25 
 
 from her pale lips. " His wife's great-uncle, or his 
 sister-in-law's great-uncle — I really forget which — 
 was murdered in a similar way. He said he quite 
 understood my feelings." 
 
 " The undertaker has always got somebody who 
 died in a similar way," I said, with involuntary flip- 
 pancy. " It is one of the business trappings; he 
 brings it with the pall." 
 
 Clara Citron gave me a stony glance, and Orion 
 stared at me entreatingly. He seemed afraid of 
 offending her; he was afraid of everything and 
 everyone. 
 
 " I don't know how we are going to get her down- 
 stairs," the business-like little woman said-. " It is 
 such an awkward turn on the landing. We. could 
 lower her out of the window, but there is such a 
 crowd." 
 
 She peeped through the brown wire blind before 
 she hurried away. Orion poured himself out a 
 second glass of that deplorable port directly the door 
 was shut on her and he dared. Every time there 
 was a scrooping sound overhead he shook from head 
 to foot. It seemed a long time before we heard the 
 
26 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 cautious, thumping tread of men bearing a heavy 
 load. At the ominous resting of those feet we both 
 knew, although we said nothing, although we did 
 not even look at each other, that they were maneu- 
 vering the turn at the landing. We both drew a 
 breath of relief when the steady stumping went on 
 again, came nearer, passed the door, went down the 
 steps. A faint murmur floated up from the crowd. 
 Orion had his third glass of port. 
 
 Clara Citron came in, a little flushed and trium- 
 phant. She poured out more wine in clean glasses, 
 cut more cake, and beckoned the men in. When 
 they were ready she coaxed on new black kid gloves. 
 
 " Come on," she said to us. " We are late aS it 
 is. Such a squeeze with that coffin at the head of 
 the stairs! She was a fine woman. I want, if I 
 can, to catch a late train back to Southsea. There 
 are my lodgers to look after. I've only left the girl 
 in charge." 
 
 "Do you keep a lodging house?" Orion asked 
 mechanically, snatching up his hat with the deep 
 black band. 
 
 " Yes," she said shortly; " I must do something." 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 27 
 
 We all three wedged into the passage. Orion 
 was last. Clara Citron marched out, a compact, 
 trim figure in cheap black, between the thin line of 
 sickly London faces. She wore a solemn, festival 
 sort of air. I followed, feeling very awkward and 
 uncomfortable in the frock-coat I had borrowed 
 from Wood : he got it out of pawn for the occasion. 
 I never owned a frock coat in my life, and hope I 
 never shall. It is one of those respectable, stultify- 
 ing possessions that I refrain from on principle. 
 
 I looked back for Orion. He was wavering on 
 the step, as if he felt afraid to walk between those 
 lines of white faces which stretched from the door 
 to the coach. Then I saw him give a hasty look 
 into the house, at the passage, the stairs, muddy with 
 so many feet. Then he seemed to come headlong 
 to the coach. I thought he had slipped on some- 
 thing. He jumped in and banged the door furi- 
 ously. The crowd gave a soft, sympathetic " boo " 
 at the sight of his ghastly face. Clara Citron, who 
 held a new handkerchief with a very wide border to 
 her dry eyes, looked over the hem. 
 
 That terrible long drive to Finchley ! That shim- 
 
28 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 mering line of faces all the way ! I went to Jimmy's 
 funeral, I went to Chaytor's, and I went to Mrs. 
 Grigg's — under protest. I will never go to another, 
 unless it is my own — that will be unavoidable. 
 
 The Great Ormond Street murder made a tre- 
 mendous sensation. I think Clara Citron thor- 
 oughly enjoyed herself. She seemed to regard the 
 crowd in the light of a personal ovation. 
 
 Did I tell you that it was May? — a wet, warm 
 May morning. At Finchley, away from the houses, 
 the rain seemed to fall more softly. In the ceme- 
 tery all sorts of pink and white and purple bushes 
 were in bloom. They reminded me of my child- 
 hood; I was born in the country. The great, in- 
 tensely green stretches of grass were hideously 
 humped with graves. The soft, rushing rain 
 seemed to make them greener every moment. 
 
 I forgot to mention that Clara Citron coolly took 
 the whole of the seat facing the horses. It was the 
 best position for seeing the people, and it allowed the 
 people to have a good view of her. She spread her 
 skirt out carefully and kept the handkerchief to her 
 eyes, peering furtively all the time. Orion and I 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 29 
 
 sat as far back as we could on the cushions — ^those 
 dusty, pluffy cushions which reeked of a thousand 
 stale griefs. We tried to get beyond the range of 
 those gimlet-like eyes which pointed in their hun- 
 dreds, from the pavements. Once Orion said, in a 
 queer, strained voice : 
 
 " For God's sake let me get out and walk." 
 A moment later, before Clara Citron could make 
 any scandalized protest, he bent forward, pounced 
 forward, in a quick, cunning way, as you would on 
 an animal you wished to catch, and brought his 
 hand down heavily on the cushions of the opposite 
 seat. A cloud of dust rose up and choked our com- 
 panion. When she had done spluttering, she asked 
 him angrily why on earth he did it. He didn't an- 
 swer. He only sat and stared, with dazed eyes, at 
 the seat where she sat. Once he moaned and shiv- 
 ered. He was not looking at Clara Citron. He 
 was looking past her, through her. He was like 
 an imbecile. But what could one expect of a man 
 who had drunk whisky as if it had been water for a 
 week, and had wound up with funeral port from 
 the grocer's? 
 
30 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 The service was a trial to everyone but Clara 
 Citron. She reveled in the crowd. I was never 
 in such a rage in my life. Every slatternly woman 
 was pointing and whispering. Orion's face was 
 clammy and yellow, like the clay into which they 
 lowered Mrs. Grigg. I watched them drop earth 
 onto her coffin; watched them put away for ever 
 that leer of hers, those old coquetries. 
 
 When everything was over we went quickly 
 across the sodden, exquisitely green turf to the 
 gravel. The crowd seemed to melt away; softly, 
 with a gentle rustle, like the gurgling May rain. 
 
 > 
 
 iWe were almost alone. 
 
 A warm, wet day in spring is perfect. The rain 
 came finer and thicker every moment. It made a 
 mysterious veil of gauze which dropped over the 
 graveyard. 
 
 Halfway down the path Orion clutched my arm. 
 It was the despairing mad clutch of a doomed man. 
 He clutched my arm and looked hurriedly behind 
 him. 
 
 ,We had reached the coach. The undertaker's 
 men climbed to their box with an air of business. 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 31 
 
 Some sat on the roof of the hearse, their legs 
 dangling jovially. 
 
 " We shall get back faster than we came," Clara 
 Citron said, getting in and looking round, half in 
 disappointment, because there was no longer such a 
 crowd. " I'm dying for a cup of tea." 
 
 Orion leaped in and rattled to the door. I was 
 beginning to be really anxious about him. We 
 started off at a brisk trot, but the iron gates of the 
 cemetery were hardly out of sight before he 
 stumbled up with a fearful cry. The cemetery, I 
 say, was hardly out of sight; we might still have 
 seen the grave which held Mrs. Grigg and the mys- 
 tery of her death. He gave that cry and put out his 
 trembling hands to the door. 
 
 He saw what we could not see. He saw the door 
 of the coach open easily, and saw the fourth mourner 
 come in. She brushed by him silently — ^the one in 
 red — to the vacant seat. 
 
 " I can't stay. I tell you I won't stay," he 
 shrieked, and the sharp rattle of wheels and hoQfs 
 dulled the agony in his voice. " Don't you see her 
 on the seat?" — he was speaking to Clara Citron. 
 
32 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " She has hardly left you room to sit. Those con- 
 founded crinolines take up so much room." 
 
 The lodging-house keeper gripped him firmly by 
 the wrists, and forced him back to his seat. Her 
 hands were strong with years of housework. 
 
 " I'm used to this sort of thing," she said aside 
 to me; " my first-floor lodger has had D. T. twice. 
 My lady in the parlors takes her drop. Her hus- 
 band pays me well to look after her — ^but they get it 
 at the grocer's as soap or candles, at the confec- 
 tioner's and call it tea, at the draper's when they go 
 shopping, and have it put on the bill as extras." 
 
 Orion rambled on. 
 
 " She is sitting next you. She followed us out of 
 the house. I saw her come down the stairs. She 
 rode with us all the way. She stood by her own 
 grave — followed her own funeral. She looked 
 across and grinned at me, the old witch, when they 
 threw earth on the coffin. She has followed us 
 back. She jostled me just now on the cemetery 
 
 path, d n her! She'd have had me down if I 
 
 hadn't caught hold of Groome. She wanted to seal 
 me up in that dirty yellow grave, as we tried to 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 33 
 
 seal her. But I could bear it. I wasn't going to 
 let her frighten me. I bore everything until she 
 came away from her own grave — then I knew it was 
 all up with me. She is filling the coach. Can't you 
 see her red dress puffing out ? I never saw a woman 
 swell so. The red dress, Groome; the dress she 
 wore at dinner on Sunday week! The one she al- 
 ways wore in the evening, the one she died in. Oh ! 
 can't you two see her? Can't you turn her out? 
 The coach is all growing red." 
 
 " Do you mean Mrs. Grigg? " Clara Citron asked 
 crisply. " I can't see anything." She bounced to 
 the other side as if to convince him. " But then," 
 she added significantly, " I didn't murder her." 
 
 " You see, I did," Orion returned with a foolish 
 smile and the tremendous simple relief of a child 
 who gets something ofif his mind. 
 
 He did not seem to realize what the admission in- 
 volved. He was evidently indifferent to everything 
 but the one in red; the dead old woman in the blood- 
 colored gown, who was slowly, slowly, but very 
 surely, filling up the coach. 
 
 " I got so tired of waiting," he continued in a 
 
34 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 confidential way, and we both bent close to catch 
 every word, closing him in, as it seemed. 
 
 " She wouldn't part with a penny and she 
 wouldn't die," he went on piteously. " What are 
 you to do with a woman like that? I was on my 
 beam ends. It is all the accursed City. I was 
 afraid of getting out of a berth. When you get 
 out of a berth you're done. I've been with the same 
 firm fifteen years, and yet they were going to turn 
 me off like a dog — the bookkeeper told me so." 
 
 He was laying himself quite bare. He dropped 
 the flimsy lie of his daily life. He did not hold to 
 the junior-partner fiction any longer. 
 
 " It was very easy," he added, with a certain 
 workman-like pride in the affair. " I knew when 
 the servant went out marketing; knew how long 
 she'd be, and where she hid the street-door key — on 
 a ledge near the coal cellar by the area steps. It 
 was the easiest matter in the world. The old 
 woman — keep her back, can't you? She doesn't 
 want to hear — she knows. She was stooping over 
 the fire — weren't you? She had been cutting up 
 meat; the stew was on the hob and the carving knife 
 
THE ONE IN RED 35 
 
 was on the table. I gave her one certain blow. 
 She gave me one look — I might have known what 
 -that look meant. 
 
 " But I did it beautifully. I went back to my 
 rooms and washed my hands and changed my cuffs, 
 so as to be sure," he sniggered. " I had only just 
 finished when the servant came round. It was a 
 close shave. And then I went and told Groome. 
 No one need ever have known. But you can't fight 
 with a woman who comes out of her grave! 
 
 " She takes up so much room that I can't breathe. 
 Let her out, shove her into the road. She'll never 
 be able to catch us up. Let the wheels go over her." 
 
 Clara Citron, who had held his wrists firmly all 
 the time, dropped them and cautiously opened the 
 door of the coach a very little way. I twitched her 
 skirt. 
 
 " What are you doing? " 
 
 " I'm going to tell them to drive to the Old 
 Bailey — ^that's Newgate, isn't it?" she returned 
 viciously. Evidently she owed Orion some deep 
 grudge. 
 
 " Pooh ! We don't do it that way. Sit down. 
 
36 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Take up all the seat — try to convince him, to keep 
 him quiet. I'll look after him to-night." 
 
 She sat down looking slightly sulky. 
 
 " I trust you to look after my interests," she said 
 plaintively, after a pause. " I'm a hard-working 
 woman and all the money was on my side of the 
 family. Here's my card." She pulled out a 
 thickly-lettered squab of cardboard. " ' Citron, 
 The Parade, Southsea.' If you ever want a blow of 
 sea air, I can always let you have bed and breakfast 
 on reasonable terms." 
 
 The coach swung merrily on. I rather fancy that 
 the men on the box were singing. Orion kept on 
 saying piteously that Mrs. Grigg, in the red dress, 
 was taking up all the room — more and more room 
 — that she was slowly strangling him. In this 
 fashion we rattled back to Bloomsbury, where it 
 was getting dusk and where rain fell more heavily 
 than it had done in the morning. 
 
 I watched him all that night. In the morning the 
 sun came fiercely in. The hot, golden air seemed 
 all Sunday frocks, church bells, and the weighty caw 
 of rooks. 
 
THE ONE IN RED. 37 
 
 There was a pane of glass above Orion's bedroom 
 door. He said, quite quietly, — it was the first time 
 he had spoken : 
 
 " She keeps on looking through that glass. 
 There's a confounded red bonnet on her head now — 
 never knew such a woman for red. Can't you db 
 something ? Can't you rig up a curtain, old chap ? " 
 
 There was a crafty look on his silly face. I re- 
 membered that afterward. I turned aside to find 
 something, and the next thing I knew was a 
 " ploomp " on the stones underneath and a loud, 
 ringing shriek. 
 
 Orion had flung himself out. It was really the 
 best finish he could have made. Adeline saw him 
 do it and shrieked. She was standing at Murphy's 
 window; Orion, in his fluttering shirt, dropped past 
 her startled eyes. I must tell you Adeline's story 
 some day. 
 
 The money ? That was the one funny touch in 
 the whole affair. Mrs. Grigg actually left the house 
 and every penny she had in the world to the man 
 who brought her round two hundredweight of coal 
 once a week, from the greengrocer's shop in Red 
 
3^ MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Lion Street. He was a handsome sort of chap — 
 that seemed the only reason. He sold the house. 
 I heard the other day that he was drinking himself 
 to death. 
 
 Clara Citron? She went back to the lodging- 
 house at Southsea; is there now, I suppose. But 
 she was one of those women without attributes ; not 
 the sort of person you would have the least interest 
 in investigating. 
 
 Hard on Orion, wasn't it? Quite superfluous, 
 you see. I never liked him. Yet, looking back, 
 I'm sorry for the mean little humbug. That cursed 
 City grinds men down to any pettiness. I'd rather 
 starve in Piccadilly than eat turtle in an Alderman's 
 robe at Guildhall. 
 
'ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 
 
 The laundress, as an institution, is dying out. 
 Men are getting particular about their rooms; one 
 across the way, that set where the cork window- 
 boxes are, bought a feather broom last week. 
 There is a very reprehensible feeling of respecta- 
 bility and decorum about. Most of the fellows have 
 smart young women to clean their rooms. I see 
 them tripping gingerly across the square in the 
 mor'nings, with loose cotton blouses, curly hair, and 
 artificial flowers in their big hats. 
 
 But the good old laundress, all fat and dirt and 
 impudence, contents me. She has a draggled skirt 
 with a deep hem of dried mud, a flat pancake of a 
 bonnet, all melancholy jet and brown ribbon that 
 once was black. She wobbles when she moves; she 
 is a half-set jelly in a greasy bag. I like her; to 
 me she recalls my youth, the old wild days when I 
 and the others were young. With a few excep- 
 tions she is only employed to clean offices now. 
 
40 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 She is a professional woman. For many years 
 the care of certain sets descended quite naturally 
 from mother to daughter. They were pocket 
 boroughs — hereditary pickings. The tenant was a 
 mere incident, to be borne with up to a certain 
 point. 
 
 I remember that Arnold was always squabbling 
 with his laundress. He was an assertive little chap, 
 and understood nothing in the world but dogs. He 
 had no sense of humor; resented Mrs. Neaves and 
 asked me to mediate. I suggested an apology. 
 
 Mrs. Neaves was blue-eyed. She had a singu- 
 larly flat, red nose. 
 
 " Me apologize to the likes of 'im ! " she cried out 
 in a pained voice. " Me ! As 'ave cleaned that set 
 for years. Why, I treats 'im worse than the dirt 
 under my feet. Do you know what he did? 'E 
 threatened to punch my nose." 
 
 " Come, come ! Did he do it ? " 
 
 " Did 'e do it! It 'ud a bin Gawd 'elp 'im if 'e 
 'ad. I'd a summonsed 'im," she cried as she 
 flounced off. 
 
 After this Arnold went through many vicissi- 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 41 
 
 tudes; a new laundress every week. He was like a 
 woman; took these things to heart. I shall never 
 forget how pleased he was when he came to tell me 
 that he'd got a treasure at last. 
 
 She was very smart; a rather supercilious young 
 married woman, with long earrings and a pert, 
 white face. She came to the Inn wearing black kid 
 gloves and a silver locket and chain; she carried a 
 little reticule with her apron rolled up tightly in- 
 side. Things went very well for a week. She kept 
 the place spotless. But when Arnold paid her on 
 Saturday afternoon, she asked him civilly to " suit 
 himself." 
 
 " The work's far too heavy," she said mincingly, 
 " and the rooms is invested with beadles to an awful 
 extent. It's not as if I was obliged to work, you 
 see, sir. I only do it to occupy my time — ^not hav- 
 ing any children — and to help pay back the money ( 
 my husband's mother lent him. There's no hurry 
 for that. She's in a good position. Got her own 
 laundry, paid seven hundred down for it. My hus- 
 band was in the army, and she bought him out be- 
 fore we were married. I couldn't think of marrying 
 
42 ■ MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 a soldier — all the refuge goes into the army. If 
 only you could get a girl to come in and do the rough 
 work for a hour every morning, my husband 
 wouldn't object to me obliging you." 
 
 " What's a man to do ? " Arnold asked dejectedly 
 of me in the evening. " I'm half inclined to chuck 
 the Inn and go back to diggings; the Common was 
 good for the dog to run on. But then there's the 
 landlady — she always objects to dogs. And some 
 of them have principles — I call all principle preju- 
 dice — about the latch key." 
 
 " You'd better take back Mrs. Neaves. Give her 
 a shilling a week more; that's all she was trying for. 
 You'd save in the end. How many have you had 
 altogetha: ? " 
 
 He began to count on his fingers. 
 
 " There was Stubbs. She was right enough, 
 but it makes me sick to look at a scarecrow. And 
 old mother Morey who always turned up with 
 bruises on Monday morning. And Mrs. — What's- 
 her-name — ^the woman who brought a perambulator 
 full of babies. By the way, have you heard about 
 [Wood? He's frightfully down on his luck. The 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 43 
 
 last thing he did was to steal the landlady's peram- 
 bulator. When he got to the pawnbroker's the 
 blessed thing wouldn't go through the door, so he 
 had to wheel it back. And the Cox woman — oh ! I 
 forget their confounded names. They are all alike. 
 Stay as long as it suits them. Rob you right and 
 left. They take their money some Saturday and 
 you never see them again. If they can swindle you 
 out of sixpence or a shilling by pretending to have 
 no change, but promising to bring it on Monday, 
 they will. The last one — ^before this woman — ^had 
 me that way. I was fool enough to give her half a 
 sovereign. That was four bob to the bad, for her 
 money was only six. Said she lived in Hand Court, 
 over the old clothes shop. I've been down there and 
 no one has ever heard of her. I went with Wood. 
 He was going to sell some old trousers, but they 
 only offered eighteenpence for two pairs, so he's 
 pawned them and sold the ticket — it's a much better 
 plan. 
 
 " There was the woman Sol flew at. He is the 
 gentlest dog in the whole world. But you mustn't 
 shake your fist at a deerhound; it puts their blood 
 
44 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Up sooner than anything. I warned her, but she 
 would do it. The husband came round half drunk 
 and bullied. I gave him five shillings to get rid of 
 him. They all object to the dog. It was because 
 of the dog that I left my lodgings in Wilkinson 
 Street, Tooting. And I'd rather throw stones at 
 my grandmother than part with Sol. He saved my 
 life. Did I ever tell you ? It was when I was on a 
 walking tour. I was alone on Dartmoor, except for 
 Sol " 
 
 " You've told me lots of times. Now, take my 
 advice and have Mrs. Neaves back. She wasn't a 
 bad sort." 
 
 " She was very kind to Sol; used to bring him an 
 apron full of bones," he said reflectively. 
 
 When he said that, I knew the thing was settled 
 and that Mrs. Neaves would be reinstated. He 
 was devoted to Sol, who was a beautiful, pure-bred 
 deerhound, with the long, melancholy face and al- 
 most human eyes which these dogs have. 
 
 Poor Arnold ! I don't know what has become of 
 him. But I can make a good guess. He's living 
 somewhere in the suburbs, very near the Common— 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 45 
 
 for Sol's sake. He was a dapper little fellow. One 
 of those men with a rather big head, neat calves, and 
 a chain with a big seal. He wore loud check suits 
 — four checks to the suit — when he went away on a 
 holiday, and when he was at home he had an incor- 
 rigible habit of wasting his time at bars and chaffing 
 the barmaid. That is nothing; every man is bach- 
 elor to the barmaid. But it led Arnold into compli- 
 cations. 
 
 Clarissa was an extraordinarily pretty girl. She 
 had blue eyes set very far apart, and a striking pro- 
 file. With her loose knot of hair, her delicate nose, 
 and her short upper lip, she looked like a cameo — 
 one of those pure, classic faces which middle-aged 
 ladies used to wear in a brooch. Of course she was 
 powdered, and she laced tightly and puffed her 
 lovely hair out into one of those exaggerated erec- 
 tions which is the professional headgear of the bar- 
 maid. You never see such an arrangement any- 
 where else; perhaps the management provides it. 
 But she was very lovely and demure. Also, she had 
 the sense to be silent: an unusually pretty woman 
 should never talk. 
 
46 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Arnold, who dropped into the " Worcester 
 Arms " nightly, began to regard her as a woman — 
 not merely a barmaid. Men sometimes talk dubi- 
 ously to the barmaid, and she — ^figuratively speak- 
 ing — ducks her head and lets the stream of insinua- 
 tion flow over her. She is never affronted; takes it 
 as a matter of course; customers pay for this privi- 
 lege with their drinks. 
 
 Clarissa was lonely. She lived in a barracks 
 somewhere off Greek Street, clubbing together with 
 a lot of other young women. She never spoke of 
 her relations. Arnold assumed that she was like so 
 many other girls, alone in London — to sink or swim, 
 according to her luck. He took her out and gave 
 her harmless little treats whenever she could get 
 away from the bar. But he never asked her to his 
 rooms. He had a sort of reverence for her. He 
 didn't wish to compromise her, and he took to glar- 
 ing fiercely at any harmless simpleton who strolled 
 into the " Worcester Arms " and chaffed Clarissa 
 in the usual way. 
 
 He introduced her to Solj telling her how the 
 dog had saved his life on Dartmoor and adding that 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 47 
 
 nothing on this earth would induce him to part with 
 the animal. 
 
 " He's a pure-bred blue deerhound," he wound 
 up enthusiastically. " I've got his pedigree for 
 seven generations." 
 
 Clarissa said " really " in her demure way, and 
 she stroked the thing's wiry coat and said what 
 beautiful eyes he had, and that she supposed he must 
 be worth a lot of money. 
 
 " Twenty pounds — I've been offered that," Ar- 
 nold told her concisely. " It was a fellow who 
 shows these dogs. He's got a whole kennel of them 
 at his place in the country. I went down there; you 
 "never saw a more beautiful sight." 
 
 " Twenty pounds ! " said Clarissa, drawing in her 
 breath softly. 
 
 Things went on for a month or two. Then Ar- 
 nold became more infatuated than ever. He asked 
 Clarissa to marry him. Of course she jumped at it. 
 The great ambition of these girls is to marry a gen- 
 tleman. And Arnold would pass — with a barmaid. 
 He was fairly well off, too, making, so he said, about 
 six hundred a year on the Stock Exchange; it is al- 
 
48 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 ways these stupid men who make money. It was 
 a catch for Clarissa. 
 
 He took her away from the " Worcester Arms " 
 and boarded her out with a decayed widowed lady at 
 Clapham. He made an arrangement for Sol to 
 board there too, and Clarissa promised to take the 
 dog for long rambles on the Common while his 
 master was in the City. 
 
 After this the Inn did not see very much of Ar- 
 nold. He used to go straight from the City to the 
 suburbs — rushing to catch a particular train and 
 joining the general exodus at Clapham Junction. 
 Thousands of. fellows do that; it would kill me. 
 But he really liked it. He was always hankering 
 after the suburbs; said the air was pure; told you 
 vaingloriously that no one could ever build on the 
 Common — it was sacred to the people. You know 
 the way these people talk; the people who live in 
 smart houses all red and white — ^the ideas of the 
 suburban builder never go beyond a colored pepper- 
 mint stick — fellows who work and sweat in back 
 gardens the size of a tablecloth and go to the local 
 theater. 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 49 
 
 Arnold used to have supper with Clarissa and 
 the widowed lady — his ideas with regard to the girl 
 were ludicrously proper ones. After supper he and 
 she would be alone more or less for an hour or two, 
 with Sol spread at their feet. Arnold would talk 
 dogs, and Clarissa would look lovely and throw in 
 a simper now and then. At ten he left : the widow 
 lady liked to be in bed by half-past. 
 
 It was about this time that he took to criticising 
 Mrs. Neaves. He found himself constantly watching 
 her, speculating on her. Once, when he went into 
 ■the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon to wash out 
 an ink pot, he noticed how white her fat neck was. 
 She was cleaning the lid of a tin saucepan with a 
 bit of emery paper. Her head was bent and her 
 fist circled energetically. Her face was streaming 
 with perspiration and her flat toper's nose glowed 
 like a poppy. Her bodice was open at the throat, 
 and he saw that her neck, beneath the line of ex- 
 posure, was delicately fine. It reminded him of 
 Clarissa's milky skin. He stood swilling out the 
 ink pot, taking more pains than was necessary and 
 Staring at fat, frowsy Mrs, Neaves and wondering 
 
so MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 how she would look with a finely-chiseled nose in 
 place of the comical, red, flat one, which seemed to 
 have been roughly trodden into her face by a care- 
 less foot. She looked up at him rather curiously, 
 rather resentfully — evidently suspecting that he was 
 spying on her. He noticed that her blue eyes were 
 pensive, not twinkling. It was absurd to think of 
 Clarissa in connection with that dirty, gin-drinking 
 woman — her face all coarse rolls of flesh, her dress 
 gaping, and her greasy bonnet-strings streaming 
 back from her triple chin. Yet, when he went to 
 Clapham that night, he amused himself by trying to 
 fit Clarissa with a flat, blossom-like nose. And he 
 was prepared to swear that her blue eyes were twin 
 eyes to those pensive ones which were set in the 
 laundress' head. 
 
 He couldn't for the life of him help watching 
 Mrs. Neaves — in every attitude. He watched her 
 as she rubbed the brush across his boots, swinging 
 her big arm easily from the shoulder; as she knelt 
 on the rug to coax the fire, her great, spread body 
 bunched out and her pouch-like cheeks inflated, 
 /^nd in the evening when he sat in the widow's 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 51 
 
 house he used to compare her with that porcelain 
 slip of a girl Clarissa. At fifty — Mrs. Neaves 
 couldn't be more — would Clarissa have such 
 haunches, such pendulous cheeks ! 
 
 He idealized the laundress — quite unconsciously; 
 he was the most matter-of-fact little chap in the 
 world. Yet, in spite of himself, he became imagi- 
 native, degenerate. He took to engaging Mrs. 
 Neaves in long conversations — about the lady at 
 the cats'-meat shop in Red Lion Passage, who had 
 just given birth to twins, and whose husband was 
 doing three months for stamping on, her ("a nice 
 beast," as Mrs. Neaves said righteously); about 
 the other lady who got mad drunk regularly every 
 Saturday night and threw all the household china 
 out of the window — about anything, or anyone, for 
 the mere sake of seeing her talk, of watching the 
 changes on her coarse face, and the quick move- 
 ment of her mouth, which could only boast three 
 front teeth. 
 
 Every wrinkle, every deeply-scored line on that 
 woman's face, every watery light in her blue eyes, 
 meant to Arnold the track of some youthful charm. 
 
52 MEN 6F MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Was Mrs. Neaves like Clarissa at eighteen? 
 Would Clarissa be like Mrs. Neaves at fifty? I 
 really think that he would have ended by marrying 
 Mrs. Neaves, out of pure, involuntary fascination, 
 if Clarissa had not been a woman and inquisitive. 
 
 She kept bothering him to take her to see his 
 rooms. He was to leave them very soon, had sub- 
 let them to another man. He had taken a house at 
 Clapham, a stone's throw from the Common, and 
 with a back garden a little bigger than usual — ^but 
 only for Sol's sake, Clarissa said. It was the first 
 time she had shown a tinge of rebellion. 
 
 " A great dog like that will make an awful mess 
 in a nice house with his dirty feet. Can't you keep 
 him chained up ? " 
 
 " Chain a deerhound ! " cried Arnold, in holy 
 horror. Sol was a religion to him. " You'd spoil 
 his legs." 
 
 He arranged to bring Clarissa up to the Inn some 
 Saturday afternoon. She was to have tea with 
 him in his rooms, and go out to dine somewhere 
 afterward. He gave Mrs. Neaves an extra shilling 
 to stay late and get the tea. At least, he said it was 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 53 
 
 to get tea; he tried to persuade himself that it was 
 to get tea; but I'm certain that his real reason for 
 keeping her was his odd desire to see those two to- 
 gether, to compare notes. He said to her with 
 deprecating apology — she was the sort of voluble, 
 violent woman to compel respect from a man of his 
 character : 
 
 " I've a young lady coming here this afternoon 
 to tea; the young lady — ^hum, hum — that I am 
 going to marry. Can you stay a couple of hours 
 later? I'll make it worth your while." 
 
 Mrs. Neaves said condescendingly that she'd 
 come back in time to get the tray ready, after she'd 
 " done for the gent at 6." As for Arnold's remark 
 about marrying the young lady visitor, no doubt 
 she put her own valuation on it — ^being seasoned to 
 remarks of that sort from giddy tenants. The 
 laundress is a true skeptic. She does not believe in 
 married couples in the Inn — ^this land of ephemeral 
 affections — doesn't approve of them. I knew a 
 sensitive fellow who had his marriage certificate 
 framed and hung up in the sitting room. 
 
 At four o'clock Arnold and Clarissa came in, 
 
54 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Mrs. Neaves had just arrived. She was in a state 
 of much disorder, as a protest against Clarissa. 
 There was a warm, sour smell of dishwater; a dust- 
 pan half full of flue tripped Arnold up on the 
 threshold. 
 
 " This is my bedroom," he said to Clarissa. 
 " And that is my sitting room. And here's a little 
 den for Sol — ^he's allowed to have bones there — 
 and there's the kitchen." 
 
 " Oh! that's the kitchen." 
 
 Clarissa looked in and Mrs. Neaves looked up. 
 
 " I'll go and take my hat off," the girl said sud- 
 denly, slipping in at the open bedroom door — it was 
 exactly opposite the kitchen. 
 
 Arnold went into the sitting room at the end of 
 the passage. There was a cupboard. He used it 
 as a hanging closet. At the back of this cupboard 
 there was a tiny window which looked into the 
 kitchen. The sets are full of oddities, surprises like 
 that; windows, ledges, steps, in the most unlikely 
 places. 
 
 Some sets have a dunscope. It is a little grat- 
 ing, opening out of a cupboard in the passage. 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 55 
 
 You steal into the cupboard, shut the door, and peep 
 onto the staircase. The same idea is carried out in 
 places where polite people live. In that case it is 
 a looking-glass which reflects into the dining room 
 the figure of the caller on the door-step. When 
 people have a good balance at the bank, and no par- 
 ticular skeleton, the idea is snobbish; when a man 
 in the Inn hasn't a penny it is pathetic. He looks 
 out, sees his washerwoman, the tax collector, the 
 man who lent him a fiver — and keeps the oak rigor- 
 ously sported. 
 
 The dunscope was often used by industrious stu- 
 dents, who looked out to see if the visitor would be 
 helpful to their studies or the reverse. 
 
 No doubt the man who put in that little window 
 at the back of Arnold's cupboard chuckled as he did 
 it — recognizing that it also had dramatic possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 Where was I? Oh! Arnold was changing his 
 coat. As he felt for the loop at the neck, he heard 
 someone say softly — it was a whisper of terrified 
 recognition : 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
56 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Then he heard another voice, which seemed to 
 come thickly through layers of flesh. 
 
 " Law ! Then it reely is you, Clara." 
 
 That was all. But you'll admit that the square, 
 dusty window at the back of the cupboard had justi- 
 fied its existence — doubtless not for the first time, if 
 the paneled walls had been capable of crying out. 
 
 Arnold put his eye cautiously to that dim pane of 
 glass. He saw Clarissa in her spring finery; dainty, 
 fresh, from the jaunty little lace hat, with the trem- 
 bling cornflowers, which was perched on h6r elabo- 
 rately dressed hair, to the pointed, shiny shoe stick- 
 ing out from the frill of her skirt. He saw her 
 beautiful, classic face; her blue eyes, a trifle fright- 
 ened and guilty and disgusted, but not in the least 
 affectionate. He saw her frown and make a warn- 
 ing movement with her gloved fingers and jerk her 
 head toward the sitting room. 
 
 Mrs. Neaves had her dirty hands on her spread 
 hips; her dreadful working dress of brownish-gray 
 wool was slopped with dish water and patched with 
 grease. It had parted from its lining under the 
 arms, at the waist, at the back — everywhere, as her 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 57 
 
 exuberant rolls of flesh broke through. She wasn't 
 a woman; she was an unsavory bundle of rags which 
 you would take gingerly by one corner and pitch 
 onto a dust heap. And she was Clarissa's mother. 
 The likeness was unmistakable, even if he had not 
 heard the girl's quick, frightened word, which gave 
 away the situation. He understood now the un- 
 canny attraction which had lately impelled him to 
 observe Mrs. Neaves. The two pairs of blue eyes, 
 one looking out from a delicate frame of chalk, the 
 other from a shiny band of perspiration, were the 
 same. One pair a little bleared by gin, by labor 
 and years — ^but that was the only difference. 
 
 He didn't catch the rest of their conversation; he 
 did not want to. He watched them; their gestures 
 (Clarissa's tragic, the mother's amazed) were 
 enough. He sneaked away from the cupboard at 
 last and sat down by the window. Sol, understand- 
 ing, put his damp nose into his master's loosely 
 doubled palm. His brown eyes said wistfully, " I 
 could have told you so. Why want a woman? 
 Isn't my devotion enough ? " 
 
 Arnold wasn't angry with Clarissa, wasn't con- 
 
S8 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 temptuous of her. He didn't see the humor of the 
 situation, nor the degradation of it. He didn't 
 want to put on his hat and get out of the place, leav- 
 ing the women to squabble over him as they liked. 
 He had none of the sensations that I should have 
 had, that you would have had if you were a man. 
 I know your womanly sensations; boiling wrath and 
 contempt for Clarissa, mingled with intense sym- 
 pathy and a little irritation with her for being fool 
 enough to give away everything by that one nervous 
 word. 
 
 He felt, as every sensible man would, that it was 
 not her fault; the poor girl could not help having a 
 dirty trull of a mother. He rather admired her for 
 her independence. He saw the whole thing; the 
 natural transition from Clara Neaves to Clarissa 
 Eve, the genteel tastes instilled by the board school 
 and kept up by the dainty dressing insisted on by the 
 bar. Two rooms in North Street ofif Theobalds 
 Road, gin and onions for supper, fist fights with 
 other lady lodgers on the smallest pretext, frequent 
 black eyes, noisy troops of dirty children — all the 
 things which were part of her mother's daily life — 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 59 
 
 would speedily become intolerable to the daughter. 
 He thought it very creditable in Clarissa to have 
 thrown the old woman overboard. And he sat and 
 waited patiently for Clarissa to come in, stroking 
 the deerhound's long head and giving affectionate 
 looks back to those sad, brown eyes. Clarissa en- 
 tered. Almost immediately behind her came Mrs. 
 Neaves with the tray. Arnold pulled the de-er- 
 hound's ears rather nervously and looked at the two 
 women. Clarissa was as cool as an ice pail; she 
 seemed to sit a little more upright than usual, seemed 
 to display her left hand with the engagement ring 
 blazing on it — nothing more. The way in which 
 she said : 
 
 " Thank you. I shall want a little more milk," 
 to her mother, was superb. 
 
 Mrs. Neaves had made no attempt to dress for 
 the occasion; she hadn't even taken off the sacking 
 apron which was strained tightly across her big 
 waist; her down-at-heel shoes went flip-flap as she 
 crossed the room. Both Arnold and Clarissa could 
 see, as the hem of the skirt kicked up, a circle of dis- 
 colored skin where the stocking was torn. But 
 
6o MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Clarissa's face remained cold and unmoved, like the 
 cameo, as usual. Her expression rarely altered. 
 She was the most apathetic, the most impenetrable- 
 looking girl in the world. Her cheeks had never 
 flushed and her eye had never faltered when men in 
 the bar made doubtful remarks; she never flushed 
 nor faltered now, with her poor, degraded old 
 mother's bare heel under her eyes. 
 
 " You needn't wait, Mrs. Neaves," said Arnold, 
 as Clarissa, with a charming young-matron air, be- 
 gan to pour out tea. 
 
 Then he remembered that he hadn't paid her, and 
 feeling very uncomfortable he put his hand in his 
 pocket, brought out a loose heap of gold and silver, 
 and dropped eight shillings in the moist palm. He 
 hated to pay her before her daughter. But he hesi- 
 tated at going outside the door with her and doing 
 it there, for fear Clarissa should take fright and 
 think he had found out. But Clarissa never lifted 
 her white lids. She only said, with an airy laugh 
 and the milk jug poised affectedly from her 'dainty 
 wrist with the jangling bangle, " Milk ? " 
 
 " Thank you, sir." 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 6i 
 
 Mrs. Neaves bent her head to count the shillings 
 and he saw again the line of pure, fair flesh below 
 the collar of her bodice. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, sir. Good-afternoon, miss." 
 
 She scuttled away. Clarissa mumbled a very- 
 haughty and patronizing " Good-aiternoon." 
 
 Of course Arnold knew that he must do some- 
 thing. He couldn't have his wife's mother work- 
 ing in the Inn. She must be provided for. He 
 thought of many things; a cottage in the country, a 
 little business — something genteel in the sweetstuff 
 and tobacco way, an almshouse, a home for in- 
 curables. 
 
 " For she is incurable," he remarked next day. 
 " She was as drunk as Chloe for three days running 
 last week. I wouldn't have Clarissa know I knew 
 for a fortune. I wouldn't hurt a fly if I could help 
 it, Groome. But if someone would take Mrs. 
 Neaves out in a pleasure boat on Sunday, or for an 
 excursion down to Southend, or — you know acci- 
 dents do happen. Don't you think you might take 
 her down to Epping Forest and lose her? Or Re- 
 gent's Canal with a brick round her ^" 
 
62 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " Don't be a fool. There's only one way out, and 
 that is to give up Clarissa. A girl who would treat 
 her mother like that " 
 
 " If I had a mother like that I'd choke her," he 
 said violently. 
 
 Then, cooling down, he added, digging the ash 
 out of his pipe with a scrooping scrape of the 
 pocket knife : 
 
 " The thing would be a country cottage. When 
 people get old, nature is soothing to them. She 
 could keep a pig and a few hens." 
 
 " She wouldn't stay there a week. You are mak- 
 ing a tremendous trouble out of a trifle. Ask her. 
 Find out what she wants and give it her." 
 
 " That's not a bad idea. I never thought 
 of it." 
 
 He went back to his set. Mrs. Neaves was mak- 
 ing his bed. She was looking very heavy after her 
 three-days' indulgence. Her black eye had reached 
 the green-and-purple stage. It was a lovely color 
 study. Arnold, who was a kind-hearted little chap, 
 felt sorry for her. Perhaps it was grief that had 
 made her get drunk. He sat down on the window 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 6^ 
 
 ledge and stared at her thoughtfully as she doubled 
 down to tuck in the blanket. 
 
 " What do you think of doing when you get 
 old?" he asked carelessly. "Charring is hard 
 work, I should say." 
 
 She stopped bed-making, put her hands on her 
 hips, — it was her favorite conversational attitude, — 
 and looked at him plaintively. 
 
 " The workus, I s'pose," she said tersely. 
 " Now, if I could get that five 'underd pound the 
 perlice is ofiferin', it's visitin' yer I'd be, an' not doin' 
 yer dirty work." 
 
 "Five hundred pounds?" 
 
 " Five 'underd pound. Arf that 'ud make a lady 
 of me. I was a lady born and bred; my father 'ad 
 a jeweler's business in the Strand. But we none of 
 us knows what we may come to. Five 'underd 
 pound for information as 'uU lead to the conviction 
 of " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know. The Hackney Wick mur- 
 derer. But you'll never get him. He committed 
 suicide, there's very little doubt about that." 
 
 " Aint there, now ? The mean 'ound ! And five 
 
64 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 'underd pound 'angin' on it — which would 'a' bin a 
 godsend to many a poor person. To think of 'im 
 a-skulkin' off in that 'ole-and-corner way, with five 
 'underd pound on 'im." 
 
 " What would you like to set you up in life, sup- 
 posing you had the chance of choosing?" Arnold 
 persisted. 
 
 She thought a little. Then she said longingly: 
 
 " There's a nice shirt-and-coUar business goin' 
 cheap in the Lane — Leather Lane. The laidy's got 
 a young family and can't see to the laundry. Fifty 
 pound 'ud buy it. An' I'm used to clear starchin'." 
 
 Arnold was delighted at being let off so lightly. 
 He said, trying hard to smooth the complacent grin 
 from his face, and lying glibly, as we all can in 
 emergency : 
 
 " I've always had a great regard for you, Mrs. 
 Neaves. You've done my work well, and you've 
 been very good to Sol. I'm going to be married 
 shortly, as I told you " 
 
 "Yes, sir. And how's the young lady, sir? if I 
 make so bold." 
 
 " The young lady is very well, thank you," he 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 65 
 
 returned with hurried stiffness. " I should like to 
 see you settled in a comfortable little business of 
 your own before I leave the Inn. And if fifty 
 pounds will buy the shirt-and-collar business, I shall 
 be very pleased to make you a present of it." 
 
 When she had a little recovered from her aston- 
 ishment, she gasped out ; 
 
 " Thank you, sir, thank you kindly, I'm sure. I'll 
 do the same for you some day; one good turn de- 
 serves another, don't it? An' I'll be proud to do 
 your collars and cuffs for sixpence a dozen; the 
 usual price bein' a shillin'." 
 
 That night Arnold went down to Clapham in the 
 best of spirits. As he put it to himself trium- 
 phantly, he had saved a couple of hundred pounds 
 and more, for he had quite reckoned on ten shillings 
 a week at least, and these drunken old women live 
 forever. Clarissa was on the platform. She ran 
 up to him, through the hustle of weary-looking City 
 men with tall hats and evening newspapers. 
 
 " Sol's gone ! " she burst out hysterically. " I 
 took him for a run on the Common. I let him off 
 the lead when we got to the water — ^you always told 
 
66 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 me to. And I — I missed him. They run so fast, 
 those deerhounds, don't they ? There were a couple 
 of roughs a little way back. I heard them say what 
 a beauty he was." 
 
 You may imagine what a blow this was to Ar- 
 nold; Sol was a great deal more to him than 
 Clarissa was. Clarissa had never been a woman; 
 she was a barmaid at first and a pretty face after- 
 ward. But Sol had been his companion for ten 
 years. Sol had saved his life. All the salt was off 
 his palate; his daily life was dull, without savor. 
 
 He left off going to Clapham; Clarissa must have 
 had a dull time. Whenever she hinted at marriage, 
 he put her off peevishly. 
 
 " She never cared for Sol," he said sadly. " She 
 wanted to chain him up. Women haven't got 
 brains enough to appreciate a good dog." 
 
 He was very miserable. He hadn't even got Mrs. 
 Neaves to bully and to study. She was settled in 
 the Lane and deep in the shirt-and-collar business. 
 His new laundress helped herself to the whisky and 
 took away his loaves of bread and his rolls of fresh 
 butter. 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 67 
 
 Of course he kept in touch with Clarissa, wrote 
 her poUte letters, and went down to Clapham occa- 
 sionally. One Sunday afternoon he was walking 
 across the Common. He went to Clapham 
 partly by omnibus and partly on his legs; 
 he no longer flustered to catch a particular 
 train. 
 
 Do you know these suburban commons? They 
 are most melancholy. One feels really grateful to 
 the jerry builder for creeping up so closely to them, 
 as closely as he dares. No doubt they are lungs for 
 the people — but that is not a particularly interest- 
 ing point. The people! They play cricket on the 
 Common, leaving it bare in patches, like a giant 
 head beset by a parasite. They throw paper on it; 
 screws of paper, fluttering ends of paper, strips of 
 orange peel, empty bottles. The Common! It is 
 sacred to the people. No builder will ever be al- 
 lowed to devirginate it. Arnold was fond of talk- 
 ing like that. He used to swell out proudly when 
 he said it, as if that stretch of sad brown grass and 
 cracking earth belonged to him. The sanctity of 
 the people! Preserve me from it! Give me the 
 
68 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 stately gardens of the Inn, with elms, rooks, the ter- 
 race, and memories. 
 
 Well, he was walking on the Common, sorrow- 
 fully and slowly, not caring a rush whether Clarissa 
 was waiting for him or not. Suddenly he saw a 
 long, grayish-blue something shoot straight toward 
 him like an arrow. Have you seen these deer- 
 hounds run ? Head down, paws out — it is a charm- 
 ing sight. Arnold very nearly infected me with 
 his enthusiasm for Sol. Yes, it was Sol. He kept 
 bounding shoulder high on his master, breaking 
 over him like a wave. Sol ! Arnold — soft-hearted 
 little chap — ^never denied that a lump came into his 
 throat and left him standing dizzy on the Common. 
 But he was collected enough to grab Sol's- collar — 
 not at all a necessary precaution, as he ought to have 
 known. The beast would have gone straight for the 
 throat of anyone who tried to take him from the 
 master that he had just found. 
 
 A rough-looking customer with a hoarse> voice 
 and a voluminous yellow neckerchief came up and 
 began to be abusive, in the most picturesque lan- 
 guage 
 
ARNOLD'S LAUNDRESS. 69 
 
 Have you guessed? Clarissa sold Sol. Sold 
 him for five pounds, with which to bribe her mother. 
 Mrs. Neaves, who was most accommodating, took 
 it with the shirt-and-collar business. Clarissa's 
 beauty brought the old woman luck. 
 
 " A good-looking gal she wur," said the thick- 
 voiced man. " Brought him down to my place in 
 the Borough and I give 'er five quid." 
 
 Arnold was fifty-five pounds and a wife to the 
 bad. But he got his dog back. 
 
 Clarissa! She hadn't wasted her time. When 
 Arnold threw her over she promptly married an- 
 other fellow — a City man; in the wholesale fruit 
 way, I fancy. He had lodged next door to the 
 widow lady, and those back gardens offer oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 Arnold went on a six-weeks' walking tour, for 
 Sol's sake. 
 
 " They haven't been giving him half enough 
 exercise," he said indignantly. " These pure-bred 
 deerhounds get paralyzed in the hind legs if they 
 don't get enough exercise." 
 
WHY? 
 
 I SAID I would tell you the story of Adeline. 
 You remember that she saw Orion fling himself out 
 of the window. 
 
 Her story is in two parts. You will wonder how 
 it is that I know both sides. It is because I met 
 James Pray and got to know him very well soon 
 after his wife died. He put Betty to boarding- 
 school, let the cottage furnished, came back to Lon- 
 don, and lived in the Inn until he married again. 
 
 His second wife is an artist too — a very sensible, 
 capable woman — with mediocre pictures on the line 
 and accounts of her artistic At Homes in the lead- 
 ing fashion papers. She keeps Pray well in hand. 
 He is a successful portrait painter — of the third- 
 rate sort. They live in Kensington. I go to see 
 them sometimes. 
 
 When first he came to the Inn he used to talk to 
 me incessantly of Adeline. Oddly enough, it was 
 Murphy's old set he took. He talked to me about 
 
72 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Adeline. I used to listen — with my tongue in my 
 cheek. Sometimes it really seemed a little uncanny, 
 and I had half a mind to tell him ever)^hing, and so 
 quiet him. But Adeline, poor dead girl, was always 
 begging me not to. He was forever asking — why, 
 why? I could have told him. The very room 
 could have told him. We sat and smoked and drank 
 and talked — at least he talked — in that paneled 
 room which some former fool had grained to imitate 
 maple. The ghosts of Murphy and of Adeline — a 
 guilty pair — seemed to glide between us and stand 
 shadowy in the clouds of tobacco as poor Pray 
 asked — why ? 
 
 The very wood on the walls could have told him, 
 the very oak, that black, discreet door which holds 
 so much, was pregnant with an answer to that 
 mournful query of his — why, why ? 
 
 He talked of Adeline. He painted a nervous, 
 evanescent creature, full of moods and always plain- 
 tively tender. It was not the Adeline I remembered. 
 She had been fine, full, and strong, with steady gray 
 eyes and skin of ivory, all health and life and fun 
 and witchery and wicked daring. Though I never 
 
WHY? 73 
 
 saw so very much of her. She was a lady, you 
 understand; Murphy usually sported his oak when 
 she came. He only asked me once to dinner, and I 
 thought her most charming. / 
 
 " Pray. — ^Adeline, wife of James Pray." 
 
 " If anything should happen, if I should die first," 
 she said — " and you needn't frown, because one of 
 us must be first — ^you'll put that in the paper." 
 
 She spoke dreamily, staring in front of her at 
 the driving rain and the dripping trees. 
 
 " Rubbish ! " Pray said briefly. 
 
 " Of course. To announce one's death, or birth, 
 or marriage in the paper is to avow one's self 
 commonplace — to brand one's self commonplace 
 through all eternity, the eternity of the penny 
 press." 
 
 She laughed and added wistfully: 
 
 "I'd love to be commonplace, just for once. It 
 wouldn't go against your convictions to let me be 
 commonplace when I was dead. If one does die! 
 I shall come back every spring. When everything 
 is bursting with life, how could I be expected to lie 
 
74 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 still? Ah! I wish you were not so uncomfortably 
 original. I'd like to be like other people." 
 
 " Other people being — the majority, that is " 
 
 " Fools ! Yes, I know. I agree. I'm a good 
 wife. I take my color from my husband. But I 
 do not think you sufficiently appreciate the tremen- 
 dous importance of fools. They rule the world, 
 with a very few exceptions. There is one born 
 every minute. Think of that ! And yet you ignore 
 this vast army. It is created for the comfort, the 
 convenience of the occasional wise man. But you 
 are not wise. You do nothing for the fool. You 
 won't even paint pictures for him to hang on his 
 wall ; that is why we are so hard up. The fool does 
 not want your mystic, impressionist pictures; they 
 worry and irritate him. Never mind. Be sure 
 you put it in the paper — Adeline, wife of James 
 Pray." 
 
 " Jump up from the grass," he cried sharply — the 
 sharpness with which husbands of some years' stand- 
 ing veil concern — "and don't talk nonsense. 
 You'll take cold." 
 
 " Pooh! What is health to a new spring gown? 
 
WHYf 75 
 
 That sounds like a patent-medicine query — in- 
 verted," she said idly. 
 
 They had been to the river to gather flowering 
 rushes, and had been caught in a shower. It was 
 a wet summer, one of those years when you hear the 
 continual soft rushing of rain and when the plants 
 in the garden go to luxuriant leaf. She sat under 
 the tree. She had taken off her hat and was hold- 
 ing it carefully in her lap. She had pulled the skirt 
 of her gown over her bodice and held it, lining out- 
 ward, round her head and shoulders. Her knees 
 were drawn to her chin, and her chin rested in the 
 scooped hollows of her hands. 
 
 " These queer colors that you like run dread- 
 fully," she complained. 
 
 " Why did you wear a new dress on a threaten- 
 ing afternoon ? " 
 
 " Because it is Bank Holiday. I have an in- 
 eradicable Bank Holiday instinct for new clothes 
 and an outing. This dress will be spoiled. I'd like 
 a navy-blue serge coat and skirt — ^you'd never per- 
 mit it. Blue serge — especially when it is touched 
 up with cardinal — sounds so safe, so sane; it seems 
 
76 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 to shout of all the good, thrifty, respectable 
 women who do their duty. Blue serge and a sailor 
 hat!" 
 
 James Pray looked down at her tenderly and 
 yet with a masculine intolerance of her non- 
 sense. 
 
 How is it that I know so much — the very details 
 of their looks and words? In after days — when 
 Adeline and Murphy were dead — Pray used to talk 
 of her by the hour, and bore me to death. 
 
 He looked down at her. His first painful impres- 
 sion was that she had grown very thin; he had not 
 noticed it before. However, this impression passed, 
 and he watched her with the ardent eye of an artist. 
 Her gray eyes stared out troublously, vaguely, from 
 the shelter of the great elm, at the heavy rain fall- 
 ing in the open. He loved her intensely. I expect 
 he loved her more, in his steady, level-headed way, 
 than she loved him. He never talked about it; 
 these women with so many words of love are very 
 often only words. 
 
 She must have been very tiresome, judging from 
 what he told me. She was always fondling him; a 
 
WHYf 77 
 
 man gets sick of that. He said that she seemed to 
 have a sort of agonized remorse in her tenderness. 
 I could have explained. 
 
 Suddenly the rain stopped, and a bar of yellow 
 broke the slaty sky. 
 
 "Come on," he said; "never mind the rushes." 
 
 " But I do mind." She picked up the bundle, 
 with its wide, delicate flowers and sword-like leaves, 
 and carried it against her breast, making the front 
 of her bodice dark with moisture. 
 
 As they went along in the watery sun/ she shiv- 
 ered. 
 
 " You've caught cold. I " 
 
 " Told me so. I haven't caught cold. But I 
 have saved from utter ruin the gown which took 
 you some pains to design." 
 
 Then she added, catching his loose hand in 
 hers: 
 
 " I only say stupid things. I get a little tired of 
 being different, that is all; no doubt other people 
 get just as tired of being the same." 
 
 They were in sight of their cottage gate. Three- 
 year-old Betty, their only child, was hanging over 
 
78 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 it, hauling a kitten round the middle. Adeline 
 pulled up in the shadow of the irregular hazel hedge. 
 
 "You promise?" 
 
 Her eyes were half mirthful, half tragic. 
 
 "Promise what?" 
 
 " How men forget ! To — put it in the paper." 
 
 He turned on her angrily. 
 
 " This is unlike you — even you. This is too 
 ridiculously, wickedly morbid." 
 
 " Isn't it? But — ^but you promise just the same." 
 
 " Yes, anything — if you'll go up at once and 
 change your shoes," he returned a little moodily, 
 and kissing her with habitual carelessness on the hot 
 lips she held up. 
 
 She ran through the gate. He heard her hum- 
 ming lightly as she went upstairs. He picked up 
 baby Betty with a sigh, and swung her on his back, 
 feeling grateful that she at least had no complex 
 emotions. A sugar-stick would bare her little 
 simple soul. 
 
 A week later Adeline died. The cold she caught 
 under the elms developed into pneumonia. She was 
 
IVHYf 79 
 
 a creature all nerves and no muscle. / know that 
 her conscience killed her. She was dead. Dead 
 in the June days, which had suddenly turned hot 
 and yellow. Dead ! lying rigid under the brooding 
 thatch eaves where the birds built. Lying cold and 
 unresponsive to birds, flowers, sun, love — all the 
 things which had moved her to hot, mournful pas- 
 sion. Almost her last words were, " Life has been 
 lovely, lovely." Then with a little haunting flicker 
 of anxiety, memory, and fear on that face which al- 
 ready seemed to belong to some other world, she 
 added faintly, " You'll put it in the paper ? " 
 
 James Pray, broken-hearted, sent ofif the notice. 
 It had been only a freak, of course; one of the whim- 
 sical, morbid ideas which she had in such plenty. 
 But it was sacred. It was such a hideously little 
 while since the afternoon under the elms. She had 
 looked so haggardly beautiful. He remembered 
 everything — ^^down to a green caterpillar which 
 crawled on her hair. 
 
 Next day he walked into the village and bought 
 a copy of the newspaper, and brought it home and 
 spread it out on the oak table in front of him. 
 
8o MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " 1 wonder why? " he said, in a voice choked by 
 tenderness, and then he went up to her. 
 
 Their bedroom, like the rest of the cottage, spoke 
 of the persistent struggle for individuality. The 
 bed was a tent, with curtains and canopy of brown 
 and white; old chintz the color of coffee which is 
 three parts milk. There was a patchwork quilt. 
 She had made it from sentiment, not industry. 
 There was the shine of oak and the twinkle of metal 
 about the furniture. The chairs had rush seats, and 
 had been collected, one by one, from other cottages. 
 
 He sat down and looked at the figure which was 
 stretched so quietly under the canopy of sad brown. 
 I try to picture him as he sat in that room with his 
 unconventional clothes — you know the sort of thing, 
 velvet coat, baggy knickerbockers, and streaming 
 ends of a vivid necktie — and rugged, simple face; 
 he might have been a man of a hundred years back. 
 He could have had no place in this whirling, strug- 
 gling nineteenth century, this common age. 
 
 The cuckoo was calling, with a voice much the 
 worse for wear, " Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuck-cuck- 
 cuckoo, cuckoo, Cuck. Cuck. He groaned, remem- 
 
WHY? 8i 
 
 'bering that she would never hear a word against the 
 cuckoo — ^that genus of birds who scorned dull rou- 
 tine and domesticity. She used to add a bit mourn- 
 fully, with one of those fierce sudden kisses whicK 
 had bothered him so at the time, and which he would 
 have given all his art for now, that a cuckoo sort of 
 woman would have suited him. She filled the 
 world — ^this dead, perplexing Adeline of his. 
 Would he ever be able to touch or hear, or speak, 
 or see without that tender, pensive ghost at his 
 side! 
 
 He looked about him as the cuckoo called. The 
 room was dear, so dear, from the days when Betty, 
 a funny, bald baby, had kicked and gurgled in that 
 queer oak cradle beside the bed. They had made 
 the child participate in their eccentricities from the 
 very start. She never had a perambulator, her 
 dolly was a grotesque, home-made one, her clothes 
 were made from mediaeval designs. 
 
 Dear! with so many common, precious details. 
 How many mornings had she sat before that shield- 
 shaped glass, and wound the silk of her long, pale 
 hair about her head ! That little drawer on the left 
 
82 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 was sacred to her ribbons — an end of rose was 
 hanging out. 
 
 And then he looked at her, going close to the 
 bed and stooping as if to caress her. But the dead 
 face tantalized him. The eternal, remorseful ten- 
 derness was strong on her lips of steel. There had 
 always been a sprig of rue in her love. Why ? that 
 maddening why — never to be answered. There had 
 been a locked chamber in her heart. 
 
 He turned away, not even kissing her brow. 
 This still, white woman on the bed was not his. He 
 and this soulless face were strangers. He felt her 
 more in the never-ceasing call of the bird, in tall 
 heads of lilies in the garden, and ephemeral patches 
 of Shirley poppies which she had sown in March, in 
 Betty's ringing shout as she darted like a humming- 
 bird across the grass. 
 
 The room became suddenly hateful; every cor- 
 ner, every picture on the wall was a pang. Her 
 gown — the delicate gown she had given her life 
 for — hung fresh on the nail. It seemed mutely to 
 hold her shape: in the sleeves, the folds across the 
 bosom, the short, round waist. 
 
WHYf 83 
 
 The sight of it was more than he could bear. 
 She had been so clever, so daring, so different. 
 Clever, not in a positive, productive way, — stupid 
 women could produce, — but she had thrown her 
 capacity about with royal lavishness; putting it into 
 everything she did, if it were only a pudding, or a 
 new border in the garden. 
 
 He had sweepingly deemed nearly every other 
 woman a fool. Yet she had simply died for her 
 finery. You couldn't have a meaner, a more frivo- 
 lous end. She was only Eve, like all the rest, 
 treasuring her apron of fig leaves. He blamed the 
 inanimate thing of lace and soft wool for every- 
 thing. He dragged it off the nail and trampled 
 on it. 
 
 He went into the garden, at the piteous request 
 of Betty, and played ball. She had on a pink frock, 
 the color of the ragged robins that bloomed in the 
 wood. He would on no account tolerate mourning, 
 but the pitying country woman who was their serv- 
 ant had tied a black ribbon on the child's flaxen 
 head. 
 
 Adeline had made that frock. Adeline had fer- 
 
84 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 reted out the stuff at the village shop and carried it 
 home in triumph, knowing he would be pleased. 
 Adeline ! Adeline ! He seemed to see her fleet white 
 fingers moving along the seams. 
 
 They played ball until bedtime. He sat beside 
 the cot in the dusk, a lonely, bereft man, until the 
 little one, who was mystified and tearful, fell asleep. 
 When he went downstairs the paper was still 
 spread out stiifiy on the oak table. He picked it 
 up and read again — the one paragraph on the whole 
 sheet. 
 
 " Adeline, wife of James Pray." 
 
 > a > • • 
 
 That very night Murphy and I and Carrie Dark 
 were dining in his rooms — that set which had 
 known Adeline, which later on was to know James 
 Pray. 
 
 Carrie was sixteen, a little girl in a sweet shop — 
 one of those shops where they put nothing but bil- 
 lows of silk and fondants in the window. 
 
 Murphy was middle-aged — with a wide margin. 
 I should have said fifty-five, but he only owned up 
 to forty. That was one of his contemptible tricks; 
 
WHY? 85 
 
 he was just like a woman. The things we love and 
 look for in a woman are contemptible in a man. 
 He was what I should call a pretty chap— all regu- 
 lar features, pink cheeks, and pouting lip. Men 
 disliked him, but he was a tremendous favorite with 
 women. His influence over them was quite un- 
 canny. 
 
 Carrie was nervous; she had never been in an Inn 
 before. She evidently considered Murphy, with 
 his stale stories of the aristocracy and his brag 
 about his elder brother's place in Kerry, very mag- 
 nificent. She wasn't a country girl, you see, and 
 consequently lacked the rustic stolidity which some- 
 times passes for dignity. She caught up the news- 
 paper while she waited for her fish, and when she 
 saw the notice of Adeline's death she gave a youth- 
 ful giggle. 
 
 " I shouldn't like to go through life with a name 
 like that," she said derisively, with a not over-clean 
 forefinger on that short word Pray. 
 
 Murphy was pouring sherry into her glass. The 
 waiter— we had ordered the dinner from across the , 
 way— came in. 
 
86 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " Like what ? " asked Murphy, smiling at her 
 paternally. 
 
 " Pray ! " She tossed her head and giggled 
 again, and then she read the notice aloud. 
 
 You should have seen Murphy's face! A strange 
 silence like a pall settled over the table; to me the 
 news seemed to creep round those silent walls which 
 had reflected Adeline's shadow so often. It was 
 the effect of Murphy's frozen expression. 
 
 But a man cannot live with a dead woman, espe- 
 cially when she belonged to someone else. I 
 touched Carrie's foot under the table. She was 
 too young and pretty for a fossil like Murphy. He 
 had snatched the paper from her and was reading 
 the notice for himself. 
 
 "Who was she?" demanded the girl, with the 
 freedom of her class toward a chance admirer. 
 
 "A lady I knew," Murphy told her curtly. 
 
 Carrie flushed. She resented the word — in these 
 days of universal ladyhood. She was afifronted. 
 She was wishing that she had gone straight home 
 from the shop to Battersea as usual, instead of being 
 taken in Murphy's toils at the corner of the Circus. 
 
WHYf 87 
 
 Her round, childish face grew sulky. The evening 
 was quite spoiled by this stupid dead woman. 
 
 Murphy began to eat savagely, talking to me in 
 a jerky way as he did so. 
 
 " Dead ! " he said in a dazed way, with his jaws 
 working nervously as he swallowed some bread. 
 " Why, she was quite a young woman; she couldn't 
 have been thirty " 
 
 " Thirty ! " echoed Carrie, in a scornful under- 
 tone. 
 
 " We dined here, five years ago — you were of the 
 party. We cooked the dinner ourselves; she 
 thought it such fun. The soup was salt — ^you 
 must remember." 
 
 His voice was so anxious that I said soothingly, 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " What a handsome girl she was ! " he continued 
 with sad enthusiasm. " It was the night of the 
 Duke of York's wedding." 
 
 " The Duke of York's wedding ? " cried irrepress- 
 ible Carrie. " That is ever so long ago. We had 
 a holiday from school. My mother went to see the 
 illuminations and got her pocket picked." 
 
88 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 She looked at Murphy with a new expression. 
 He had been doing exactly the same thing five years 
 before — only the girl was different. He must be 
 quite old. She had not thought of that before. 
 She had only considered that he was a gentleman. 
 She felt depressed by the antique flavor of her com- 
 pany. I could see that she was thinking fervently 
 that in future she would go straight back to Bat- 
 tersea. 
 
 " We were a jolly party," Murphy went on. 
 " What a row Elizabeth made next day ! " 
 
 "Elizabeth?" 
 
 " Married sister. Lived in Colville Gardens. 
 Husband a parson — ^but a decent fellow. I used to 
 visit them — of course they did not suspect — ^Adeline 
 was clever, but she got found out like all the clever 
 ones. There was a deuce of a row. Soon after she 
 married Pray. Neither of them had a penny. 
 Went and starved in the country. I could not have 
 married her. It was out of the question altogether. 
 She did not expect it. How fond she was of me ! " 
 He smiled, more with vanity than regret. 
 
 " You couldn't marry her, of course," I echoed, 
 
WHY? 89 
 
 just for the sake of saying something. " She 
 wouldn't expect it." 
 
 " She said that when she died she'd let me know," 
 Murphy went on, looking a little scared. He was 
 superstitious, like all Irishmen. " It was in Colville 
 Square, the night before her wedding. She crept 
 out after dinner. I can see her now in her light 
 gown with her big arms bare to the elbow and a 
 thin chain round her neck. I remember that we 
 stayed out a long time, walking round and round 
 the railings. It was so late that I couldn't get a 
 cab back to the Inn and had to walk all the way. 
 She looked so queer. She said she'd " 
 
 " Haunt you," I finished, sick of his maunder- 
 ings. " Well, she made sure of poor Pray. I'm 
 sorry for that fellow. He put in the notice, of 
 course — for you to see. She did the most that was 
 possible in these practical days." 
 
 He did not seem to hear me. 
 
 "Dead!" he went on, in a monologue sort of 
 way, while Carrie, her fork halfway to her mouth 
 and her elbows on the table, stared at him scorn- 
 fully. " Her eyes ! Gray, Irish eyes. She was 
 
90 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 an Irish girl — the Mahoneys of Roscommon. You 
 remember the dinner? She sat where you are now 
 — facing the cupboard." 
 
 A long, clear note came from the set over the 
 way, with the gay rattle of piano keys beneath quick 
 fingers. 
 
 " How well that girl of Martin's sings ! " I said 
 irrelevantly. 
 
 " I saw her once afterward. She was with her 
 husband; it must have been Pray, a long-faced, 
 badly dressed chap. I was with Bob Piety, at the 
 Aquarium. I suppose they had come up from the 
 countryj determined on amusement; married people 
 have their moments of ennui. They looked out of 
 place. Adeline was so changed that I was not sure 
 of her. Her good looks were gone and her mouth 
 was harsh. She looked at me; I looked at her. I 
 turned to Bob and said in a loud voice : 
 
 "'Auntie!' 
 
 " That used to h€ my pet name for her. She 
 turned to her husband and returned very clearly : 
 
 " ' Yes.' 
 
 " That was all. We both made our explanations 
 
WHYf 91 
 
 — I to Bob, she to her husband. I didn't see her 
 again that evening; I've never seen her since. 
 Dead!" 
 
 He got up hurriedly and looked round for his hat. 
 
 " See after her," he said huskily, jerking his head 
 toward pretty Carrie, " I can't — to-night. Take 
 her to a music hall — anything." 
 
 He went away abruptly, leaving me a fair field. 
 He was bent as he walked. He looked too old for 
 the Inn; we don't want graybeards. 
 
 "What's up with him?" demanded Carrie. 
 
 " Liver. Have some more champagne ? " 
 
 I caught up the bottle. 
 
 " No, thanks." She snatched her glass away 
 and the wine slobbered out on the cloth. 
 
 " Who was she ? " she persisted. " I don't care 
 a brass farthing. She'd be as old as the hills, if 
 she was alive. But — who was she? " 
 
 " A lady that he knew years ago." 
 
 " Lady ! " sneered Cafrie, spitefully, with a nasty, 
 upward curl of her ripe lip. " Why, she was the 
 same as me — he said so." 
 
 " She was a woman, my dear; that's all. Have 
 
92 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 you really finished? Then where shall we 
 go?" 
 
 She put on her hat in a hurry and cast decisively 
 for a popular contortionist at one of the halls — I 
 think it was the Royal. 
 
 " They say he twists himself about something 
 awful," she added, with a little grimace and a glee- 
 ful shudder. 
 
 We clattered down the stairs. The oak thudded 
 heavily behind our quick feet, as if it had regrets for 
 Adeline. 
 
Jimmy. 
 
 His full name was James Adolphus Carol, but 
 everyone called him just Jimmy. He was Jimmy 
 to all of us in the Inn; Jimmy to the music-hall 
 managers and music-hall artistes. 
 
 He was a little spindle-shanked fellow, like a 
 jockey, but a bit too gentlemanly. He had bulg- 
 ing, gray-blue eyes and a sunken, heavily freckled 
 face. His top hat was always very sleek and a little 
 on one side, but the rest of his dress fell short of 
 perfect finish. I've seen him with his shoe tied up 
 with string and his collar pinned together in front 
 because he'd lost his last stud. 
 
 He was dreadfully hard up, but that is nothing. 
 We resent a prosperous fellow. I don't fancy he 
 ever had any regular meals. Men stood him drinks, 
 and he had a trick of turning up at your rooms about 
 midnight, talking brilliantly and wildly for about 
 half an hour, and then saying carelessly, " Have you 
 got any bread and butter knocking about, old 
 
 93 
 
94 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 man ? " Fellows who didn't know him very well 
 would suggest a square meal — a chop, or a sausage 
 and mashed at Mimm's, just outside the gates — 
 then Jimmy would be affronted. 
 
 He was always being dunned and pretended that 
 he liked it. Perhaps he really did. He was full of 
 schemes for evading duns. He was an authority on 
 judgment-summonses, pawnshops, shooting the 
 moon, and obtaining credit. He would hold forth 
 eloquently on the delights of being dunned. I for- 
 get the particular points he made, but they were 
 very forcible — coming from him. 
 
 He used to borrow unblushingly, but his gift in 
 that way was restricted — very few of us had any 
 money to lend. 
 
 He had the finest private collection of pawn- 
 tickets that I ever saw. His pockets were full of 
 them. I remembered that he once went to a swell 
 party — some musical affair. He was very polite, 
 very strict on questions of etiquette. The day after 
 the party he made the usual formal call at the house 
 — it was some big place near Sloane Street. His 
 hat was very sleek, he had a frock coat, a flower in 
 
JIMMY. 95 
 
 his button-hole— everything complete. He handed 
 his card to the footman, and as he did so a couple 
 of pawn-tickets fluttered gently to the door-mat. 
 The flunkey stooped, picked them up, and handed 
 them gracefully back to Jimmy — who took them 
 with equal grace. He told me the whole perform- 
 ance was superb — in perfect style. It was done 
 without a word, without a smile. They did not dare 
 look at each other. 
 
 Jimmy's rooms were untidy and his style of 
 housekeeping not to be commended. He never kept 
 a laundress for very long — ^because he never paid 
 her. Yet the women loved him and worked for 
 nothing so long as they could. He used to chaff 
 them lightly, explain the state of his exchequer. 
 He took a personal interest in their family life. 
 They told him their troubles; drunken husbands, 
 big families, pugnacious lodgers on the next land- 
 ing, the hard heart of the landlords when they came 
 upstairs with their black books for the weekly rent. 
 
 When Mrs. Morey was ill Jimmy went down 
 Green Street to see her, with a couple of French 
 novels — translations — under his arm. She had 
 
96 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 a gathering on her ankle which she showed him 
 with pride, in spite of his courteous protest, but she 
 declined the offer of the novels. 
 
 " You're very kind, sir," she said. " But I don't 
 suppose as your books 'ud suit me. I was brought 
 up very particular. I like something good — ^the 
 Bible or the Common Prayer or the Sunday news- 
 paper. I makes my 'usband read ' When the wicked 
 man turneth,' in the 'opes it '11 be a lesson to 'im. 
 No, there's nothin' as the doctor's ordered, thank 
 you, sir — except to keep my strength up." 
 
 She took Jimmy's last sixpence gratefully, and 
 asked him to stop and share the hjllf-quartern of gin 
 . which her youngest little girl but three ran to the 
 public house to fetch. Very likely he stayed; it 
 would have been just like him. He was a crank. 
 Fancy a man offering Paul de Kock and Flaubert to 
 an Inn of Court laundress! He paid for the gin, 
 but he lightly ignored the two months' money he 
 owed her, and she never reminded him. 
 
 His sitting room was full of books, on open 
 shelves and thick with dust. They were the admi- 
 ration of Mrs. Morey. 
 
JIMMY. 97 
 
 " I thought Mr. Slobkins 'ad a lot," she said, 
 " 'im as I worked for in Furnival's. 'E's a magis- 
 trate or a clerk or somethin' o' that sort, yer see. 
 But, lor, this lot bangs 'is." 
 
 Stanch Mrs. Moray! She was a little roly-poly 
 kind of woman, with eyes like ripe sloes, and she 
 worked for Jimmy for six months without ever re- 
 ceiving a penny. 
 
 " My 'usband 'ud kill me if 'e knowed," she said, 
 smiling plaintively as she scrubbed the boards. 
 " 'E's bin out o' work for nearly a year. It's hard 
 work for me to fill the kids' mouths and keep 'im in 
 grub and pocket money. But 'e's a good 'usband 
 when 'e aint drunk. I wish 'e 'ad more luck, that's 
 all." 
 
 " What is his trade ? " asked Jimmy languidly — 
 he was always languid until the gas lamps were 
 lighted. 
 
 The little woman tossed her head. 
 
 " My 'usband aint that sort, jest able to do one 
 kind o' work. 'E can turn 'is 'and to anythin'. 
 But I wish 'e wasn't quite so partikler." 
 
 She came to me privately when Jimmy's health 
 
98 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 began to break. She said that he didn't eat enough 
 to keep a sparrow alive, that it worried her awful, 
 that she feared he was going off in a galloping 
 decline. 
 
 " It's jest the way my niece's 'usband was took," 
 she concluded. " 'E used to drive a vegetable cart, 
 and 'e's layin' in the Brompton Simmetery. As 
 nice a young man as ever you see, and played the 
 flute bootiful. 'E was took bad in May and dead 
 in December. He was indeed, and 'er with six little 
 children — all babies, as you might say, and another 
 on the road — if you'll excuse my free way of 
 speakin'. My niece she's got the flute under a glass 
 case in the parlor window, for the mountings is 
 silver." 
 
 But Jimmy was too far gone for my care, or any- 
 one else's. No doubt he had been consumptive for 
 years, and a constitution kept up principally on 
 " nipping " never thrives. There was a doctor liv- 
 ing in the Inn at the time — a very good fellow. 
 He visited him and gave him medicine — don't be- 
 lieve Jimmy ever took it. His cough got gradually 
 worse and his face fell in more than ever. But he 
 
JIMMY. 99 
 
 was always full of jokes, rather grim jokes some- 
 times. I've seen girls shiver and scream with 
 laughter at the same time. He went to a music 
 hall every night, spending most of his time at the 
 bar. He called the artistes by their Christian 
 names — Queenie this, or Dan the other. The 
 Queenies gave him their full confidence. Big, 
 flashy girls, these music-hall girls, with free, not 
 over-clean tongues and very good hearts. They 
 would frighten you, but they don't mean any harm. 
 Jimmy used to write songs for them — which they 
 very seldom bought. He did both words and music. 
 His airs were most melodious and " catchy," but 
 his words were never quite vulgar enough. None 
 of his songs " caught on." 
 
 I never knew a man with such a marvelous ear. 
 If he went to a comic opera he would come straight 
 home and play all the lyrics without a false note. 
 He played Chopin by ear; he used to sit for hours 
 extemporizing the most weird, fascinating, tantaliz- 
 ing music. He ought to have made his fortune. 
 Instead of that, he went into consumption and died 
 — for want of proper food. 
 
loo MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Now and again someone sent him a postal order. 
 He never said who. He was a bit of a mystery. 
 They were only small orders — under a pound, as if 
 they had been scraped by some woman out of the 
 housekeeping money, or her dress allowance. But 
 I never knew. The last one he had was for fifteen 
 shillings. He was on his last legs. The steward 
 of the Inn, who was most forbearing — ^because it 
 was Jimmy — had sent a deprecating note in to say 
 that he must distrain if something, ever so little, was 
 not paid on account of the year's rent. Mrs. Morey 
 had left him at last. Even his top hat was rough. 
 Yet what do you think he did? Went out and 
 bought a bath sponge for fifteen and six, promising 
 to leave the sixpence next time he was passing. 
 
 I met him on the stairs and he displayed the 
 sponge proudly. 
 
 " Only fifteen and six! Dirt cheap, isn't it? It 
 would be unpardonable extravagance to let a chance 
 like that slip, wouldn't it? And I wanted a bath 
 sponge; the one I've got isn't nearly big enough. 
 Come up to my place. We'll put it in water. Just 
 you watch how it swells ! " 
 
JIMMY. loi 
 
 You may say bluntly that he was a fool. Of 
 course he was. But it is the fools and the failures 
 who win our hearts. 
 
 We went up to his rooms. He put the sponge to 
 swell and sat down to the piano and forgot all about 
 it. I should like to hear Jimmy play music-hall 
 songs again; nothing was ever so charming. He 
 knew them all. He used to sing the refrains in a 
 thin, shrill voice, accompanying in his own wonder- 
 ful way. Everything he touched became classic. 
 
 A week after he bought the sponge Harrowsmith 
 — he was the young doctor — ordered him out of 
 London. Fortunately I made a haul about that 
 time, so we went together to Farthings Farm, as 
 I'll tell you later on. 
 
 Farthings Farm was the last nail in Jimmy's 
 coffin. He never spent a more miserable month. 
 He would be morose, half asleep all day. But at 
 dusk, just when the theaters would be opening and 
 the racket in the Strand at its flow, he'd be restless. 
 All the sweet smells and sounds of the farm were a 
 poor enough substitute. The country finished him. 
 He was a pure Cockney. There is no half way with 
 
102 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 the Cockney; either he loves the country passion- 
 ately, or he hates it and chafes at it until it kills him. 
 Saints and criminals are made by the country; it 
 depends on how you take it. We hadn't been back 
 ten days before he broke a blood vessel and kept his 
 bed. What was to be done with him? He never 
 bothered. He believed in taking things easy. He 
 had a favorite axiom about never putting up your 
 umbrella until it rained — and ended by not having 
 an umbrella at all! He just drifted. He was dy- 
 ing. He hadn't a penny in the world; he was up to 
 his eyes in small debts. 
 
 " Pack him off to the hospital," advised Arnold 
 rather brutally. " Poor devil ! A fellow who 
 earns a fiver and lives on it until it's gone. I've no 
 sympathy with that sort of thing. The hospital's 
 the place for him. I'll pay the cab fare." 
 
 However, the rest of us decided to club together 
 and keep him going, first telling Arnold that he did 
 the invalid an injustice; Jimmy had never earned a 
 five-pound note, in a lump sum, in his life. Har- 
 rowsmith had told us privately that his case was 
 quite hopeless. We could pull along somehow. 
 
JIMMY. 103 
 
 Nutting, the steward, would wait a little longer for 
 his rent; when Jimmy was gone the piano alone 
 would pay that. One or other of us could look in; 
 Mrs. Morey must be got back. The only difficulty 
 was with Jimmy himself — he was so deuced proud. 
 
 A woman came to the rescue. Queenie La Belle 
 was a regular brick. She bought up all his songs. 
 Who but a woman would have thought of that? 
 She'd come in, all sham diamonds and jolly voice, 
 and sit down by his bed and tell him how well his 
 songs were going at the halls. She said she was 
 singing them at three nightly. She assured him 
 that she was always encored. She begged him to 
 take an extra ten pounds — the original price had 
 been in shillings. 
 
 " You see, I've made that girl," Jimmy would 
 say when she had gone. " I knew those songs 
 would just fit her. She wants more. Give me a 
 bit of paper and pencil, old chap. I'll dot down 
 another. Why does Harrowsmith keep me tied by 
 the leg like this ? I mean to get up next week and 
 toddle down to the halls and hear my Songs encored. 
 iThey give Queenie a middle turn now. They used 
 
104 MEN OF MARLOWE'S 
 
 to put her on at the end, to sing the audience out. 
 I'm a made man. It's just as well, with all the 
 expenses of this illness. Are you going up Totten- 
 ham Court Road to-day? If so, look in and pay 
 the fellow that sixpence owing on the sponge. I've 
 never used it. Harrowsmith knocked me off my 
 cold tub. You can't mistake the shop. It's nearly 
 opposite Maple's. I forget the name." 
 
 He put on tremendous airs. He was, as he 
 proudly said, a made man. When he got better he 
 was going to write songs at fabulous prices for all 
 the leading music-hall singers. But Queenie La 
 Belle should have them at a reasonable figure. She 
 wasn't a bad sort. She ought to be grateful to him. 
 He had made her. He kept his money under his 
 pillow with his tobacco pouch and cigarette papers. 
 He said seriously to me: 
 
 " If you're a little short, old chap, there's plenty 
 of money in the bag. I've gone through the mill 
 myself. I know what it is to come down to my last 
 half-crown." 
 
 He might truthfully have said his last copper. 
 To please him I took five shillings. 
 
JIMMY. 105 
 
 Queenie came to see him regularly. He put the 
 poor girl through a rigid cross-examination. Did 
 the audience take up her two last lines, as he had 
 intended? Were his songs on the barrel organs? 
 The great ambition of his life had been to hear his 
 songs on the barrel organs. But it was early days. 
 It was just as well that they were not on yet. He 
 wanted to hear them. Wanted to tip every grinder 
 a bob. Queenie had to sing the songs to him; had 
 to do the little kick at the end of each verse, pretend 
 to throw the rose into the auditorium — ^that was 
 Jimmy's original trick. 
 
 " I'd like to come down and hear you to-night at 
 the Royal," he sighed — and Queenie looked hor- 
 ribly frightened, until I reassured her by a dismal 
 shake of the head. " But Harrowsmith is so par- 
 ticular. He keeps me in bed. Of course that 
 makes a man weak. There's nothing in the world 
 the matter with me but weakness, through want of 
 exercise." 
 
 Queenie put on her tremendous hat, all flyaway 
 lace and wings. She stooped down and kissed him 
 solemnly on his clammy forehead. I thought the 
 
io6 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 big, jolly girl, with her coarse voice and frank 
 tongue, an angel at that moment. Jimmy looked 
 scared and annoyed — suspicious of this unusual 
 gentleness. 
 
 She blubbered outside the bedroom door, grow- 
 ing purple in her efforts to choke her sobs lest he 
 should hear. 
 
 " It's all a lie," she said passionately. " I'm 
 only on at one hall — ^^last turn on the programme. 
 His song don't fetch even a grin. I'm expecting 
 the manager to bully me on pay day. People don't 
 understand 'em — I don't myself. It's a lie. I was 
 hissed — hissed! And there's him, poor dear, talk- 
 ing of writing for Guy Blockley and Ada Fitz Clare. 
 Oh ! it's all right about the ten pounds, I can run to 
 that. Don't you fret." 
 
 She colored, through her make-up — her daylight 
 make-up, all careless smears of blue-white powder 
 and burning smudges of red. 
 
 Nearly every night, after the halls and the public 
 houses were shut, one or two fellows would drop 
 into Jimmy's room and give him the evening's news. 
 They sang snatches of new songs to him, mimicked 
 
JIMMY. 107 
 
 bits of "business." They retailed the popular 
 comedian's latest gag, the story that was going the 
 round of the clubs, the smart conundrum on public 
 affairs or people. 
 
 Jimmy used to join in weakly, drumming his 
 claw-like fingers on the quilt. He talked of music- 
 hall people of to-day; of five years ago; of men who 
 had been lions and were content to take obscure 
 turns in the provinces now, or who had gone in for 
 the dramatic-agent business. 
 
 They all ran off his glib tongue; the Sisters That, 
 the Brothers So and So, the Something Troupe. 
 He laughed at old wheezes, which had never lost 
 their flavor for him. He spoke of this man's\pet 
 mannerisms and that girl's particular smile. 
 
 He used to say : 
 
 " Do you remember Joe Slashby's trick with the 
 pair of spectacles ? That was killing," or, " What's 
 become of the Manasteriotti girl? Never saw a 
 woman juggle so well." 
 
 And he always condemned everyOne else's songs. 
 He said it pained him to see the rot, the arrant, 
 foolish drivel that went down with a music-hall au- 
 
io8 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 dience. But he was going to alter all that. The 
 public only wanted educating. The public knew a 
 good thing when it heard it. That was proved by 
 the success of his songs. How had his songs gone 
 this evening? Queenie was a good sort, but he was 
 a little nervous of her, afraid she didn't quite do 
 him justice. He added that she had treated him 
 rather meanly; ten pounds was a poor price with 
 which to buy success. She must be getting twenty 
 pounds a week at the lowest. Three halls at twenty 
 each. That would be sixty. He must speak to 
 her. 
 
 Success had not improved Jimmy. He was going 
 the way -of all successes. He actually spoke of 
 starting a banking account when he got better, of 
 giving a big order to his tailor. He probably would 
 have decided on a house at Brixton and a brougham, 
 if he had lived long enough. But — ^before he had 
 time to tax Queenie over money matters — ^the end 
 came. 
 
 It was Saturday. Harrowsmith looked in about 
 noon. He told me that Jimmy wouldn't last an- 
 other twenty-four hours. I went back to the bed- 
 
JIMMY. I09 
 
 room and broke it. He was lying on his side, turn- 
 ing off another song. He took it very calmly, 
 only hoping that he'd be able to get that third line 
 in the second verse right before he went. It was 
 very weak. 
 
 Schultz, the great German composer, died the 
 day before; it had been in the morning papers. 
 Jimmy said composedly, when I mentioned it: 
 
 " There's another of us gone. Lucky devil ! " 
 
 He added a little rebelliously : 
 
 " It's rather rough to have to hand in your checks 
 just when you've ' arrived.' I hope I shan't be so 
 long about it as the woman at Farthings Farm was. 
 Queer old girl ! You'll make Harrowsmith send in 
 his bill and pay up any little thing I owe. Get the 
 money out of Queenie. That girl's been a bit 
 shabby. And just roll me a cigarette — there's 
 enough baccy in the pouch — and leave me alone to 
 worry out this third line." 
 
 He was lying at the back; Orion, if you remem- 
 ber, had his bedroom in the front, but Jimmy had 
 turned that into a bathroom. 
 
 All the Saturday night bubble of the streets came 
 
no MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Up into the little paneled room Avhere he was dying. 
 He liked it; asked me to open the window, so that 
 he could hear the hoarse voices of the costers and 
 the banter of the women. He liked the rattle of 
 'buses, the cries, the calls — all the feverish, strug- 
 gling life. 
 
 One by one the fellows dropped in as usual. He 
 begged them not to put on such deathbed faces. 
 How had his songs gone? He was afraid that he 
 wouldn't see Queenie any more. The fellows 
 stayed; he begged them to. I'd asked him if he 
 had any friends that he would like me to send for, 
 and he returned airly that he hadn't a relative in the 
 world. His face never flinched when he said it. 
 
 The night went on, and the room, although the 
 month was August, got chilly. The sounds of the 
 market died down, the omnibuses left off running, 
 so did the trams ; there was only a dying trundle of 
 hansoms over the stones. Then all at once came a 
 ringing howl from some slum at the back. They 
 have pulled them nearly all down now. All the 
 narrow courts I used to know, the tiny general 
 shops, the row of almshouses, the big boiled-beef 
 
JIMMY. Ill 
 
 shop at the corner — gone. Residential flats are in 
 their place and big shops with sky signs. 
 
 It was some Saturday-night row. It came in 
 plainly through the open window. Jimmy opened 
 his eyes and listened with zest. 
 
 You won't understand the grim sentiment of those 
 slum rows. They are simply part of the Saturday 
 night's programme — when the man gets his week's 
 money and the woman goes out shopping and they 
 both are blind drunk by midnight. Simply part of 
 Saturday night — that is all. It does not affect their 
 relations for the rest of the week. The language 
 they use to each other is awful — ^but what are 
 words ? We place too great a stress on mere words. 
 
 Jimmy roused up a little, and grinned feebly. 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder if it's Mrs. Morey," he said. 
 
 We sat and listened to the woman's shrill, pas- 
 sionate invective — ^to adjectives which were foreign 
 even to us. We heard the husband's low, deprecat- 
 ing growl, and, after a little, the protesting bass of 
 the policeman. The woman was infuriated at the 
 interruption. 
 
 " Has anybody complained?" she yelled, goings 
 
112 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Up half an octave at each word. "Well! Well! 
 Everybody 'as their rows, don't they? Move on 
 yourself. Oh ! you hrute! " 
 
 Then we heard a scuffle, more words, a torrent of 
 tears and abuse. 
 
 But it was all quiet at last; the short spell of si- 
 lence between the last cab and the venders of Sun- 
 day papers. 
 
 " Referee! " " Lloyd's! " " Weekly Dispatch! " 
 
 The men went bawling along the pavements be- 
 neath. Jimmy, who had collapsed after the row, 
 opened his eyes again. 
 
 " Give me a whisky," he said. " Fill up. I'll 
 say when." 
 
 As I was pouring the water, and waiting for him 
 to stop me, he murmured enthusiastically : 
 
 " How good Dot and Lottie Mack were in that 
 laughing duet. Lottie married an earl. I wonder 
 what became of Dot." 
 
 When I took the tumbler and whisky and water 
 to the side of the bed, he was dead. 
 
 We fetched Mrs. Morey to lay him out. She 
 was ghoulishly curious about the funeral, and kept 
 
JIMMY. 11(3 
 
 me half an hour while she told me about her 
 father's. 
 
 " 'E belonged to a club, don't yer see, and when 
 'e died there was twenty pound. My Bill wanted to 
 blow it. But I ses no. It was 'is and 'e should 'av ' 
 it. We 'ad mourning coaches to fetch all the people , 
 from their own doors. There was mutes — yer 
 don't often see them now — and weepers, and 
 feathers in the 'orses' 'eads. An' yer should 'a' seen 
 the tea we set down to when we come 'ome from the 
 funeral ! We 'ad thin bread and butter, and winkles 
 and three sorts of cake. I felt so mad with Bill. 
 'E goes and clouts my little Jim's 'ead, jest because 
 the innercent child said as 'e wished grandfathers 
 'ud die every day, so as we might 'ave sich a bustin' 
 tea. It was only natural in the child. Rose Adkins 
 — she's my brother's wife — took Bill's part. I 
 didn't forgit it neither. A nice one to talk, she wur \ 
 We was 'avin' a few words, months after, and I 
 ses to 'er : 
 
 " ' You 'ussy ! 'Ow dare you talk to me ? ' I ses. 
 ' 'Ow many slices of thin bread and butter did you 
 eat at my poor father's funeral tea? I saw you 
 
114 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 take ten with my own eyes.' That fetched 'er. 
 ' Be off,' I ses, ' and don't ever show yer brazen face 
 in my door agen.' " 
 
 Well, we buried Jimmy. I rode with him, in a 
 dreadful conveyance they call a Shillibeer, to Finch- 
 ley. When I went back to the Inn and began to 
 square up his affairs, the water bed was missing. 
 We had clubbed together and hired that water bed 
 for him before Queenie's deception. I heard long 
 afterward that Mrs. Morey had pawned it at the 
 pawnbroker's at the corner of Green Street. No 
 doubt Bill, for once, was too strong for her. 
 
 About two months afterward there was a faint 
 tap at xfiy door one night. When I opened it I saw 
 a woman standing outside. How shall I describe 
 her? 
 
 She wasn't young — ^your age, if ypu'U forgive 
 me, thirty or so — but there was a youthfulness and 
 freshness about her which you seldom see in a girl 
 out of her teens. She wasn't pretty, not a bit. She 
 didn't even look clever. Yet I've never seen a more 
 fascinating, a more delightful woman. She was a 
 
JIMMY. ITS 
 
 little like Adeline, only not half so handsome, and 
 there was not the mark of knowledge on her face. 
 She said firmly, " Does Mr. James Carol live here ? " 
 
 Her voice was calm, but it was only the calmness 
 of perfect breeding. There was none of a sister's 
 cold, lily-like air about her — no tepid, anxious touch 
 of family concern. Jimmy had been her world. 
 
 She was a lady, using the word in its old digni- 
 fied, graceful sense, without modern abuse, with- 
 out that vulgar, exasperating " i " which degrades 
 it into " laidy." 
 
 " I'm sorry to say that Jimmy — Mr. Carol — is 
 dead." 
 
 She didn't wait for me to say any more. She 
 dropped at my feet on the dirty boards of the land- 
 ing; dropped without a cry, without a contortion of 
 her charming, pure face. 
 
 I got her round as well as I could. While I was 
 fanning her with a doubled-up newspaper and trying 
 to force brandy down her throat, I noticed the subtle 
 refinements of her dress. And there was a haunt- 
 ing memory in that face. I thought that I must 
 have seen it before, until I remembered Farthings 
 
1x6 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Farm and the old woman who tended Mrs. Covey. 
 I remembered, too, Jimmy's flicker of animation 
 when he had seen that woman — and I understood. 
 There was the same peculiar, fascinating sweetness 
 of expression; an expression which would lure you 
 to any madness at the start and cloy you to death 
 long before the finish. 
 
 I got her round. She went away, with beauti- 
 fully expressed thanks — and not a flutter of her eye- 
 lids. 
 
 That is all. The key to Jimmy's love affair — if 
 he had one — lies with him at Finchley. 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 
 
 Jimmy and I once spent a month in the country 
 together. The doctor had ordered him fresh air 
 and good diet. We went to Farthings Farm in 
 Sussex and boarded with old Mrs. Covey. She was 
 an extraordinary character — narrowly religious, as 
 these half-educated rustics so often are. You could 
 see hell fire in the hard lines of her mouth and the 
 cunning screw of her little gray eyes. Yet she 
 wasn't a bad sort. Her pious cant was amusing 
 and quite harmless. She talked seriously to Jimmy, 
 knowing, as she must have done, that he had not 
 long to live. She used to say, with a half-groaning, 
 half-chuckling sort of breath : 
 
 " Ah ! sir, I believe in the sacrifice in this world." 
 Jimmy returned, very politely — ^he was always 
 polite : 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't quite gather your meaning." 
 
 Mrs. Covey would look at him despairingly, raise 
 
 her eyes to the ceiling, shake her head, and ejaculate 
 
 nj 
 
ii8 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 a long, solemn " Ah — ah ! " which was very con- 
 vincing. 
 
 She was up at daybreak every morning; we used 
 to hear her scolding and swilling or throwing a pet 
 word to her cats — she had five. But on Sundays 
 she used to lie very late — until half-past seven. She 
 took a bath — as a pious duty. When breakfast was 
 over, she sat in the living room, with the big Bible 
 in front of her and her spectacles on the open page, 
 until it was time to go to chapel. She drove there 
 regularly every Sunday. It was a rich sight to see 
 her with her two sons, in the shabby wagonette, 
 sitting bolt upright in widow's weeds, with black 
 kid gloves, purple in the palms and much too long in 
 the fingers. Sunday was a day of days. We fed 
 on cold meat and salad ; it was the one day on which 
 she refused to sell milk or to spud about in her gar- 
 den. In the afternoon she would walk solemnly 
 through her meadows, never speculating on the 
 crops or allowing her sons to do so, but holding up 
 her black silk skirt carefully, and drawing her sour 
 Sabbath lip. 
 
 She was very kind to Jimmy— taking good car6 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 119 
 
 of his body, although she despaired of his soul. In 
 her young days she had been a cook, and she tempted 
 his flagging appetite with many dainties. There 
 was one particular dish of candied red currants. 
 
 If anyone called on her — say, between three and 
 half-past — for milk, for advice about a sick baby, 
 for herbal treatment of a wound, or for the simple 
 loan of a black crock, Jib or Zak would be lurching 
 at the house door. They were grotesquely alike, 
 those sons of hers, with the Biblical names of Jabez 
 and Zachary. She always called them Jib and Zak 
 on week days; Jabez and Zachary on Sundays. 
 They had an odd way of greeting you. They gave 
 a nod — half sheepish, half jovial — or they raised a 
 broad, dingy thumb to a sun-baked straw hat, ac- 
 cording to their mood or the social status of the 
 visitor. 
 
 Their answer to all inquiries was : 
 
 " Mother 'ull be down directly. Would you care 
 to step inside out o' the sun and set down, till you 
 hear her draw up the clock ? " 
 
 That was her rule. For forty years, except when 
 stopped by trivialities^such as a confinement — she 
 
120 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 had drawn up the thirty-hour clock the moment be- 
 fore she came down from her afternoon's cleaning. 
 
 That afternoon black dress, with jet buttons ! I 
 remember the tiny, shiny silk apron, with the bead 
 edginjg^ and the prim pockets. She never put in her 
 false teeth until the afternoon, nor pinned on her 
 false hair, which was three shades too light. In 
 the mornings she slipped about the kitchen and 
 dairy in an old skirt, a nondescript bodice, and a 
 shawl — thick or thin, according to the direction of 
 the wind. 
 
 I remember the particular morning when she was 
 taken ill. It was a tremendously hot day in June. 
 Jimmy was sitting on the wooden bench by the gar- 
 den door, with his thin hands spread out on his 
 knees to bake in the sun. I was hanging about the 
 garden, and longing to get back to the Inn. Mrs. 
 Covey came out from the dairy with a dish clout 
 in her hand. She began to vigorously " shoo " a 
 fine cock from the strawberry bed. I can see her 
 now, with her bent back in the brownish bodice and 
 triangular-folded scarlet shawl. She went back to 
 the house between rows of podded broad beans. 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 121 
 
 When she cried out to the cock — who was a gay fel- 
 low, all brown and burnish — it was a queer, un- 
 womanly cry. No doubt she knew the note with 
 which to scare him. He went racing back to the 
 yard, all tail feathers, swinging comb, and indignant 
 cackle. 
 
 An hour afterward she fell on the flagstones by 
 the back door. She had been very busy making 
 jelly of windfall apples. Apoplexy gripped her, 
 and she fell, a droll-looking, lop-sided heap, on the 
 stones. 
 
 That was a long, hot, empty day. Jimmy was 
 fretful and selfish, after the manner of chronic in- 
 valids. He missed his tgg and milk, his jelly, the 
 dozen little dainties that she prepared for him. 
 And I think he was a trifle scared, poor chap, by the 
 very mention of Death — Death, that unpleasant per- 
 sonage, with whom he already had a bowing ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 The doctor came — a hearty country man, in a 
 high, rakish-looking trap. He said there was no 
 hope for her. A woman came in and got her to 
 bed. Her world waited breathlessly, soberly for her 
 
122 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 to go. Her world — of forty acres or so — was wait- 
 ing stolidly. Birds in the wood — metallic finches, 
 throaty wood pigeons, the persistent cuckoo, called 
 across the branches and the long, rank grass of her. 
 She had known so many generations of birds. 
 
 Out by the back door everything was eloquent of 
 her : pans of unskimmed milk in the dairy, the pre- 
 serving pan, with a wooden skimmer set in syrup. 
 
 Jimmy crawled up the white road in the sun to 
 the public house. But I stayed behind. I was 
 fond of the queer old woman, and I thought that 
 perhaps I might come in useful. Zak said moodily 
 that it was an awkward time of the year for illness. 
 He didn't put it in words, but I knew his thought — 
 that it was inconsiderate of her to take to dying in 
 the middle of haymaking. In the orchard was the 
 awning which she had roughly rigged up for the 
 haymakers — ^but who was to get the men's tea? 
 The grass in the eight-acre meadow had been left 
 until the last. There was a merry jingle as the 
 machine rattled and rocked along. 
 
 Jib and Zak, so much alike, with eyes and mouths 
 twisted in consequence of life-long opposition to the 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 123 
 
 glare of the sun, came into the parlor where I sat 
 reading the local paper. They had been clumping 
 hopelessly about in the garden. I had. watched 
 them, finding them more interesting than the price 
 of store pigs and the sale of underwood. They had 
 looked out wistfully at the eight-acre field, half lush, 
 half shorn. They had looked up at Mrs. Covey's 
 window — a tiny window, set high in the brown 
 thatch roof; a window with dim, greenish panes 
 and the spectral suggestion of a limp calico curtain. 
 We heard the slipping, soft sound of feet. The 
 stairs opened out from the sitting room. A beau- 
 tiful old woman of forty-five or less — work in the 
 fields and so many children make them old long be- 
 fore that — sidled up to the brothers, as they sat 
 heavily in the Windsor chairs by the empty hearth. 
 She was the village layer-out; once she had been the 
 village coquette. Five shillings a corpse, and shil- 
 lings hard to earn ! Zak had run to her cottage and 
 fetched her directly his mother fell. She was al- 
 ways called to deathbeds. She gave a sidelong look 
 at me and courtesied with charming grace; some of 
 these rustic women are queens of grace. Then she 
 
124 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 spoke to the brothers, the greedy look of a vulture 
 creeping into her violet eyes. i 
 
 " I'm jest slipping home now to look after my 
 lodger. There's no change in her. She won't go, 
 bless your hearts, for pretty nigh twenty-four hour. 
 I'll look round after tea agen; no doubt you'll make 
 it worth my while." 
 
 For nearly a week it went on; the hot, breathless 
 days, bees buzzing in the big lime by the gate; at 
 dusk the ringing, rattling croak of frogs in the pond, 
 the weird voice of the night-jar. Jimmy grew more 
 fretful, He complained that he could not sleep for 
 the cursed nightingale. He wanted to go home; 
 back to the Inn, to the boys, to the halls, the bars, the 
 evening papers. He had run out of tobacco — they 
 only sold shag at the village shop. He took my last 
 packet of cigarette papers. But I wanted to stay — 
 for the end, which we all knew must come before 
 another Sunday. That window, high in the eaves, 
 rigorously shut and curtained, fascinated me. 
 
 On the fifth day things were just as they had been 
 on the first, each day of that week was a replica. 
 Jib, Zak, and I were in the parlor, the local paper 
 
GAME FEATHERS. izj 
 
 was more crumpled, the flowers on the window ledge 
 (drooped. Jimmy had crawled up in the sun and 
 (dust to the public house, where they had a crazy 
 piano in the bar parlor. The layer-out, the Vulture, 
 as I had grown to call her to myself, came slipping 
 down the stairs again in easy list slippers of drab 
 and green. 
 
 " Some dies hard," she said sententiously to the 
 two sons, twisting the corner of her apron, shaking 
 her wavy white head, and eying me. 
 
 " It's, they game feathers she's a-layin' on," she 
 continued. " You can't die easy on game feathers, 
 and there's a plenty in the bed. Game feathers! 
 They skeer off Death — ^but her time's come, poor 
 Jove. Help lift her. Lay her on the floor; she'll go 
 soon and easy then." 
 
 Jib and Zak looked at each other furtively, then 
 each shook his head. They couldn't lend a hand to 
 help her die. The Vulture knew their thought — 
 these women are full of intuition. 
 
 " We'll call Mas'r Puttick," she said with inspira- 
 tion. " And p'r'aps [the gentleman would not mind 
 Jendin' a hand[,"' 
 
126 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 She put her own hand to her side and took a short 
 breath, muttering something about not being strong 
 enough to lift. 
 
 I said I'd go and fetch Puttick. He was cutting 
 mangels in the field beyond the garden, a couple of 
 cows following him with keen interest on the other 
 side of the hedge. There was a wide border of 
 white pinks to the strawberry bed; the scent was 
 heavy. White pinks, and, on the other side of the 
 path, broad beans in blossom. 
 
 Puttick was a very old man, older than Mrs. 
 Covey, and his devotion to her had been the mild jest 
 of the neighbors. He did her chivalrous service: 
 carried down the refuse of his allotment garden for 
 her pigs; pea haulm, cabbage stumps, turnip tops 
 too tough for the pot, spinach that had bolted. He 
 was always begging refuse " for t' old gell's pig." 
 " T' old gell " he invariably called her — ^behind her 
 back — with an indulgent mixture of tenderness and 
 contempt for her as a lone widow woman, with 
 natural, womanly ways of scraping and nagging. 
 He left his work solemnly when I spoke to him. 
 y/e went to the house. Three of the five cats were 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 127 
 
 looking askance at a saucer of sour milk set in the 
 middle of the strawberry bed — that was " t' old 
 gell's " way of scaring birds from her fruit. We 
 went up the rat-eaten oak stairs, Puttick, the Vul- 
 ture, and I. 
 
 There was a characteristic smell about the place : 
 a smell of ancient garments, ropes of onions, apples 
 on the floor of the attic, a smell garnered by closely 
 shut casements. 
 
 She was lying gaunt and straight in the bed, with 
 its carved posts, patchwork quilt, and dirty chintz 
 hangings. Her face was yellow, so was her un- 
 bleached nightgown, so were her hands with their 
 curved black nails. As we went in she looked 
 round sharply at the door — a curious look; lurid, 
 angry, beseeching. 
 
 Puttick muttered, with a thick throat and his old 
 eyes dazed, " T' old gell, t' old gell." It was grim 
 to see her lying there with an idle tongue, with idle 
 hands. No doubt he was feeling drearily that his 
 time must be near too. He had been a virile young 
 man when she had been a child. The world could 
 not go on without old Mis' Covey of Farthings 
 
128 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Farm. She was the world. No one else would 
 keep him on with odd jobs all through the winter. 
 She must be made to live. He said, after a long 
 pause, during which I could see that his ageid brain 
 had been working turgidly in an agony of desire to 
 rouse her : 
 
 " They blackbirds, dang 'em, was at the white- 
 heart cherries as early as five this mornin'." 
 
 But she did not stir. She only stared from 
 the wall and back again, with the odd, savage 
 stare of entreaty, which none of us could under- 
 stand. 
 
 " I've seen many go, but none so hard as her. 
 And yet she wasn't what you'd call a worldly- 
 minded woman. Take her under the shoulders, 
 sir, if you kindly will, and, Mas'r Puttick, be ready 
 to ketch her legs." 
 
 The woman put her deft hands under the bed- 
 clothes and rolled the heavy legs in a plaid shawl. 
 Then, between us, we lifted her from the malignant 
 bed— full of the feathers of birds that she had 
 plucked remorselessly and who would not let her go 
 in peace now that her time had come. We stretched 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 129 
 
 her decently on the floor near the clock and pulled 
 the blanket close under her peaked chin. 
 
 " We've all been young," the Vulture said con- 
 fidentially to me as we jostled together down the 
 twisting stairs. " There's something on her mind 
 — a slip maybe. Them things comes up at the last 
 and won't let us women go. The men are harder." 
 
 Jib and Zak were still slouching in the Windsor 
 chairs. They were helpless without their mother, 
 great fellows of thirty-eight and forty. But she 
 had been the mainspring. She had kept the purse- 
 strings, kept all control. They were mechanical 
 figures run down without her. I sat on the couch 
 with the blue-checked cover and speculated on her 
 secret, on some rustic story made sweet by time, 
 some sin — a slip, as the country woman mercifully 
 said — something which was quivering on her tied 
 tongue and which she couldn't give word to. 
 
 Jib and Zak went slowly back to the hajdleld. Put- 
 tick to his mangels. I saw him go round the house, 
 past the sitting-room window. He kept casting 
 guilty glances at the window overhead with the 
 calico blind. He had lent a hand in kiUing her. 
 
13© MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 But she obstinately wouldn't die. Death was 
 expected of her. The doctor had prophesied it; the 
 Vulture knew it would come, by many ancient, 
 foolish signs. The impress of her long bony body 
 dented the swollen bed of feathers, but on the sixth 
 day she was lying alive still on the floor on a rough 
 couch of blankets, at the foot of the clock, whose 
 brass face seemed to leer and twinkle at her victori- 
 ously when the western sun came in. 
 
 She would not go. The patience of the layer-out 
 was quite exhausted. 
 
 " I must bide about the place," she said plain- 
 tively. " It's money out o' pocket to me. I could 
 be makin' a lot in the hayfields. But I dursn't 
 leave. She'll be stiff a'most as soon as the breath 
 is out o' her, and you can't do nothin' with a corpse 
 then." 
 
 " Sure, sure," gurgled all the other women softly. 
 
 The room was full of women. I kept in the gar- 
 den, but I could see and hear them through the open 
 door. I could see and hear all: the sunny sitting 
 room, with its broad window ledges, on which were 
 pots of calceolarias, with spotted, pouch-like bios- 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 131 
 
 soms; the women, with children at their skirts or 
 buried in their cotton bodices. All waiting and 
 twittering in that house of death. 
 
 I knew every line of the local paper. The long 
 clay pipe which Jib in pity had bestowed on me was 
 cool, but it hurt my throat to draw such a long way. 
 I smoked it from sentiment. I like those long clays, 
 but properly speaking they should go with village 
 politics. Jimmy was on his back in the orchard, 
 deep in grass which had not been cut yet, rolling his 
 last cigarette with long, transparent fingers. But 
 he was waiting like the rest of us. He started up 
 on his elbow when the sound came. We all heard 
 it through the closed doors of bedroom and stair- 
 case. That sound! The wheezing creak of a 
 chain. A minute later came the clear, deliberate 
 chime of three. Then all the women and the two 
 sons remembered that for six days no one had 
 thought to draw up the clock. There was then no 
 secret, no sin; no eating, biting prick of conscience. 
 
 She was dead by the open case, on her knees, with 
 one crooked-out hand caught round the open door. 
 
132 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Her eyes, wide open still, were on the softly sway- 
 ing pendulum, and the heavy weight was drawn 
 high. 
 
 Jib, who had inherited his share of her practi- 
 cality, and more, went up softly as soon as he was 
 allowed to and turned the hand round to the proper 
 place, each hour chiming in the quiet room. 
 
 Four. Five. Six. Seven. 
 
 It was evening. The haymakers had gone and 
 a stifling mist was creeping across the cropped 
 meadows. The promise of another blazing day. 
 
 "Ah! to think it was only that she wanted." 
 The layer-out extended her hand and drew down 
 her sweetly curved mouth. " I knew there was 
 something on her mind; there off en is with us poor 
 
 women. We've all been young " She broke off 
 
 discreetly, in the presence of the sons. " But who'd 
 ha' thought of that plaguey clock? Why, any of 
 us might ha' drawed it up if we'd ha' thought. I 
 might ha' earned good money at the hayin' this 
 week." 
 
 She went down the flagged path through the 
 orchard to the gate. Jimmy, half buried again in 
 
GAME FEATHERS. 133 
 
 grass, long white daisies, and the delicate summer 
 orchis, stared at her, and his face changed. 
 
 " She reminds me of someone I used to know," 
 he said, and then stopped abruptly. It was the only 
 peep he ever gave me into his inner life. But I 
 remembered afterward. 
 
 We sat out until dusk, smoking — what dust of 
 tobacco we had — and looking up trains. Jib and 
 Zak had gone upstairs. Their voices came down to 
 us, through the window with the greenish glass, 
 which was now swung back. They were discussing 
 the coming sale. 
 
 " A feather bed alius fetches money." 
 
 " There's folk — ^gentry — as likes this oak." 
 
 " It's a good goer, an' I've alius liked a chain 
 better'n a cord." 
 
 "Let's take the 2.45, old man," said Jimmy. 
 " I'd like to look in at the Royal in the evening. 
 They've got that big girl there — Lilian — what's 
 her name? The girl who sings Irish songs 
 so well." 
 
 The fierce summer sun had gone to bed. All the 
 night sounds were beginning — ^beetles, frogs, birds, 
 
134 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 The nightingale that Jimmy so hated was tuning 
 up on a hedge near. 
 
 " Shan't get a wink of sleep to-night," he said 
 dolefully, with his hard, painful cough. " Give me 
 the cabs for a lullaby." 
 
 Jib and Zak were coming slowly downstairs. 
 I heard them shut her door. I could imagine her : 
 the sheet over her hard face, the clock, to whose 
 regularity she had given her last breath, keeping her 
 sedate company. 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 
 
 It was only Mrs. Conifer. Thought the woman 
 would never go ! Poor soul ! What a curse a con- 
 science is. She was a fool to come back! Said 
 she couldn't help it ! She loathes the very memory 
 of Kinsman — she adores her husband — and yet she 
 comes back to-night. That is so deliciously like a 
 woman — to come back. To come creeping through 
 the gate, dodging the porter, like she used to do, 
 just to get the flavor of those old, distasteful days 
 on her tongue again. 
 
 Kinsman had the ground floor at No. 7. A 
 middle-aged couple rent it now; the wife watches 
 everyone in and out of the Inn through a pair of 
 opera glasses. In Kinsman's time there were high- 
 art curtains — very dingy — at the windows and 
 tumbled red-and-white dhurries on the floor and 
 blue plates hung by wire along the walls. 
 
 He was a languid, artistic chap — played the 
 
136 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 violin, hung about old bookstalls and bric-a-hrac 
 shops in the lanes off Holborn. 
 
 He very rarely went to a music hall, avoided 
 rowdy parties, dined out a great deal in the season, 
 and spoke now and then, in an off-hand, half- 
 ashamed way, of his people near Park Lane. There 
 were photographs of society beauties on his mantel- 
 shelf, propped up against Oriental bowls — " pudden 
 basins," his laundress dubbed them scornfully — ^he 
 gave you to understand that he knew all the beauties 
 personally. 
 
 He visited the Conifers, who had a big dingy 
 house in Russell Square. Conifer was a stock- 
 broker, very much absorbed in his business, and 
 Mrs. Conifer was an extremely pretty blonde in the 
 china-doll style. She was the kind of little woman 
 who is called " dressy " by her friends. 
 
 You don't know the oppressively respectable 
 side of Bloomsbury. Bloomsbury is altering fast. 
 The change pains me. I wish some fellow who 
 could write would immortalize the old place before 
 it disappears. Every time I go outside the gates of 
 the Inn some change hits me in the face. I see 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 137 
 
 hoardings with up-to-date posters and the addresses 
 o£ house-breakers in places where once there was a 
 famihar, flat-faced house, with wide-framed win- 
 dows. The old shops are going, little fusty shops — 
 eating houses, furniture stores, undertakers. I saw 
 the last typical eating house this morning. There 
 was nothing in the window but a big blue dish — 
 Kinsman would have admired it — and a row of 
 pressed beef tins, with a haddock hanging flabbily 
 over each tin. 
 
 Bloomsbury is forever in the violent stage — al- 
 ways going up or down. Directly they took away 
 our exclusive gates and let the cabs run straight 
 through to Kings Cross and Euston, there was an 
 epidemic of boarding houses. I believe that every 
 house in Woburn Place takes lodgers — more or less 
 genteelly. An old fellow who had the first floor set 
 at 3 when I came to the Inn remembered the days 
 when only carriage folk lived in Great James Street. 
 The first professional brass plate on a door ruffled 
 the inhabitants considerably. 
 
 Great James Street, Doughty Street, and a few 
 more belong to the Tichborne family. I remember 
 
138 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 a charwoman who used to say viciously — at times 
 when she considered herself imposed upon by those 
 she worked for : 
 
 "Ah! Wait till Sir Roger comes out o' quod, 
 and then they'll see." 
 
 Just now we are aggressively on the up grade. 
 It is much worse than going down. The Duke has 
 determined to make Bloomsbury a superior residen- 
 tial quarter once more. He has pulled down some 
 houses, added a story to others, made gardens of 
 the mews — and ruined the place for all sentimental 
 people. These red-and-white blocks of flats spoil 
 the neighborhood. We are becoming vulgarly 
 opulent. Once you might have drawn a line, 
 roughly, say down Southampton Row, and so di- 
 vided the oppressively respectable from the aggres- 
 sively Bohemian. That was so in Mrs. Conifer's 
 time. 
 
 She was on the respectable side, of course : where 
 people subscribe to Mudie's and make the changing 
 of books the great business of the day, where the 
 men come home punctually to dinner at seven and 
 the women stroll down Oxford Street regularly on 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 139 
 
 fine afternoons. You may still see them swarming 
 out of Hanway Street, very well dressed as a rule, 
 and very often Jewesses. 
 
 Mrs. Conifer was sometimes dull, so dull that she 
 used to go to a cake shop and have her afternoon 
 tea and listen to the other women's chatter. Here 
 was an opportunity that Kinsman could not miss. 
 Before long she went to his rooms instead of going 
 to the cake shop. It was really much more amus- 
 ing. The Inn is quiet in the afternoons. A great 
 many of the fellows are in the City, and the laun- 
 dresses have gone away for the day. Mrs. Conifer 
 used to thread her way through quiet by-ways — 
 down Guilford Street, along monastic Great James 
 Street, across Theobalds Road, and onwards. The 
 gardens were quiet in those days; we did not allow 
 children in until evening. It was so beautifully 
 fresh and still after the roar and dust of outside 
 London, the summer smells of provision shops, and 
 the rattle of omnibuses. Kinsman had shaded win- 
 dows — it was summer time at first — and a dainty 
 tea. He liked her to come in the afternoons be- 
 cause Sophia Dominy, of whom he was a little 
 
I40 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 afraid, was safely shut away in the big mantle shop 
 where she was dummy. But by and by Mrs. Coni- 
 fer came in the evenings also — after dinner, when 
 Conifer had shut himself up for the evening in his 
 study. She used to drive up to the gates on wet 
 nights. I saw her more than once myself — always 
 beautifully dressed and closely veiled, and having 
 that intangible air of shrinking which is natural to 
 the woman who never goes out alone after dark. 
 
 And then one night she met Sophia Dominy in 
 the doorway. It was bound to happen. Sophia 
 was a handsome girl with a fine figure — I told you 
 she was dummy at a mantle shop. She came out 
 of the shadow of the doorway as Mrs. Conifer drew 
 into it. It so happened that Kinsman was late home 
 that night; his windows were dark. Mrs. Conifer 
 looked. With her quick woman's eye she took in 
 every detail of this other woman, whose clothes were 
 a pitiful struggle for costly effect — seal plush in- 
 stead of sealskin, weedy ostrich plumes in her hat, 
 and in her small ears the glitter of red glass. There 
 must have been insolent contempt in her china-blue 
 eyes, for Sophia's great black ones began to blaze, 
 
AN INTERLUDE 141 
 
 and she put her hand on the other's slim, nervous 
 shoulder. She said, with an offensive touch of 
 comradeship : 
 
 " Good-evening, Mrs. Conifer." 
 
 How did she find out? How do women learn 
 these things? You can say perhaps — I give it up. 
 I only know that Kinsman had been very careful — 
 as careful as a man knows how. 
 
 Little blond Mrs. Conifer started, and then 
 stared coldly at the gaudy, tawdry, dark creature in 
 the doorway. 
 
 " I — I don't understand," she faltered; " I — ex- 
 cuse me — I do not know you." 
 
 She made a weak attempt at dignity, but she 
 looked horribly ashamed and alarmed. She was 
 afraid that the girl knew everything and was going 
 to blackmail her. 
 
 " But I know you," returned the other, with a 
 little fierce chuckle of triumph. " I know why you 
 have come here to-night. You ladies give yourself 
 such airs — you are not a bit better than girls like 
 me. If everybody had their rights, I ought to be 
 Mrs. Kinsman. See ! " 
 
142 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Mrs. Conifer did see. The whole hideous posi- 
 tion was perfectly clear to her, without another 
 word. You won't believe me, of course, but she 
 wasn't a wicked woman. She had simply drifted, 
 like any other idle young woman might. There 
 had been a fascination about Kinsman, with his 
 queerly furnished rooms, his romantic airs of art- 
 worship, sympathy, and so on. She had regarded 
 herself as misunderstood and was inclined to be 
 plaintively melancholy about Conifer's obtuseness. 
 Kinsman had been an affinity. She got the insidi- 
 ous flavor of the Inn. There had been nothing 
 vulgar or wicked about the aflfair. It had only 
 been delicious, piquant, dangerous — ^like a leaf torn 
 out of the " Decameron." Sophia Dominy brought 
 everything up to date, brought terrifying visions of 
 the Divorce Court. Mrs. Conifer was a faithful 
 wife again, in every thought, directly she looked 
 into those blazing black eyes and understood. 
 
 She whisked round and rustled swiftly in her 
 skirts of silk across the square, getting out at the 
 Holborn end and plunging into the stream of people 
 on the pavement flowing westward. So soon as the 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 143 
 
 first tightness was out of her throat and the first 
 desperate trembling had left her limbs she hailed a 
 hansom, telling the man to stop at the corner of 
 Russell Square. She fell back quivering on the 
 seat and shut her eyes, but opened them again di- 
 rectly because the face of Sophia rose before her — 
 triumphant, grinning, pale with chalk, and hidden 
 to the thick brows with a coarse fuzz of hair. 
 
 She went tottering up her own doorsteps. As she 
 slipped along the hall, and past the study door, Coni- 
 fer called out : 
 
 "Is that you, Freda?" 
 
 " Yes, it is I." 
 
 " Come in." 
 
 She stepped over the threshold and stood in the 
 warm room, her pale head hanging and her half- 
 shut eyes filled with dread. She forced herself to 
 look up at last and to stammer out : 
 
 " We drove down to Terry's Theater, Mrs. Hart 
 and I. But the house was full — so — so we drove 
 back. That is all— really." 
 
 Conifer was sitting over the big table as usual, and 
 as usual it was strewn with papers. But the double 
 
144 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 knot of anxiety was untied from above his eyes and 
 the packets of paper were pushed back. There was 
 a new tenderness on his face, or, rather, the revival 
 of on old one. 
 
 " I'm glad you came back," he said. " I've got 
 time to talk to you to-night, darling. I shall have 
 time to take you about again myself. I've been 
 awfully worried lately about business — you wouldn't 
 understand, it would only bother you. But I was 
 afraid once that it meant riiin. I've been in a very 
 tight place. But it's all right now." 
 
 He set back his shoulders and sighed, as if he 
 threw off at that moment the burden of months. 
 
 " I shall," he repeated, laughing foolishly, " have 
 time for you now." 
 
 Mrs. Conifer's pretty, weak face stiffened into 
 horror. She was thinking of the quiet Inn, with 
 its perpetual, sanctified taste of cloisters and the 
 Middle Ages; thinking of Kinsman's rooms, with 
 the high-art furbelows, the violin under the table, the 
 untidy dhurries on the floor, the impressionist daubs 
 which he had painted himself and hung on the wall 
 to keep the blue plates company. She thought of 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 145 
 
 the black, dingy doorway, of the girl with the sav- 
 age face and the twinkling earrings. 
 
 " Talk to me." Conifer, who had shut the door 
 carefully, half lifted her into the great chair by the 
 fire and stretched himself at her feet on the rug, like 
 a faithful dog. 
 
 Their eyes met; his full of worship, hers of lava- 
 like tears. 
 
 "You love me?" she asked incredulously, the 
 frozen look creeping more stiffly over her face. " I 
 — I began to think " 
 
 She looked such a small, shrunken thing — as he 
 told her afterward — that he felt quite anxious and 
 remorseful. 
 
 " Love! " he cried out boyishly; " I should think 
 I did. Only business worries, you know, darling, 
 enchain a man. He can't be always saying it." 
 
 He took her in his arms. She shivered as he 
 kissed her, taking her full punishment from his 
 ardent lips. She had loved him all along — only 
 him. She thought of Kinsman, in his stuffy, 
 wooden room, with a fierce, ashamed loathing. She 
 kept quiet a little, her head on her husband's breast 
 
146 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 and his lips just flicking her face now and then; At 
 last she broke out beseechingly : 
 
 " Let us go away for a holiday." 
 
 " Very good idea. When ? " 
 
 " To-night — to-morrow, I mean. And, Dick — " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Let's give up this house and go into the coun- 
 try. You can have a pony trap and a season ticket." 
 
 " That isn't half a bad idea," he responded lazily 
 — he was too happy to be positive or vehement 
 about anything. " The rent here is very high and 
 I don't see what we get for it." 
 
 They went abroad for two months, and when they 
 returned they took a house somewhere in Surrey. 
 They lived there for four years — with a pony trap, 
 a man for the garden, and all the other accessories of 
 rural gentility. Mrs. Conifer was very happy. 
 She had two charming children. She was in the 
 third best set — the set which draws the line at 
 tenant farmers, but thinks it rather a privilege to be 
 invited to the Vicarage. 
 
 She never thought of Kinsman, of that dazed,. 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 147 
 
 magic time when she had been a traitor to Dick. 
 She only heard of him twice — once when they saw 
 his name in the newspaper — co-respondent in a 
 divorce suit or something of that sort — and won- 
 dered if it were the same man — their Kinsman — 
 casually over dinner. 
 
 That was all. Except for that, she never gave 
 Kinsman a thought, not even a shudder. She was 
 too happy, too prosperous, too busy. She had her 
 children. She had also her dogs, her bees, her 
 poultry — all the live things that women gather about 
 them in the country, to take the place of shopping. 
 She had her little social excitements — summer gar- 
 den parties and winter hockey. She had her little 
 heart-burnings and triumphs — ^being snubbed by 
 this woman or dropping that one. 
 
 But one day when she was out alone on her 
 bicycle she came upon Kinsman in a lane near the 
 house. He was very shabby, obviously very down 
 on his luck. She remembered all at once that he 
 had never given her back her letters — those foolish, 
 imprudent letters in which she had bared her soul. 
 She gripped the handle bars of her machine desper- 
 
148 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 ately. He was standing in her path. For a mo- 
 ment she had a wild plan of running him down. 
 But the next moment her foot was on the ground. 
 She had dismounted and faced him. 
 
 That was the first of many meetings. He was on 
 his last legs, he was absolutely unscrupulous, and 
 he regularly bled the poor little woman. Once her 
 husband commented on her shabby hat, offered to 
 raise her allowance, and gave her five sovereigns to 
 go on with. The yellow coins dropped like burning 
 blood into her palm. Twice a week she met Kins- 
 man in the lane — Kinsman, shabby and dissolute 
 and a blackmailer. I don't know what he had been 
 up to in those four years, something queer, no doubt. 
 He was always a bit of an enigma. He cleajled her 
 out at last. She had to tell him that she could not 
 give him another penny. It was in the lane as 
 usual. A wet, sodden October afternoon. The 
 sky was gray and unrelenting, like Kinsman's face. 
 .When they parted, after a piteous scene on her part, 
 it was on the understanding that he would come to 
 the house that night and give her husband those 
 letters. That was all. 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 149 
 
 On her way home she met one or two people — 
 her best friends. They chatted a bit of little social 
 things — ^the hockey ball, a wedding, to which she 
 had not been asked, some new people at a house 
 on the hill, on whom nobody had yet called. 
 
 That afternoon she did not change her dress, but 
 went indoors and threw herself on the drawing- 
 room sofa in her short, bicycling skirt. In front of 
 the window she faced was a cherry tree, its boughs 
 bent by the wind and its long, dry leaves floating 
 yellow to the grass. She tried to form her plans. 
 (Would Dick turn her out that night? It was be- 
 ginning to rain; inside, the fire was cheery. The 
 room had never looked so nice. Her wild eyes 
 roved over her little cherished gimcracks on the 
 tables — ^the dainty rubbish that housekeepers ac- 
 cumulate and love. When she heard wheels outside 
 she did not rise. She was afraid. Perhaps Kins- 
 man had stopped the trap on the way from the 
 station. But Dick came in and gave her the usual 
 temperate kiss and asked in the usual hearty way 
 how the youngsters were and whether dinner was 
 going to be punctual. He sat sprawling in slippers 
 
ISO MEN OP MARLOWE'S. 
 
 and an old coat by the fire, saying comfortably what 
 a rough night it was and how the wind had lashed 
 into his eyes as he drove home. 
 
 She turned on her cushions and watched him. 
 He was growing fat and bald — there were prosper- 
 ous, uninteresting curves all over him. He had 
 ripened into a flourishing business man who liked 
 his dinner and a good cigar, who considered his wife 
 as one of his comforts — and very little more. But 
 she loved him. How she loved him! Would he 
 send her away that night ? 
 
 He was mumbling sleepily that it was not fit 
 weather in which to turn a dog out. Would he turn 
 her out? Would he let her take the baby? 
 
 She stared out at the autumn sky and tossing 
 trees; in, at the firelight chasing round the warm, 
 picture-loaded walls. Where would to-morrow 
 find her? To-morrow she would be an outcast. 
 
 All the time her ears were pricking for the door 
 bell and, when it clanged, she started to her feet, 
 with a choking sound in her dry throat. Her face 
 was clay above the severe line of her rigidly cut cloth 
 bodice. The bell rang again. She got up and al- 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 151 
 
 most crawled toward that deep chair by the fire and 
 kissed her husband — a kiss of reHnquishment. He 
 patted her hair and looked at her in lazy surprise. 
 Then he said in a voice of mild irritation : 
 
 "That can't be Crook" (he was the curate). 
 " He said he'd look in one night for a game of chess. 
 But I didn't ask him to dinner, and he surely 
 wouldn't turn out in such weather. I hope it isn't 
 Crook. I want to do some work to-night." 
 
 He glanced at his black bag, which was bloated 
 with papers which he had brought from the City. 
 
 Mrs. Conifer looked at it too — resentfully. She 
 was thinking, with her woman's logic, that it was 
 this ardent devotion to business on her husband's 
 part which had made her drift. If he had not, in 
 the Russell Square days, brought home that bag so 
 often, she would not be in such a pitiable plight to- 
 night. There was a hurried opening of doors 
 downstairs, voices in the hall, then a sharp report 
 and another. 
 
 Mrs. Conifer shrieked. Her husband pulled him- 
 self out of the depths of the chair and rushed 
 downstairs. Presently she stole after him, her 
 
152 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 legs like lead and her wild heart thumping in her 
 throat. 
 
 The hall was brightly lighted with a red and yel- 
 low light, filtering through colored glass lanterns. 
 Face downward on the tesselated floor was the body 
 of a man, his prone head in a pool. The door was 
 flung back. Black night outside and the sob of the 
 wind! 
 
 Two men, the gardener and another, lifted some- 
 thing from the step and carried it in. Mrs. Conifer 
 dragged herself forward. The world swung round 
 with her — they were bringing in another woman. 
 They stretched her beside the man — a woman with 
 the wreck of a gaudy black beauty. It was a face 
 which Mrs. Conifer had seen once — in the doorway 
 of the Inn, the face of Sophia Dominy, her savior. 
 
 The servants were telling Dick how it happened. 
 Kinsman had called and asked for him. The 
 woman must have been close behind. As he stepped 
 across the threshold she fired, then turned the 
 weapon to her own head. 
 
 Kinsman was always a puzzle. What had he 
 been doing in the intervening four years? How 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 153 
 
 had he disgraced himself? Had Sophia been with 
 him all the time? No one will ever know. On© 
 thing only is certain; that Sophia, who was a very 
 jolly, good sort of girl, had been bitterly jealous of 
 Mrs. Conifer. 
 
 Dead eyes blankly regarding her; blood circling 
 sluggishly on the floor; October wind moaning in 
 and lifting sadly the draggled end of smartness on 
 the poor girl's dress ! 
 
 She lost all control, drew her shaking hands from 
 her breast, and gave a long cry of horror and de- 
 spair. She couldn't even be grateful for her 
 escape — couldn't realize it. Dick turned. He saw 
 her there for the first time. He put an arm about 
 her and led her upstairs — to the firelit room, with 
 the open piano, the bowls of autumn flowers, and 
 the pleasant litter of magazines. She flung herself 
 into his arms, choking with emotion. 
 
 " My God ! " she gasped — suddenly, horribly 
 vehement for so childish and dainty a creature — 
 " if_if_if " 
 
 She was on the verge of a confession, but Dick's 
 trust was so complete that he thought her merely 
 
154 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 hysterical — as well she might be. He lifted 
 her distorted face from its burrow in his coat 
 and put his wife with tender insistence on the 
 sofa. 
 
 " There, there," he said, patting her softly. 
 " Don't you give way. It's a beastly business. 
 What the deuce could poor Kinsman have wanted 
 with me? I must go, dearie; there is a great deal 
 to be arranged. I'll send one of the maids to look 
 after you." 
 
 " No," she cried sharply, " I want to be 
 alone." 
 
 He kissed her and went aw^y. After a little she 
 heard him leave the house. Then the baby wailed 
 in the room above and the nurse crooned it quiet. 
 She heard the tramp of feet in the hall; heard the 
 study door shut stealthily, and guessed what this 
 dreid, subdued bustle meant. 
 
 She got up stiffly and went round and round the 
 room, taking up every little toy from the tables 
 thoughtfully, arranging mats and flowers — touch- 
 ing everything with a wistful clinging because it 
 had been spared to her. And then she suddenly re- 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 155 
 
 membered — remembered that she was not quite safe 
 yet. 
 
 Everything downstairs was still. She stole to 
 the door and listened. Then she pattered out onto 
 the landing, stooped down, and taking off her slip- 
 pers carried them in her hand. She crept down the 
 stairs — cursing the steady tick of the tall clock, the 
 rustle of her silk petticoat. She reached the study 
 and waited outside the door for a moment. She 
 was gathering courage to save her honor. She 
 turned the handle at last. Someone had lighted the 
 lamp — the reading lamp with the green shade. It 
 cast a faint yellowish flicker on the horrible 
 shrouded things that were stretched, side by side, on 
 the big table. 
 
 In the drawer of that table Conifer kept a flask of 
 brandy. She took it out and tipped some of the 
 blazing spirit down her throat. It nerved her to 
 peel the sheet from Kinsman's face, to draw it lower, 
 to thrust her delicate hand, heavy with Conifer's 
 jewels, into the inner pocket of the dead man's coat 
 and steal her letters. 
 
 Then she drew the sheet back — ^heart, hand, and 
 
iS6 MEN OF MARLOWE'S- 
 
 head heavy with recollection. All sorts of minor 
 things flashed through her dizzy head — things 
 which had been romantic, daring, delightful at the 
 time — which she exaggerated now into deadly sins, 
 never, never to be wiped out. At Sophia she did 
 not look. But her light blue eyes fixed on Kinsman. 
 His thin lips seemed to have taken a mocking curve 
 — although she had the best of the game. His 
 mouth was shut forever and her letters were back in 
 her own possession. She tucked them into her 
 bodice, remembered to pick up her slippers from the 
 floor, and stole away. 
 
 There was a servant in the drawing room tending 
 the fire; there was another, as she could hear, busy 
 in the bedrooms, preparing for the night. But the 
 nurse was downstairs and the nurseries were empty, 
 except for the sleeping children. 
 
 She crept in, looking furtively round the firelit 
 walls. She went over to the hearth, dug the un- 
 clean letters fiercely in, and watched them burn. 
 There was a little white frock airing on the guard. 
 She took it up in her hot hands and kissed it. 
 Toys were all over the floor; one, a fur monkey 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 157 
 
 with one eye missing and the other fiery-red, seemed 
 tc bUnk up malignantly — ^and as if it knew and 
 would one day tell her children. 
 
 She went into the night nursery and looked at 
 two small heads and two small bodies curled under 
 flowery eider downs. The children were both 
 babies under three. There were toys here too and 
 little socks that she had knitted. These two rooms 
 filled her with a wilder misery and terror than she 
 had known before, because she had been so near 
 losing those little heads on the pillows. 
 
 Heavy with shame, thinking of those two — 
 things — below, she slipped to the floor and tried to 
 pray — for the souls of the dead and the peace of the 
 living. But her knees stiffened. She stumbled to 
 her feet, moaning. A grotesque memory beat in 
 on her. She remembered the old superstition — that 
 no witch could shed a tear ; that this was the witches' 
 most bitter punishment. Well, here was hers. She 
 could not pray. She had sinned, but she had come 
 through the fire. She was faithful to Conifer with 
 a double fervor. She had a high constancy and 
 Jove which the mere faithful wife, who has never 
 
158 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 been tempted, cannot attain. Still — she must bear 
 the burden — of an interlude — all her days. 
 
 She was out of sorts for a long time afterward — 
 taking no interest in her bees, her poultry, — they are 
 rose-comb Andalusians, she told me impressively, — 
 or her children. The local doctor said that her 
 nerves were all wrong. He recommended raw eggs 
 and a thorough change. Conifer has brought her 
 up to town. He has been taking her the round of 
 the theaters — French plays, farces — imagine her 
 sitting through them ! On this, her first free night 
 — he's dining with a City company — she came to 
 me ! came creeping through the Inn in the old way, 
 because she couldn't help it. 
 
 What an impulsive, delightful, compromising 
 fool a true woman is ! I only met her twice — for a 
 minute, by accident — with Kinsman — and yet she 
 came to me to-night. Put herself absolutely in my 
 power. I might blackmail her as Kinsman did. I 
 might tell Conifer. Fortunately for her I shan't. 
 
 She sat and talked, elaborated every detail, 
 shredded every sensation, just as Pray did. I wish 
 
AN INTERLUDE. 159 
 
 these remorseful, perplexed, sinned against and sin- 
 ning people would not come to me. They shove 
 their skeletons in my face, rattling every bone, 
 speaking of the past — always, always the past — ^to 
 a fellow who wants to keep young, who doesn't feel 
 his age. 
 
MORTGAGED. 
 
 I HAVE told you about Kinsman — his china and 
 oak, his flirtations — never from the heart — ^his 
 downfall and sorry end. 
 
 Poor Kinsman ! Like most born bad lots he was 
 a charming companion. If it had not been for the 
 apocryphal aristocratic connections to whom he 
 persistently alluded, he would have been perfect. 
 He was so charmingly enthusiastic over his curios; 
 such a solemn enthusiasm — the only earnest thing 
 about him. 
 
 Yet over the affair of that one supreme curio he 
 kept rigid silence. He told me; but it was a couple 
 of years later — when the Inn had ceased to talk 
 about Harrowsmith. A couple of years later ! By 
 then Kinsman had lived down the first strength of 
 his angry regret. He told me fully, lovingly, sadly, 
 opening out his passionate collector's soul. He 
 made me understand the full virility of those odd 
 emotions which had once fired and wasted him. 
 
i62 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Yes. He was silent enough while the affair was 
 in progress. That odd, weird, inanimate affair! 
 How little any of us suspected the nature of the 
 struggle that was going on behind his constantly 
 sported oak. 
 
 It was in this way. Let me begin, as he began, 
 with his introduction to the brown, burly god which 
 gained possession of him. 
 
 Harrowsmith asked him to lunch one Saturday. 
 After lunch he brought out cigars; he had money 
 and could afford them daily. To him cigar-smok- 
 ing was a habit, not an occasional indulgence. 
 
 The last course of the luncheon still stood on the 
 table, which the two men had pushed well back so 
 that they might rest their feet upon the fender. It 
 was a hard March day; a day of penetrating wind. 
 The draughts licked under the door and danced be- 
 tween the carpet and the shrunken boards. Out- 
 side in the square the only sound was the savage 
 " boo " of the young spring gale. 
 
 Harrowsmith's fripperies — of photographs and 
 gimcrack furniture in the lightest and latest style — 
 appeared meager in the ancient room of his cham- 
 
MORTGAGED. 163 
 
 bers — ^the little room with the heavily corniced 
 ceiling and paneled walls. These fripperies, which 
 he considered showed taste, were in the light of a 
 personal affront to the solid oak cabinet against the 
 wall immediately opposite the fireplace. Kinsman, 
 of course, found this piece of furniture the only 
 thing that he could look at with tolerance. He had 
 been invited to meet it — ^to give his expert opinion 
 on it. 
 
 He kept turning his head and looking pityingly, 
 covetously at it. He felt sorry for it, set as it was 
 among modern cabinet-making and garish orna- 
 ment. It was passing through a period of degrada- 
 tion, this stout cabinet of oak which had lived most 
 likely for a couple of centuries in some manor house. 
 He thought that it must surely feel its shame of con- 
 tact. He couldn't take his eyes off it. Once he 
 found himself fancifully wishing that he wore 
 blinkers like a horse so that he might shut out Har- 
 rowsmith's other effects. 
 
 " It's beautiful, beautiful," he sighed, shading his 
 eyes with his hands and staring straight at the wall, f 
 *' It's original, every bit, even the cornice. I should 
 
i64 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 like to know its history. If these old things could 
 only talk!" 
 
 " It's all he left me. I expected a thousand at 
 least," grumbled Harrowsmith. 
 
 Kinsman was still ardently drinking in the solid 
 beauty of the cabinet — with its linen-patterned 
 panels. One never saw carving of that pattern save 
 on Tudor work. The thing was late Tudor. It 
 was unique — and yet this materialistic doctor was 
 not satisfied. He gazed at the glowing brown 
 wood, at the slim posts supporting the upper cup- 
 board, at the cunning hinges of iron. Never had he 
 thrown at a woman so heart-whole a glance. 
 
 " I wish a rich uncle would leave me such a 
 thing," he sighed. " Why, man, money won't buy 
 it. You may wait, you may search a lifetime, and 
 not find such a well-preserved specimen of the 
 period." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know you have the old-oak craze. 
 But I like smart, modern stuff. I like pretty things 
 about me. You understand? What would that 
 fetch at auction ? " 
 
 Harrowsmith took the cigar out of his mouth 
 
MORTGAGED. 165 
 
 and pointed it, with its long, trembling tip of ash, 
 toward the cabinet. 
 
 " Impossible to say. So much depends. But 
 you surely wouldn't sell it ? " 
 
 " If I could get a good price. Why not ? " 
 Kinsman had never before felt so deeply the dis- 
 advantages of poverty. Fate, which had given him 
 an unsuccessful father, which had chained him to 
 a clerk's stool in a City office, had further cursed 
 him with a fine taste in art. He knew a good thing 
 by instinct. He trifled with bric-a-brac, with Chip- 
 pendale; he had an eye for the voluptuous coloring 
 of the Empire period; but his best aflfections he re- 
 served for oak. All the rest was thin, unsatisfying. 
 In oak, despite the poverty which allowed him to 
 criticise, but rarely to buy, he was a connoisseur. 
 He could tell — ^blindfold — ^by a caressing turn of his 
 hands about the dififerent members, if a piece of oak 
 furniture were original or if it were some bastard 
 thing built together from old wood for the hood- 
 winking of people with money and a fashionable 
 desire for the antique. How savagely I've heard 
 him disclaim against people of that sort ! 
 
1 66 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 He got up. The slim pillars seemed to draw him 
 — ^to wink and beckon and plead. 
 
 " Why don't you buy it off me ? " Harrowsmith 
 asked, idly watching him and looking contemptu- 
 ously amused. 
 
 He spoke with the carelessness of a man to whom 
 money is not of immediate moment. He wheeled 
 round in his chair and took a long, sulky look at the 
 oak. It irritated him. It took up room. More 
 than that, it was reminiscent of disappointment. 
 His Uncle Bob had always promised to remember 
 him in his will. He didn't consider that a Tudor 
 cabinet was remembrance — enough. 
 
 " You shall have it for thirty pounds," he 
 said. 
 
 Kinsman did not answer. He grew pale. The 
 hand that was running about the rich wood twitched 
 nervously. 
 
 Harrowsmith misunderstood his silence, and said, 
 with slight asperity: 
 
 " Is that too much for you ? To get rid of the 
 thing I'll say twenty-five." 
 
 " Twenty-five ! " You may be sure there was a 
 
MORTGAGED. 167 
 
 catch in Kinsman's voice. " It would be cheap at 
 thirty. But you know that I could as easily raise 
 three hundred. How can a poor beggar save out 
 of five pounds a week ? " 
 
 Harrowsmith shrugged and said, " I shall get a 
 dealer in. Can you recommend one ? You're hand 
 in glove with all those fellows. I hate the thing. 
 It's too heavy. It dwarfs the room." 
 
 Kinsman with his finger was tracing the panels. 
 He threw a look of desperation, of pleading even, at ' 
 the oak, as if he thought that a thing which had been 
 so long in the world and had witnessed the perplexi- 
 ties of so many generations was really sentient and 
 could suggest. As he looked, his cheeks flushed, 
 his lips smiled, and his whole attitude became sud- 
 denly debonnaire. 
 
 He returned to the fire, walking ludicrously side- 
 ways, as if he were afraid to take his eyes off the 
 cabinet — the wise, resourceful cabinet. It had 
 suggested. He suddenly remembered. He became 
 confused, dizzy, elated with remembrance. He 
 could buy it — if not with coin of the realm, with 
 something equally marketable. Harrowsmith had 
 
i68 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 said it was marketable. He would buy it. Why 
 not ? Within his own body he carried the means to 
 buy — his own imperfect, freakish body ! 
 
 " Do you remember," he asked, in the hurried, 
 jerky tones of a clock that is out of gear, " the offer 
 you once made me ? " 
 
 Harrowsmith looked perplexed, and then his face 
 lighted. 
 
 " To buy your body — ^yes." 
 
 " Does it still hold good? " 
 
 The doctor stared. Then he laughed and poked 
 the fire until the hot light ran round the room, and, 
 darting down the panels of the cabinet, made it wink 
 and beckon more than before. 
 
 " You didn't like the idea," he said at last. 
 
 " Your Uncle Bob hadn't left you the cabinet 
 then," Kinsman reminded him pointedly. 
 
 " That's ingenious. I see, I see. You propose 
 to sell yourself — for a bit of wood." 
 
 " I should be a fool if I didn't. You want my 
 body after I am dead because it differs in some slight 
 detail from other bodies, because, dead, I shall be to 
 you medical fellows a curio. That's grim." 
 
MORTGAGED. 169 
 
 " A curio, exactly — to use your own fanciful 
 term," said Harrowsmith, professional enthusiasm 
 lighting its cold taper in his eye. " And I, as you 
 know, have made a special study of the thorax. 
 Are you really serious ? " 
 
 " Absolutely. I'll give you my body when I've 
 done with it if you'll give me the cabinet at once." 
 
 Harrowsmith looked at his watch and jumped 
 up. 
 
 " It's not quite four," he said. " Kent, the com- 
 missioner for oaths, on the ground floor, has prob- 
 ably not gone. He stays late. You must sign a 
 document of some sort. He'll draw it up. I like 
 to have things in form. In the event of your pre- 
 deceasing me " 
 
 " I'm yours. Yes; that's all right. If I die 
 first," assented Kinsman carelessly. He was 
 amused and scornful in his turn at an interest which ; 
 was to him inexplicable. 
 
 He thought the doctor a fool. He was also posi- 
 tively grateful to his singular thorax. Men with 
 normal organs could not always afford Tudor furni- 
 ture. Over his enthusiastic face slid the expres- 
 
170 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 sion of a personal greeting as he gave a full look at 
 the cabinet and saluted it. 
 
 " You've got a bargain," Harrowsmith said. 
 " You'll be able to sell the thing, when you are tired 
 of it, at a profit." 
 
 Kinsman winced. The first hint of shadow drew 
 his brows together. 
 
 "Sell it! Why, I'd sell myself first. No joke 
 intended. By Jove ! I have sold myself." 
 
 They both laughed — laughter that tripped and 
 tumbled down the old, wide stairs; laughter that was 
 caught up by the rough wind outside and carried 
 — whither ? 
 
 For some weeks Kinsman had his silent chuckle 
 against Harrowsmith. He told himself that this 
 was mean and narrow. He struggled against his 
 jubilation and his contemptuous reflection that the 
 doctor was a fool. He tried to regard him as a fel- 
 low-enthusiast — with a different objective. He 
 wished to avoid the narrow outlook of the average 
 collector. He imagined that his flirtations with 
 china, with Empire lounges and candelabra, with the 
 
MORTGAGED. 171 
 
 tapering legs of Chippendale chairs had made him 
 tolerant and broadly sympathetic. Evidently it 
 was not so. He looked at his cabinet; he thought of 
 his eccentric thorax — which, after all, Harrow- 
 smith might never possess — and again, silently, in 
 the seclusion of his own rooms, he chuckled. 
 
 After dinner each night, as he sat and smoked, 
 he stole frequent moments for the cabinet. He 
 jumped up now and then imagining that he had dis- 
 covered some new minute detail in the work. Or he 
 opened the doors and stuck his head far into the 
 cavernous cupboards. They exhaled an aromatic 
 perfume. Perhaps some woman had once kept 
 Eastern embroideries there; this was a superficial 
 speculation which he afterward discarded as being 
 unworthy and improbable. He finally decided that 
 it had been used as a linen press — linen folded away 
 with lavender; or a thrifty housewife had stored 
 within choice apples. It was the perfume of old 
 orchards that teased his nostrils. 
 
 He tried to supply the cabinet with a history. 
 Harrowsmith could tell him nothing except that his 
 Uncle Bob had bought it at a sale. Sometimes he 
 
172 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 looked at it so long, so ardently, that he almost 
 thought he was on the point of drawing from the 
 massive brown thing the secrets of dead generations. 
 
 He could never tell me the exact momentous occa- 
 sion when the first faint chill of repugnance struck 
 him. He did remember the night when, as he came 
 home tired from the City, and cast his eyes on the 
 cabinet as usual, it seemed insufficient for the first 
 time. What was it, after all, to make so much fuss 
 about ? Had he paid too great a price ? Until that 
 moment he had never given one thought to the price. 
 
 In the evenings, smoking his cigarette, one hand 
 loose on his knee, he asked himself how that hand 
 would look — dead. Involuntarily he stiffened it. 
 Perhaps it was. the slowly rising horror in him 
 which made it appear whiter than it ever had been 
 before. His hand! He was sorry for it. His 
 body! What an injustice he had done it. Had 
 any man the right to rob his body of the sanctity and 
 superb solitude which come after death? The 
 meanest wretch living retained the right to that 
 majestic aloofness. He had mortgaged his. The 
 first seeds of hate and fear sprouted in his heart. 
 
MORTGAGED. 173 
 
 He dashed out of his chambers and went down 
 Chancery Lane into Fleet Street. He walked west 
 to a theater. The play was a tragedy. As he sat 
 in the pit he laughed when the other people thrilled. 
 He then looked in amazement at the scandalized 
 faces surrounding him. 
 
 He had left his chambers without casting a fare- 
 well look at the cabinet, without murmuring some 
 word of admiration. This had never happened be- 
 fore. He became grave. He reproached himself. 
 He was tender with foolish little penitences — as one 
 would be with a loved woman. 
 
 That night in his bed the grewsome fancy seized 
 him to lie straight and still, hands folded and chin 
 well up. That's how he would lie when he was dead 
 — the majesty of death. But in his case it would 
 be a mere tinsel majesty — like the amusingly solemn 
 antics of a gypsy monarch. He was not his own. 
 
 He got up and lit the light and smoked. He was 
 ashamed of himself. He was afraid of himself, and 
 of Harrowsmith and of the cabinet. They were a 
 dread trio, banded in a terrible way. 
 
 The fire was quite dead. He felt his way across 
 
174 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 the room and put his unsteady hand on the thick oak 
 panels of the cabinet. He put his head against one 
 and groaned. The perfume — was it of lavender? 
 — stole out and nauseated him. 
 
 He would sell it. He must sell it. He went 
 back to bed. He considered. Which dealer would 
 give the best price? He would sell it. He would 
 take his annual holiday early; he evidently wanted 
 a thorough change. 
 
 In the morning he wondered how he could have 
 thought of selling it. The acquisitiveness, the un- 
 reasoning, improvident, ardent affection of the col- 
 lector was strong in him again. Before he went to 
 the City he examined the cabinet as usual, gloating 
 and thrilling over its beauty. 
 
 But at night he was again seized with forebod- 
 ing so dreadful that he dashed into the flowing 
 streets. He went to a music hall. He grinned, a 
 fixed, wide grin, that seemed to crack his cheeks. 
 His face felt stiff. The faces of the dead were stiff. 
 
 He thought that he would ask Harrowsmith to 
 break the compact, to take back his legacy. But 
 the doctor had a professional ardor. He might 
 
MORTGAGED. 175 
 
 bluntly refuse. Also — he could not part with the 
 cabinet. 
 
 The next day was Saturday. All the afternoon 
 he walked miserably about the London streets. He 
 thought he'd enlist, get sent to the front, and be 
 killed on a battlefield. So would he save his dead 
 flesh from ribald attention. But perhaps Harrow- 
 smith would not let him go. 
 
 He was afraid to go back to his chambers, 
 afraid that he might meet Harrowsmith on the 
 stairs, afraid of the cabinet. He turned into a tea 
 shop and found with difficulty a vacant chair at one 
 of the tables. The life and gayety and warmth of 
 that tea shop reassured him. He despised himself 
 for his morbid fears. He would be a fool if he 
 threw up his berth and went to the front. Besides, 
 if he went he must leave the cabinet. The touch 
 and sight of the wonderful brown wood carved by 
 hands that had so long been dust had become a daily 
 necessity to him. 
 
 Next morning, when he awoke, he was feeling 
 very ill. It was doubtless influenza. There was no 
 danger in that if one took care. He would take 
 
176 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 care. He must. He dared not die. Death now 
 had a bitterness double distilled. All that Sunday- 
 he lay miserably in bed. As the hours wore on he 
 grew too ill to fear death — and after. He was too 
 ill, even, to be haunted by his usual terror when dusk 
 fell. 
 
 Next day his laundress came to light the fire. He 
 sent her off with a telegram to the office, saying he 
 could not come. She happened to meet Harrow- 
 smith on the landing and, sent him in on her own 
 initiative. 
 
 The doctor was a,ssiduous. He was good to us 
 all, and only grew angry if we spoke of a fee. He 
 muttered something about nervous breakdown. He 
 provided a trained nurse; he paid professional visits 
 twice a day. 
 
 With care and nursing Kinsman began to be him- 
 self again. Harrowsmith told him that he must get 
 away for a rest. He added that he would go with 
 him; a holiday together would be splendid. No 
 doubt he wondered at the wild, leaping terror in the 
 other's eyes when he said that; said it in such a 
 cheery, commonplace way, without any subtlety. 
 
MORTGAGED. 177 
 
 But Kinsman was subtle and suspicious and mad. 
 He thought the doctor wished to come too, so as to 
 be sure of him. He read the most diabolical eager- 
 ness in his calm face. How afraid he was of Har- 
 rowsmith ! And how afraid Harrowsmith was that 
 he would be the loser on their strange compact. 
 Afraid to let him go away alone in case he should 
 die and be buried. 
 
 His dread and hate grew and grew; it became dis- 
 torted into a monster. He now hesitated before he 
 swallowed each dose of medicine. His light head 
 became the dwelling-place of a hundred wild 
 thoughts. He lay with his face to the wall and saw 
 it all as clearly as possible — with preternatural 
 clearness. Harrowsmith wanted to kill him. He 
 was impatient; that was only natural. But he 
 would not die. Sometimes, when the nurse came 
 near, he desperately clutched at her hand to save 
 him, to pull him back. He must live. He must 
 spare his flesh — his poor flesh, at which he looked 
 yearningly as it lay against the bed linen, wan and 
 veined. 
 
 Once he thought desperately that rather than die 
 
178 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 he would kill Harrowsmith first — with the last spurt 
 of energy left him. Yes. In any case, when he 
 grew strong, he would certainly kill him as a safe- 
 guard; a man could not live in such perpetual terror. 
 
 His face to the wall, he reproached himself bit- 
 terly with his headlong passion for the cabinet. 
 iWhat was there in old oak to lure a man to such 
 madness? It added nothing to life. What was 
 life but decent provision and the certainty of a long, 
 undisturbed death? Things seemed simple and 
 f lear as he lay dozing through the days. 
 
 If he had sold himself for bread that would have 
 ^een more understandable, less reprehensible. Star- 
 vation was a very terrible thing. But he had sold 
 himself — for what? He thought with weird dread 
 and passion of that solemn, shining brown thing 
 through the wall — ^the mysterious piece of ancient 
 furniture that was responsible for his misery. 
 
 And so, by desperate will, as he thought, he lived. 
 He grew strong. The trained nurse went away. 
 The last bottle of medicine was empty. 
 
 He was alone and would be until the morning. 
 This was the first evening he had been alone since 
 
MORTGAGED. ij^ 
 
 his illness. At dusk the old familiar terror gripped 
 him. He was beginning to be afraid, and this time 
 he could not dart like a hunted creature into the 
 streets and join his fellow-men — men whose bodies 
 belonged to them ; men who had not mortgaged their 
 last sad majesty. He was alone, alone. On the 
 shawl which wrapped his knees his folded hands 
 looked oddly pale. 
 
 He walked across the room and touched the cabi- 
 net. Long stay in bed had numbed his feet. He 
 touched the cabinet. In his throat was a desperate 
 sob. 
 
 He would sell it. Sell ! That was just what he 
 could never do. But if only he could; if only he 
 might buy himself back. 
 
 Sell ! He imagined the joy of the buyer — a col- 
 lector, of course. What pure, undiluted ecstasy he 
 would get out of it — ^that man who paid with gold 
 and not with his own helpless flesh! No; he could 
 never sell it. Beautiful, devilish, compelling thing ! 
 It must stay with him until the end. 
 
 He opened the door and smelt the smell — ^the 
 clinging aroma which had always tantalized and 
 
I So MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 piqued him. He traced with his finger the rude 
 hinges of hammered iron. His face quivered in 
 every muscle with varied emotions. How he loved 
 this thing! How he hated and feared it! What 
 moments of joy it had afforded him ! What a fear- 
 ful league it had lured him into making ! 
 
 A terrible struggle was passing over him. His 
 freakish brain had suggested a new extravagance. 
 He was possessed with a desire to do this strange, 
 this futile and dastardly act. He lifted his head and 
 looked at the cabinet as he would have looked into 
 human eyes — a long, wistful look; a look embody- 
 ing a whole gamut of emotions. Then he crossed 
 the room, stooped down to a box in one corner, and 
 came back with a hammer. 
 
 " It will hurt you," he said foolishly, the hammer 
 already uplifted, his eyes drinking in the delicacy of 
 that wonderful thing which had traveled down the 
 past ages and drifted to him and been his tempter, 
 " but not as it hurts me." 
 
 He struck. All night he worked with the ham- 
 mer, with every tool he had that could help him. 
 He began to break it up, to hack it asunder — his 
 
MORTGAGED. i8i 
 
 cabinet. He threw it on the fire bit by bit. It 
 blazed and crackled, this old dry wood. The splut- 
 ter and crackle went to his heart. He thought they 
 were agonized protests. He believed that it suf- 
 fered as it died. In his long morbid communion 
 with it he had grown to believe it human and some- 
 thing more. 
 
 It took him days and nights to kill the cabinet. 
 It was so stoutly built. When he was exhausted he 
 crept to bed, not forgetting to lock the door on that 
 scene of strange disorder. But at last it was done. 
 The wall behind was bare and dirty, festooned with 
 cobwebs. On the floor was dust and chips and 
 splinters. The fire burned with the glowing heat of 
 a sacrificial fire. 
 
 Already he was calmer. Although he still be- 
 longed to Harrowsmith, although he had madly 
 destroyed the one thing that might have redeiemed 
 him, although his days would now hold bitter mo- 
 ments, he was at peace. 
 
 He watched it burn. He saw the wondrous handi- 
 craft of cunning dead men disappear line by line, 
 and turn to ash. 
 
i82 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 He was sitting so when his laundress came in at 
 the widely flung door. It was the first time for 
 days that she had been permitted to enter the sitting 
 room. He nervously expected her to exclaim, to 
 inquire. The blank wall was so obvious. The 
 little room was hot like an oven, but she only flung 
 her hands and cried out : 
 
 " Oh, lor' ! what an awful thing this is about Mr. 
 'Arrersmith. To be knocked down by one o' them 
 cycles. The streets of London aint safe. And 'im 
 a doctor, too, the cleverest doctor at the 'orspital." 
 
 " What — what about him? " 
 
 " Knocked down by a cycle and killed in Grays 
 Inn Road, jest by the 'orspital," she returned with 
 flavor. 
 
 Kinsman staggered to his feet. The fire licked 
 out from the grate and seemed to sear him, to dry 
 the words in his throat and dam up the glad accursed 
 tears in his eyes. 
 
 He was no longer a bondman. He was free. 
 He could bear to look at his flesh, his own until 
 death, and after. He looked at his hands, torn and 
 soiled, hands that had destroyed the cabinet. 
 
MORTGAGED. 183 
 
 His eyes fell on the last panel, which the fire was 
 greedily eating; on the heap of ash that had meant 
 so much beauty. 
 
 He dropped back in the chair. He laughed — 
 laughter that gurgled with water as it fought its 
 way through his throat. He could not see the 
 blank wall for tears, whether for the cabinet, the 
 dead man, or himself he did not know. 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 
 
 Gully and his wife had one of the new sets just 
 inside the gates. These sets are more expensive, 
 more convenient, more respectable than the old ones. 
 Lucinda — she was Gully's wife — would never have 
 consented to an old set. She set her face sternly 
 against Bohemianism when it took a certain form. 
 She didn't object to it in the form of Liberty tea- 
 gowns and discreet flirtations in the name of art and 
 literature. Gully was a journalist. He found the 
 Inn convenient, but Lucinda was always hoping 
 plaintively that some day they would be able to 
 afford a house in Bloomsbury, or, better still, a 
 modest place in the country. 
 
 She had six rooms, every convenience, and a most 
 superior maidservant, the long streamers of whose 
 cap, when she ran out to post a letter, lent a certain 
 cachet to the Inn. 
 
 Lucinda was nice enough. Her struggles for a 
 
 conventional manner of life were amusing. She 
 
 185 
 
i86 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 never gave Gully any peace. She dragged him 
 about to social functions. She made him use his 
 influence to get her portrait in the ladies' papers, as 
 assistant at a charity concert or exhibitor at a cat 
 show — she kept a couple of wild-looking Persians. 
 She always had her photograph taken in evening 
 dress. She was one of those coarse women — com- 
 monly called fine — who are disfigured by a big neck 
 and big arms. 
 
 She had her " At-Home " day, of course. She 
 displayed a card bowl on a prominent table in the 
 pleasant room overlooking the gardens which she 
 called her drawing room. She peppered the conver- 
 sation with references to dinners and receptions that 
 she had been invited to. 
 
 We were never allowed to smoke in the drawing 
 room, nor to bring in our whisky. It was a modern 
 drawing room, all white paint, cheap china, and 
 cushion frills. She had a standard lamp with an 
 amazing amber shade. She spent sixpence twice a 
 week on cut flowers, and sold Gully's old clothes for 
 palms. It was a very fair attempt at Maida Vale — 
 Lucinda and her drawing room. 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 187 
 
 Therefore it was a surprise to me when Gully 
 came round one night and said despondently : 
 
 " I wish you could help me with Lucinda. She's 
 going all to pieces." 
 
 " Going to pieces ! " 
 
 I thought of dressmakers' bills, of the minor 
 journalists who sometimes dropped in to tea. Yet 
 Lucinda was a safe woman. She was far too re- 
 spectable to run into debt or to compromise herself. 
 Gully proceeded to explain. 
 
 " You know she makes me walk in the Park every 
 Sunday afternoon. She wants to go in the morn- 
 ing when the fashionable frocks are about. But I 
 draw the line at that. We compromise with the 
 afternoon — when there is only the band and pretty 
 shop girls I don't so much mind. We were there 
 six weeks ago, and we stopped to listen to a Socialist 
 spouter — one of those rabid enthusiasts in a red tie. 
 We had listened to them all — ^the religious ones, the 
 atheists, the philosophers. Sometimes you get good 
 copy out of fellows like that. 
 
 " I wouldn't let her stand about long. Her chest 
 is weak, and the Wigans' fancy-dress bait is coming 
 
i88 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 on. It is to be a grand afifair; they've talked of it for 
 months. Lucinda was to go as a — ablest if I can 
 remember as what — but her bodice was to be the 
 merest apology. You can't blame a fine woman for 
 showing off her neck and arms. Old Wigan is the 
 proprietor of my paper, a very wealthy man, a very 
 influential one too. It is to my interest to keep in 
 with him. It would never do for us to snub him by 
 keeping away. You're never safe in journalism. 
 Get a post as editor, and begin to bound on your so 
 many hundreds a year. Phew! the paper changes 
 hands or politics — where are you? Get regular 
 weekly features, make yourself an authority on some 
 subject or other. The public doesn't want your 
 subject — or you. Journalism is rotten, I tell you, 
 rotten. Only the absolutely unscrupulous, or the 
 totally ignorant, have the least chance. I know 
 men in journalism who are making five pounds a 
 week and more by writing gutter stuff. And I 
 know clever men who barely scrape a hundred and 
 fifty a year. 
 
 " Where was I ? Oh ! Lucin'da. I know that her 
 bronchial attacks last half through the winter, so I 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 189 
 
 pulled her away out of the crowd. It was a bitterly 
 cold day. 
 
 " We walked off. She drew up the collar of her 
 coat. I said that it had been foolish of us to stand 
 about in the cold and risk bronchitis, with the 
 Wigans' fancy-dress ball coming on. 
 
 " ' I don't care a bit about the ball," she said. 
 ' I'm not going.' 
 
 " ' Not care ! not going ! But your dress ? 
 You've bought the silk. It cost a pretty penny.' 
 
 " ' Brocade. Twelve and six a yard,' she 
 groaned. 
 
 " ' It seemed to me a little stiff. But so long as 
 you are happy ' 
 
 " ' Happy ! Did you hear what he said ? It is 
 dreadful.' 
 
 " ' Awful. The police ought to put a stop to ' 
 
 " It was Lucinda who stopped — on the edge of 
 the Serpentine. 
 
 " ' Do you know what you are saying ? ' she de- 
 manded. 
 
 " I didn't like the contemptuous curl of her lip, 
 and returned with some pique : 
 
igo MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " ' 1 know what he was saying. Extravagant 
 balderdash! I ought to know something about 
 poUtics. I take an interest in them — an intelHgent 
 interest. - 1 write about them. There's my weekly 
 letter to the Midland daily, isn't there? I vote 
 Radical, I'm a Progressive. I'm for the ameliora- 
 tion of — all sorts of things.' 
 
 " I wound up vaguely. You can't talk sane, seri- 
 ous politics to your wife; the true political woman 
 has yet to be born. 
 
 " ' When we retire 'to the country in our ripe 
 middle age,' I went on, ' I shall take an active 
 interest in local affairs. I shall become a member 
 of the parish council; shall look after rights of way 
 and be down on barbed wire. I've my own ideas on 
 the game laws — we shall never have enough money 
 to preserve — and lots of things. I won't dilate on 
 them. You wouldn't understand.' 
 
 " It was getting dusk. In the distance the crowd 
 — all the little crowds — were melting away. A 
 soldier sat with a girl on a seat. His red coat was 
 warm against the shadows. 
 
 " ' There ! ' broke out Lucinda passionately, be- 
 
A POLITICAL- WOMAN. 191 
 
 fore we were out of hearing. ' Did you see those 
 two on the seat ? ' 
 
 " ' I did. I thought, so far as I could judge, you 
 know, that they looked uncommonly happy.' 
 
 " ' Happy ! a soldier ! a servant girl ! What have 
 they done? Surely you, as a practical politician, 
 can tell me. Why should they be born to such a 
 life? I ask you. No gleam of brightness to lighten 
 the impenetrable gloo ' 
 
 " ' Come now. You are quoting the maniac in 
 the red tie.' 
 
 " ' We got out of the Park and went along Ox- 
 ford Street in silence until we were near the Circus. 
 Then Lucinda burst out suddenly : 
 
 " ' Two thousand acres of land ' 
 
 "'If you are, going to tackle the .agricultural 
 problem ' 
 
 " ' One third of the available capital ' 
 
 " ' Don't start on statistics ; nothing more 
 treacherous.' 
 
 " ' How many families did he say lived in one 
 room ? ' 
 
 " ' Wasn't listening.' 
 
192 MEN. OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " ' That is just it. People like you never do listen. 
 People like you content themselves with reading 
 stupid, woolly, political speeches. For my part, I 
 always skip such things, and am thankful when Par- 
 liament adjourns and they put something really 
 interesting in the papers.' " 
 
 Gully stopped and knocked the ashes out of his 
 pipe. 
 
 " From that day," he said solemnly, when he had 
 refilled and lighted up, " she has given me no peace. 
 She'll compromise herself seriously — that's what 
 I'm afraid of. She's been making election rosettes. 
 She actually met a fellow by appointment in Broad 
 Street. One of these Social Democrats; she wants 
 me to review his book, ' The Fall of the Capitalist.' 
 I put my foot down when it came to appointments 
 — ^the scoundrel ! 
 
 " She's always hurling Socialistic bricks at me. 
 I've tried to convince her of her errors with a pencil 
 and a bit of paper. I worked out a sum in propor- 
 tion, with a landowner and a man with a patent who 
 had a certain amount of capital to start with. She 
 said she didn't care a fig for my stupid landowner. 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 193 
 
 " I'm afflicted with a wife who has ideas of her 
 own and means to live up to them. It's hard. I 
 never counted on taking brains — of the bran-new 
 sort — when I took Lucinda. I object to a clever 
 woman. I work hard. I've got brains enough for 
 both, and over. I ask for a pretty face, a fresh frock, 
 good cooking — that's all. I can get the rest from 
 the papers, or I can drop in at the club." 
 
 " Look here, old man," I said soothingly, " get 
 her on facts. Never use pencil and paper to a 
 woman — ^logic only irritates them. Make her live 
 up to her doctrines — she'll be sick of them in a 
 week." 
 
 Women soon tire; all froth and no ballast. (I'm 
 forgetting that you're a woman, but you like the 
 complete story.) 
 
 He went away after I had given him a few tips. 
 At the end of the week he came back. 
 
 " Well? " I said optimistically, as he sat down arid 
 took out his pipe. 
 
 " I think she is a trifle better," he admitted, in a 
 half-hearted way. " She won't part with the serv- 
 ant; says she really hasn't time and strength enough 
 
194 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 for housework. But she admits that a servant is 
 inconsistent with her theories, and she looked quite 
 happy when she added that she really believed I was 
 beginning to see things in the right light. I've told 
 her plainly that I'll have no hypocrites in my home. 
 Silver — her aunt left her some — flowers, Worcester 
 tea-things, I wouldn't stand. She murmured some- 
 thing about it being a duty with every citizen to 
 keep up the graces of life, but she yielded in the 
 end. She was crying a bit as she wrapped the silver 
 — beautiful Georgian stufif — away in chamois- 
 leather bags. 
 
 " I said that a drawing room gave the very lie to 
 her theories. She's turned the key of that room. 
 
 " The servant has given notice; of course she 
 thinks the spoons are pawned. Lucinda is upset. 
 But I said cheerily that it was so nice to be indiffer- 
 ent, to be supported by the consciousness of a 
 worthy mission. I said that simplicity was the 
 great thing. I suggested that we should sell the 
 furniture — giving the proceeds to the Socialistic 
 cause — and go to a boarding house. They board 
 you in Gower Street for twenty-five shillings a 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 195 
 
 week — ^with a reduction, no doubt, on married 
 couples. I said that she would then be quite free 
 from housekeeping and would be able to throw more 
 soul into her political work. You should have seen 
 her face! I think she's beginning to be sorry that 
 she converted me. Converts always go too far. 
 
 " But she's not cured," he concluded solemnly. 
 " She went off this morning to Brentford, where 
 some member of her party has his committee room." 
 
 " Perhaps we had better play our trump card," 
 I said. " What time will she be back ? " 
 
 " About nine." 
 
 " Very well. I'll look round with Smithers and 
 Arnold. It's a job that Jimmy would enjoy, but 
 he's so lantern-jawed she'd know him at once." 
 
 At nine Gully,- Smithers, Arnold, and I were in 
 Lucinda's drawing room, smoking very strong 
 tobacco and drinking hot gin and water; it gave me 
 heartburn for nearly a week. But it made a good 
 steam and fume; effect was what we wanted. We 
 all four looked — ^well, rough. A bristly chin and 
 no collar alters a man immensely. As luck would 
 have it, neither Smithers nor I had shaved that 
 
196 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 morning; nor the morning before, in my case. Ar- 
 nold wore a false beard. 
 
 Why do absconding criminals take the trouble to 
 disguise themselves — decent, middle-class criminals 
 who are accustomed to razors and clean linen? A 
 bristly chin and a neck without a collar would do 
 the whole business, without trouble or expense. If, 
 added to that, the criminal gets his " portrait " in 
 the paper, he's safe. 
 
 My feet were on the sofa. The gin bottle and a 
 jug of beer stood on Lucinda's pet polished table. 
 Arnold was gently scraping his boots on the copper 
 scuttle, and Smithers had his head well into the 
 white curtains. The rugs were kicked up; there 
 were spent matches all over the floor. It was an 
 education to see how by a few well-thought-out 
 touches we had wrecked the room. 
 
 Lucinda was pretty punctual. She stood on the 
 threshold for one second before she fled. I looked 
 round. There was blank tragedy on her face. 
 Gully got up, appearing a little guilty. He went 
 out to her. Judging by the direction of their voices 
 he found her in the lobby, with her face buried in 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 197 
 
 his overcoat. She was crying. We three in the 
 untidy room, thick with smoke and stale with spirit, 
 heard her say in a muffled way : 
 
 " This is too much. You've taken away the — s — 
 silver — all the decencies of life. You talk to me of 
 a cheap boarding house. I'll never consent to 
 it; I'd rather die or go back to papa. And 
 you've brought those wretches into my drawing 
 room." 
 
 " But we agreed, darling, that it wasn't to be a 
 drawing room any longer. We said that we'd de- 
 vote it to the people. Your own idea was a laun- 
 dresses' weekly tea, and " 
 
 " You look disreputable. You look like — a — 
 brigand. No collar — that tie. I never was so 
 miserable. I never would have married you if " 
 
 " My dearest, you wouldn't have me wound the 
 susceptibilities of those worthy fellows " 
 
 " And one with his hateful great feet on the em- 
 broidered cushion my cousin Ethel sent from India, 
 and another " 
 
 " Lucinda, you surprise me. I thought you'd be 
 so pleased. I arranged it as a delicate attention — 
 
igS MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 a pleasant surprise party. Sons of toil, dear, all of 
 them, and " 
 
 " Dirty brutes ! I hate the whole thing. I'm 
 tired to death." We heard her stamp her feet 
 viciously on the oil-cloth. " The election is all 
 going to pieces. Let it! I don't care. Just look 
 at my new skirt — all mud and torn to ribbons. You 
 never saw such a filthy place, such a set of roughs ! 
 I couldn't even get a decent cup of tea. And — and 
 — I went into the wrong committee room, and the 
 man — the other man — laughed, the idiot! I wish 
 
 I'd Oh, Tom ! I never thought you could be so 
 
 cruel, so unmanly. Do be yourself again. I can't 
 think what has come over you. It has worried me 
 dreadfully. Let us be comfortable again. Send 
 those monsters away." 
 
 Gully said impressively: 
 
 " Will you go to the Wigans' ball? I've got my 
 way to make in the world. Wigan's wife is — well, 
 you know her. Decent old charwoman; got sense 
 enough to hold her tongue. Wigan is sensitive on 
 that point. If we snub his wife it may be bad for 
 me." 
 
A POLITICAL WOMAN. 199 
 
 " Will I go ? What a question ! Of course I 
 will." 
 
 " And committee rooms and mass-meetings and 
 particularly that Socialist cad " 
 
 " Don't mention him. I'm sick, I tell you — 
 sick, sick. He hardly spoke a civil word to me — 
 after the way I've slaved. Go and send those men 
 away, if you love me." 
 
 " You don't think a little friendly supper " 
 
 " I won't hear of it." 
 
 We heard — well, we heard him kiss her — and 
 then we heard her whisk away into the bedroom to 
 bathe her eyes, and Gully came in with a wide grin 
 to dismiss us. As we went through the passage we 
 heard the vigorous splash of water in the basin. 
 
 Gully let us out. We went down the stone stairs, 
 with stealthy handshakes and smothered chuckles, 
 leaving him alone with Lucinda, and master once 
 more. 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 
 
 Poor Nat Chaytor had this set once. It is very 
 inconvenient — ^just two rooms and a nest of cup- 
 boards called a kitchen. You never saw such cup- 
 boards, such idiotic waste of space ! Probably not. 
 Every set is different. The old fellows who de- 
 signed the place were freakish. It is small and in- 
 convenient, but the best I can afford. I'm three 
 quarters in arrears with the rent, as it is. Some 
 day I shall have to shoot the moon and get the boys 
 in the other sets to help me do it. We all hang to- 
 gether in adversity. 
 
 When Chaytor took it he was a clerk in the City 
 at one hundred and eighty pounds a year. On one 
 hundred and eighty pounds a year he married 
 Minnie, who was the lady typewriting clerk in the 
 same office. They lived here — ^just for a bit, as he 
 always explained — until their ship came home. He 
 was a most hopeful fellow. They pegged on pretty 
 
202 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 comfortably for a time. Minnie smartened up the 
 rooms — that plush bracket on the wall above your 
 head was hers. She turned up her nose pretty con- 
 siderably at other ladies in the Inn. She routed 
 Chaytor's laundress. The poor old soul came and 
 poured out her woes to me. She had everything 
 her own way so long as Chaytor was a bachelor. I 
 remember that he came home from the City one day 
 in his lunch hour — which he usually stretched into 
 two — ind found her asleep on his bed. She had not 
 even troubled to take off her battered black bonnet 
 or the sacking apron whose narrow string kept her 
 together at the waist. But Minnie, as she rather 
 snappishly said, was not going to " put up with 
 such ways. She would rather do the work herself." 
 So Mrs. Percival got a week's notice. 
 
 " I've done for dozens of gentlemen in the Inn, as 
 you knows, sir," she said pathetically to me; " and 
 then to be sacked by a hussy like her. An' me the 
 widow of a solicitor myself, and a lady by birth." 
 
 Things went on well enough with the Chaj^ors 
 for a few months. We did not see much of Nat; 
 Minnie had a freezing, fine-lady manner with old 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 203 
 
 bachelor friends, and liked her husband to go to bed 
 when she did' — ^punctually at eleven. Things went 
 on well enough until he got discharged from his 
 berth in the City. It was the usual story — ^business 
 bad, reducing the staff, and so on. Lut I rather 
 fancy that Nat's easy hours had something to do 
 with it. He always turned up half an hour late in 
 the morning, took two hours for his lunch, another 
 hour for afternoon tea, and went off at six every 
 night, very often leaving the members of the firm 
 at their desks. He had that fierce, sick hatred of 
 City life which so many fellows have — nearly all 
 the fellows who are good for an3M:hing. The dozens 
 that I have seen chuck the accursed City ! Some of 
 these go up and some go under. But whichever 
 way it is, they live — or die — free men. 
 
 He lost his berth. He was rather relieved than 
 otherwise. He had been expecting it for a long 
 time. A City clerk's is a grim calling. He is never 
 safe, and he knows that once out of a situation the 
 chances are ten to one against his getting another. 
 It is like losing your footing in a crowd — there is 
 small chance of getting up again. Orion knew that; 
 
204 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 it egged him on to murder the old woman in Great 
 Ormond Street. 
 
 No doubt Nat had ^ hot time with Minnie when 
 he told her the news. She was one of those small, 
 sharp-featured, rasping-voiced girls, with an inef- 
 faceable sneer on her lips. Her creed was getting 
 on in the world. She had been hoping that Nat 
 would have a rise^ — two hundred a year, so that they 
 might have a house all to themselves in the suburbs, 
 and a little maidservant with a cap and apron. She 
 said that the Inn wasn't a fit place for a re- 
 spectable young woman, and very likely she was 
 right. 
 
 But Chaytor, as usual, put a good face on the 
 affair. I think he was genuinely glad. The City 
 fogs hurt his chest, he said; and was a man a slave 
 or a schoolboy, that he should mount the same con- 
 founded office stool every morning, year in and year 
 out! 
 
 "They only give us a fortnight's holiday," he 
 added, "and then it is always wet. Find me the 
 City clerk who has ever had a fine fortnight for his 
 annual holiday ! " 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 205 
 
 Minnie cried out savagely, "Stuff and non- 
 sense ! " 
 
 She asked him where he expected to find thirty- 
 five pounds a year rent and a pound a week 
 housekeeping, to say nothing of extras such as 
 clothes. 
 
 " Easily enough," Chaytor cried airily. " I'm 
 going in for journalism." 
 
 And then it began — the long, heart-breaking 
 struggle — with a shrew at his elbow thrown in. He 
 used to sit at the window and wait for the last post 
 every evening. He watched the postman cross the 
 square and fumble at his bag. 
 
 " That article is sure to be accepted," he would 
 call into the room to Minnie. " Here is the check 
 coming upstairs. We'll go down to your home for 
 a little holiday." 
 
 But the check never came. It was always a long 
 envelope addressed in his own handwriting and con- 
 taining his "copy" and the diabolically polite re- 
 grets of the editor. Poor old Chaytor ! 
 
 Minnie carefully cleaned and oiled her typewriter 
 and put an advertisement in a literary paper for 
 
2o6 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 copying work — quoting a penny a thousand less 
 than the other advertisers. 
 
 The quick clinkety-clank of the typewriter tor- 
 tured Chaytor; he hated machinery. He said 
 mournfully that the world was rapidly becoming 
 machine-made. Of course Minnie asked acidly, 
 " where would he be if it were not for machines? " 
 
 Sometimes he got ten shillings, once a guinea, for 
 an article, but it was the copying work that kept 
 them. I remember the day when he got the guinea. 
 He went out and spent two shillings on a plant in a 
 pot for Minnie. You should have seen the look on 
 her face when he presented it ! I happened to be 
 there. She went on clanking furiously, just spit- 
 ting out through the din of her keys : 
 
 " The baker came while you were out. I had to 
 shut the oak and keep as still as a mouse. We owe 
 him ten shillings. I don't know where you think it 
 is coming from." 
 
 I suppose she was right, but one couldn't help 
 being sorry for Chaytor. He wasn't really fit for 
 this work-a-day world. I often had a queer feeling 
 that he did not mean to stop in it long. 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 207 
 
 One morning in early April he burst out laugh- 
 ing. He was sitting at a table near the window 
 polishing up one of his articles, and Minnie was 
 typing at another table in the middle of the room. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked sharply. 
 
 He looked at her across the machine in a dazed 
 way. 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! " he muttered, confused by her 
 clear, business-like glance. " I was only wonder- 
 ing why I am here — that's all. It seemed odd." 
 
 " I wish you were not here," she returned prac- 
 tically. " Go and hunt round for a berth ! There 
 must be plenty. Why, if you began at £80 it would 
 be better than nothing." 
 
 Then she got up, saying it was time to get some- 
 thing for dinner. She came in with her hat and 
 cape on to ask what he would like. The shabbi- 
 ness of that hat and cape struck his heart, although 
 he had not quite got rid of the dazed, unreal feeling 
 which had come over him so suddenly. He noticed 
 too, that Minnie's cheeks, so pink once, had deep- 
 ened to mottled purple, that her shallow eyes were 
 hard and her cheek-bones sharp. He worried him- 
 
2o8 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 self by wondering where her old self had gone. 
 The girl he had courted under City gas lamps had 
 left him and put a shrewish woman in her place. 
 But she must have gone somewhere, that delicately 
 tinted, coquettish girl. What became of cast-off 
 selves ? 
 
 " Well ? " she said crisply, investigating the con- 
 tents of her purse. 
 
 "Chops?" 
 
 " At thirteen pence a pound ! No, thank you. A 
 bit of beefsteak and a spring cabbage. I shan't be 
 long. I shall just run down Red Lion Street." 
 
 She whisked off with her worn purse and her 
 string bag. Chaj^or began to dream of the coun- 
 try, which he knew very well, although he had never 
 been more than ten miles from London since his 
 childhood. But Minnie was a Somersetshire girl. 
 She was always scattering careless word pictures. 
 He knew just when you might find the first prim- 
 roses, in sheltered spots, what cherry blossom was 
 like, how they carted home hay. He knew the 
 earliest date for the cuckoo, and how persistently the 
 wryneck called through April and May; knew that 
 
BEYOND THE CRAY GATE. 209 
 
 the first notes of the nightingales were unsteady, 
 that ladies' smocks and king-cups only grew in 
 damp spots. 
 
 He laughed. He felt that the country was his 
 own rich inheritance. It really was ridiculous ! A 
 grim, rare, ripe joke that he — with such a kingdom 
 of earth and sky — should be going through this 
 farce. Why was he here? Why had he come? 
 Why was he strangling himself slowly with thick 
 London smoke? Why was he driving himself half 
 mad to make both ends meet, to turn off articles 
 suited to the popular taste — the debased popular 
 taste which he scorned ! It was queer. He laughed 
 again. 
 
 Then he thought he would go out. Minnie would 
 be annoyed when he came home and said that he 
 had only been for a walk and not for a berth; but 
 when you are playing at life, just masquerading, a 
 woman's anger does not matter very much. He 
 went across the square. I saw hirh go. It was 
 such a spring-like morning — in the Inn — that I al- 
 most called out of the window to say that I would 
 come too. Instead of that, I watched him from be- 
 
2IO MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 hind the curtain and noticed, for the first time, how 
 slowly he went, how hunched his shoulders were. 
 
 He went across to the Holborn Town Hall, where 
 the trams start. He went by one to Stamford Hill 
 and got down and went crawling along a row of new 
 houses. They were villas of the sort that Minnie 
 had been ambitious for when there was some chance 
 of his screw being raised to two hundred pounds. 
 They were semi-detached; between each pair was a 
 narrow passage, convenient for the carting of coal 
 and refuse. He stopped at one of these shoots; the 
 passage was barred by a gate, an unpainted gate of 
 gray oak. 
 
 He pushed it open, shut it softly, gave a last look 
 back, and then went down the narrow entry. New 
 walls of cheap brick rose on each side; the April 
 wind hooted softly after him. At the end of the 
 passage was another gate, which he went through. 
 Beyond it was open common. 
 
 There had been rain. He saw stretches of dim 
 brown and bleached yellow, broken here and there 
 by the bright mustard tint of fully blown broom and 
 patched with little pools on which the sun shone, 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 211 
 
 turning them into irregular plates of turquoise. 
 There was a tethered goat with a little kid by her 
 side. Haughty geese, with their newly hatched 
 families behind them, strutted proudly. There 
 were ever so many young things; humpy, clumsy 
 calves, ducklings trying to swim in the pools with all 
 the dignity and address of their elders; a colt, set 
 on long, stick-like, squarely placed legs — like a toy 
 wooden horse — ^and with a funny tail like a hearth 
 brush. Chaytor laughed heartily with recollection 
 of this colt when he was telling us his experiences. 
 
 The heather sprang up after his feet had crushed 
 it. Everything was whole and sweet. He sniffed 
 at a delicious, intangible smell. He sat down, the 
 ground yielded to his body like a pillow. He gave 
 his aching lungs, clogged with so many years of 
 smoke and fog, their fill. There was no house in 
 sight, no, not one. No chimney speared the sky. 
 The sky! He looked up, and the blue and yellow 
 blinded him. He looked down and saw only wide 
 clean common, patched by broom and gorse, spread 
 with withered heather. A bird flew up singing, as 
 if its throat would burst. Across the common 
 
212 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 came a jerky, regular call. Something tight came 
 up in his neck and his eyes grew hot and dry. He 
 had heard the lark. He had heard the cuckoo. He 
 had ceased to masquerade, to play the fool. He 
 had come to his own. He jumped up with a tre- 
 mendous feeling of strength and exhilaration and 
 wer\t on. He swung his shoulders with a grand 
 free swing. He looked about him, intently, critic- 
 ally, as a man looks at his inheritance. 
 
 The common seemed to be garnering itself and 
 the face of the country was changing. He was ap- 
 proaching a pastoral district. He crossed a bridge; 
 on one side was an iron railing, on the other a low 
 coping of stone. He climbed over a stile. It had 
 easy steps and a broad top — a good stile to linger on. 
 It led into a little copse; merely a copse fringed with 
 hazel, with a thick carpet of rotting leaves, with 
 primroses and oxlips holding up their starry heads, 
 with bluebells making a powdery haze. 
 
 There were lovers in the copse. They stared at 
 him furtively, then scuttled into the shadow like 
 timid birds. But he saw both the man and the girl 
 grin sheepishly. 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 213 
 
 Beyond the copse was luscious, elastic pasture 
 land. He went lightly along, noticing everything 
 with microscopic fidelity. Women in the distance 
 were bent double as they rooted out the flaming 
 charlock from a field of barley. 
 
 Presently he saw an empty cottage, with broken 
 windows and dropping roof of thatch. He wan- 
 dered round it, looking in at rooms which were low- 
 pitched and floored with flagstones, and which had 
 yawning hearths for a wood fire. He stood in the 
 orchard, where a red cow who had come in through 
 a gap in the hedge was munching rank grass. The 
 apple trees, with lichened, twisted trunks, were be- 
 ginning to bloom. He walked round each tree 
 slowly, as if he were some ancient priest intent on 
 sacred rites. Then he wondered idly if there were 
 any Quarranden apples. Minnie's mother, the 
 Somersetshire wife, had sent her daughter up a 
 basket of those once. They were like Minnie's own 
 cheeks, and the red tinge went faintly through. 
 When you took a big, rough bite, you saw pink 
 bubbles of juice. It was like biting human flesh. 
 He never forgot that basket of apples. Their ar- 
 
214 
 
 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 rival set a white stone in his Hfe. They brought 
 him into actual touch with his kingdom. 
 
 After a while he came out on a dusty road. Two 
 boys, tow-headed and in picturesque rags, were 
 looking after two lean cows who grazed by the 
 waste. These children grinned at him broadly, as 
 the lovers in the copse had done — though, like the 
 lovers, they made no sound. It was a very silent 
 world, except for the sing and cry of birds and ani- 
 mals. The boys grinned, evidently finding him 
 much more diverting than the scarecrow three fields 
 off, which was hanging its limp head and waving its 
 fantastic arms. Chaytor felt uncomfortable; he 
 was always a sensitive chap. 
 
 " They are laughing at my top hat and black 
 coat," he said to himself. " One ought to have a 
 tweed suit for the country. That article on ' Why 
 Wear a White Shirt ? ' is certainly in the popular 
 style and will be taken. I'll turn off two or three 
 more in the same vein and then get some tweeds. 
 Minnie and I can come here often. It won't cost 
 much. We can always run to the tram fare." 
 
 The country echoed with weak bleats; it was the 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 215 
 
 month when young lambs are dropped. He went 
 on. The sky kept changing. Sometimes it was 
 reminiscent of towns. He dreaded to see some foul 
 gust of smoke break over the misty hills which 
 belted him. Then it was dappled, then clear blue. 
 It sloped to the horizon in streaks, as if swept by a 
 broad-lipped brush. The earth changed too ; it was 
 green, purple, spice-colored, or hot red. Clumps of 
 elms rose here and there^ usually marking a home- 
 stead. Their black branches waved like the strag- 
 gling feathers in Minnie's Sunday hat. There was 
 no sound — but the sound of the cuckoo and of sheep. 
 He seemed to actually hear the silence. He was 
 away from machines at last; not even the shriek of a 
 railway engine disturbed him. He was away from 
 the clack of praiseworthy Minnie's typewriter. He 
 let it flood his ears — this stillness. These were the 
 restful, silent moments he had often longed for. 
 Everything was stationary. There was no fierce 
 struggle to get on, to grab more than your neighbor. 
 He drank in all the wonder of the hedgerows; the 
 tight, shy fronds of the male fern — all the marvelous 
 secrecy of the curved bank. He saw primroses, the 
 
ai6 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 dapple of pale lilac where milkmaid bloomed. Dan- 
 delions, like dropped guineas, rose from the g^ass. 
 
 He came to another house, and stared at the long 
 wasteful slope of the red roof, at narrow windows 
 lurking under heavy eaves, at the tracery of oak 
 beams across greenish-white plaster walls. A tre- 
 mendous pear tree just in bloom shaded the house 
 door. A patch of kitchen garden had been turned 
 up roughly in autumn; there were black heaps of 
 manure, the size and shape of haycocks, on the 
 ridged earth. Clothes hung on a line — dim colors, 
 patched garments of outlandish shape. The bloom 
 of the pear tree was falling; it was gray on the stone 
 path. 
 
 A young woman came out to the gate and stared 
 at him curiously. He asked her for a drink of 
 water. She led the way into the dairy, never say- 
 ing a word. He thought the silence of country 
 people very strange. He had become accustomed to 
 the restless loquacity of the eager Cockney. 
 
 She was a fresh-faced young woman and seemed 
 fragrant, just as everything else was. A robust 
 woman! Her arms beneath her rolled-up sleeves 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 217 
 
 were quite brawny — rosy, round arms, dented at the 
 elbows and a deeper red. He watched her dip the 
 milk. The dairy was cool; he thought of a sweet, 
 intensely still grave. There were shallow bowls 
 full of cream. There was a slab of slate on which 
 was butter in firm pounds, all marked with the same 
 mark. She gave him the milk and shook her head 
 when he offered to pay. Their hands touched 
 round the mug, which was striped blue and white. 
 Hers was strong and dry and very cold. 
 
 When he went away he looked back once. She 
 was at the gate, watching him with a slow, specula- 
 tive glance in which he fancied he detected a touch 
 of fear. He took away a vivid impression of her. 
 She was a ruddy-faced young woman in a lilac cot- 
 ton gown. It was short-waisted, and her linen 
 apron was tied very high, almost under her arms. 
 She seemed oddly shaped — a creature with a mini- 
 mum of body; all curly head, round, big bust, and 
 long limbs. 
 
 He sidled out at the oak gate stealthily. He was 
 so afraid that he would be seen, that someone else 
 
2i8 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 would find that walk; someone tainted with the hor- 
 rible modern idea of Progress; someone who would 
 build and bring machinery. He took the first tram 
 home. The people who also rode on it had never 
 seemed more cadaverous, more fusty. They ex- 
 haled an odor of wardrobe shops. 
 
 I met him in the square almost at his own door- 
 way. The deep hollows in his face were filled with 
 red. His long hands were quivering with excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " Come up to my rooms," he said hastily. " I've 
 something to tell you — I've had a most wonderful 
 experience." 
 
 We went up. He opened the door with his key. 
 Minnie was cooking the dinner, her bit of beefsteak 
 fizzled and sputtered savagely in the pan. Her 
 pretty little pinched face was like a thundercloud. 
 
 " Never mind the dinner," Chaytor said, going up 
 to the fire and kissing her effusively. " My dar- 
 ling ! I've had such a find. We might go and live 
 there; rent would be next to nothing. My articles 
 would keep the pot boiling. I should insist on your 
 selling your typewriter — ^no cursed machinery there ! 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 219 
 
 I should have to be careful going in and out of the 
 gray gate — that is all. If anyone else spotted it 
 we should be ruined." 
 
 He sat down in the first chair, panting a little. 
 Minnie said impatiently : 
 
 " What on earth does he mean? " 
 
 She dished up her steak and pressed me none too 
 graciously to have some with them. So we three 
 sat round the little table, and Chaytor told us all he 
 had seen. He told it so vividly — I have repeated it 
 to you almost word for word — that he really flung 
 a glamour over this mean little London room. He 
 sat: just there, with his back to the cupboard where 
 they kept their bundles of wood — where I still keep 
 mine. Poor Chaytor! The smell of the country 
 seemed to blow over us all. Even Minnie grew 
 faintly excited. 
 
 " But it is impossible," she said. " Why, I know 
 Stamford Hill; an aunt of mine lived there once. 
 She had a house standing in its own grounds." She 
 glanced at me to see if this fact impressed me. 
 " But there is no country there. I'm certain of it. 
 I used to spend my Sundays with Aunt Jane. The 
 
2 20 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 last old house was pulled down years ago. Six 
 streets of villas stand on the site. I've seen them." 
 
 But Chaytor babbled on of his lilac w6man. 
 
 " It's all nonsense," Minnie said more clinchingly. 
 " You dreamt it — I believe you're asleep more than 
 half your time. And even if you weren't asleep, 
 everyone knows that consumptives have queer 
 fancies. It's no good wriggling on your chair like 
 that when you know very well that the doctor told 
 you ever so long ago that you had only one 
 lung." 
 
 " It was real," he insisted, flinching a little at her : 
 candor. " So real that I seemed to have been there 
 before." 
 
 " I know," I said soothingly. " We all have that 
 feeling sometimes. Bloater paste serves me like 
 that; makes me think of a red-haired fellow in a 
 punt. These things are odd. Murphy used to feel 
 the same over ripe plums — only his was an empty 
 barn and a thunderstorm." 
 
 I've always tried hard to be practical, you know. 
 I'm convinced that money is the secret of all happi- 
 ness — though I've never had the peculiar quality that . 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 221 
 
 makes it. For once I thought that I'd be business- 
 like. 
 
 "If you should be right," I said to Chaytor, 
 " there is a fortune in it. I think I know a man 
 who would finance us. By what you say the land is 
 ripe for development; we could cut it up into estates 
 — ^plant shrubs and rows of horse chestnuts — ^you 
 know the sort of thing. We'd call it the Marlowe 
 estate, after the Inn." 
 
 Chaytor flinched; then he said with a droll smile: 
 
 " If I thought you meant that I would cut my 
 throat rather than take you there. But you never 
 were a money-grubber, old fellow. Come and see 
 for yourself. Everything will be as I have told you 
 — the bridge, the empty house, the little wood. And 
 the woman at the dairy — we'll get her to give us 
 some milk." 
 
 Minnie was staring at him with round, cold eyes. 
 Her elbows were on the table. 
 
 He touched her hand. 
 
 " Come on," he said tenderly. 
 
 She got up, looked at her machine, hesitated^ and 
 then said, " It's a fine afternoon and a blow will do 
 
222 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 me good. I've finished that MS. We may as 
 well." 
 
 She put on her best blouse and a pair of new 
 gloves. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we were 
 all gay as we trundled along on the roof of the tram. 
 
 Chaytor led us to the row of semi-detached villas. 
 Minnie eyed them admiringly. 
 
 " That is the sort of house I should like," she said 
 with a sigh. " There is every convenience." 
 
 Chaytor was going along very slowly, looking in- 
 tently at the mouth of every passage. He went to 
 the very end of the row. We followed, feeling half 
 excited and half foolish. I said with sudden sus- 
 picion to Minnie : 
 
 " It isn't the first of April, is it? " 
 
 She returned with dangerous brevity : 
 
 " No. The sixth." 
 
 She was eying Chaytor with a look that boded a 
 row. He suddenly wheeled round sharply; even she 
 was startled, I think, by the change in his face — it 
 was gray, like the gate of which he talked. 
 
 " It isn't here," he said in a quavering voice. 
 " It's gone — the gray gate. Gone! " 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 223 
 
 He looked at us with panic-stricken eyes. Then 
 he started eagerly back, peering into every passage. 
 When lie reached the last he turned again. 
 
 "It's gone," he repeated. "Oh, my God! it's 
 gone. I've lost it ! " 
 
 He let his head drop, and leaned helplessly against 
 the railings of the next house. Minnie glanced at 
 me eloquently, raising her nose and brows and 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Let's get him home," she said in an agony for 
 appearances. " There is a tram at the corner. 
 Hurry up. Don't be such a fool, Nat. I never was 
 so ashamed in my life. There was nothing — I 
 never expected there would be. Just see how that 
 woman across the way is staring. Well she may! 
 I knew there would not be anything. How could 
 there be ? You can see the back-garden palings and 
 the dust hole at the end of every one." 
 
 We had reached the tram. She bundled Chaytor 
 up the steps and followed him, not seeming to care 
 whether I came or not. 
 
 He was never the same afterward. He never 
 wrote an article. He talked of nothing but the gray 
 
224 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 gate. He used to beg Minnie piteously for his tram 
 fare. Sometimes she gave the coppers just to be 
 rid of him. 
 
 " He's going ' dotty,' " she said fiercely to 
 me, beating the inanimate type with her quick 
 fingers. 
 
 Sometimes he would wake up in the morning and 
 sing as he dressed — ^putting on his clothes with 
 feverish, jerking hands, she used to come and tell 
 me. He said he had made a mistake in the row — 
 those cursed villas were so much alike. Would 
 she come too ? He was sure of finding it this time. 
 He wouldn't bother her for any more tram fares. 
 He was very sorry. 
 
 When he walked he used to put out his hand like 
 a blind man and grope with his long fingers — as if 
 he hoped to feel something that he was not permitted 
 to see. He was feeling for wood — for the gray 
 gate. I met him once and took his arm and carried 
 him off to have a drink. 
 
 He said to me quite seriously, as we stood at the 
 bar: 
 
 " These bricks are killing me. Why the devil 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 225 
 
 can't people keep still? It is nothing but pulling 
 down houses and putting up taller ones all over 
 Bloomsbury. I tell you frankly, old fellow, I can't 
 breathe. My throat burns — as if they were stuffing 
 their lime down it. Every scaffold pole knocks at 
 my heart. It's killing me. You haven't any cop- 
 pers about you, I suppose? The tram fare isn't 
 much. I could get down to Stamford Hill and back 
 again before dusk." 
 
 One night I saw Minnie run bareheaded across 
 the square toward my door. I had the second floor 
 at No. 7 in those days. She looked a little wild and 
 frightened, but she was self-possessed enough to 
 throw a look of stone at Sophia Dominy, who was 
 going toward Kinsman's set. 
 
 Presently I heard her on my stairs and went 
 out. 
 
 " Come over to Nat," she panted. " I think he is 
 dying. The doctor told me that bit of lung he had 
 would last for years, but it isn't going to." 
 
 He was lying in the bed. It stood under the win- 
 dow then. Near ta his hand was a pile of those 
 hateful long envelopes. The editorial regrets that 
 
2 26 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 had helped to break his heart peeped out from the 
 open ends. 
 
 " I've been looking over some of these things," 
 he panted, touching the articles and smiling at me in 
 the old droll, half-scornful way. " Some of them 
 were bad and vulgar enough — Heaven knows. Yet 
 they did not get accepted. ' Does Cold Mutton 
 Cause Gumboil ? ' — I thought that would be sure to 
 go. ' The Woman with the White Shoe Strings ' 
 — it is a most sensational detective story — and yet, 
 one after the other, they threw my stuff back at me. 
 I've written the title pages afresh ever so many 
 times, so that the MS. should not look as if it had 
 been hawked about." 
 
 It was a very hot July night, the windows were 
 open top and bottom. Jimmy, across the way, was 
 singing the latest song from the " halls " in his 
 feeble voice. 
 
 Poor Nat was quiet for a little. Then he turned 
 his head suddenly and looked at Minnie. I've seen 
 him look like that at her when they were courting. 
 No doubt she remembered, for she bent down and 
 softly shook up his pillows. 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 227 
 
 " It's no good your going for the doctor," she 
 whispered huskily back in answer to my question. 
 " He was here this morning. He told me he could 
 do nothing. I can't afford to throw away money 
 for nothing, can I ? " 
 
 There were tears in her eyes, like shining splin- 
 ters of glass. We heard footsteps on the pavement 
 below, and men's voices came up to the open win- 
 dow. The fellows had come home from the City. 
 Nat did not seem to hear; he was devouring Min- 
 nie's face line by line, looking at her in a dazed, 
 silly way. 
 
 " It is good of you to come," he said at last, very 
 simply and gratefully. " How did you find it ? So 
 few people — country people, you know — have heard 
 of the Inn. It must seem a noisy, dirty place to 
 you — ^there are blacks all down your nice white 
 apron. But we won't stay. You will show me 
 the way back. It was very curious about that gate." 
 
 Minnie looked very well in widows' weeds — those 
 fair, neat little women generally do. I always tried 
 very hard to like Minnie. I admired her practical 
 
228 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 spirit. Practicality means money, and money 
 means ease. She came knocking at my door three 
 days after the funeral, and said beseechingly : 
 
 " Come down with me on the tram to Stamford 
 Hill." 
 
 We went. The trams were crowded, it was 
 Saturday afternoon. We walked slowly along the 
 row of villas in the blazing sun — ^the row where Nat 
 had sworn he found the gray gate. 
 
 " Poor old chap," I said. " He wasn't fit for this 
 world. But what a gold mine there would have 
 been in it ! " 
 
 " It was at this house he seemed to stop most," 
 she said. " I remember the India-rubber plant in 
 the front window." 
 
 We stopped. There was an old, palsied sort of 
 fellow tidying up the rockery. I spoke to him — 
 don't know why. 
 
 " I suppose you remember this neighborhood be- 
 fore it was built on ? " 
 
 " When it was a one-eyed country place," elabo- 
 rated Minnie. 
 
 He straightened his body on his spade, and looked 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 229 
 
 at us, cunningly, like old people often do. An eager 
 light came into his bleared eyes. It seemed to me 
 the light of youth breaking uncannily through the 
 crust of seventy years. He remembered — sure he 
 did. He became suddenly voluble — ^talking more 
 to himself than to us. 
 
 " It's a good many year since this 'ere part was 
 open country. Ah ! there was a gate on the common 
 — ^hereabouts, as near as I can mind. A bit on was a 
 bridge, stone one side and iron t'other. A man had 
 to keep a sharp lookout if he come home full o' 
 liquor nights. The rail runs there now— r-they built 
 a new 'im. There was a copse — Shannonses copse, 
 I think they called it, but my memory aint what it 
 was. You went over a stile. That was a rare place 
 for coortin' " — he grinned, showing a toothless 
 cavern, and he spluttered with merry memories as he 
 rocked on the spade. 
 
 " There was a cottage near by — my father had it. 
 I jest call to mind his father plantin' the orchard — a 
 very old man as couldn't expect to see the fruit. A 
 fine orchard it wur — ^Blenum orringe trees and Tom 
 Spuds and all sorts. Dickson's tannery stands 
 
230 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 there now. If you went on, through the fields and 
 across the road, you come to Hillyar's farm — ^that's 
 Stern & Carson's brewery. Hillyar's pears was 
 wonderful for keepin'. I mind Loo Hillyar — sich 
 arms;" he leered at Minnie, whose face was chalky 
 under her black bonnet. " You don't see young 
 women like that these times. Sich a hand at butter- 
 making. It must be fifty — forty year ago or more 
 since me an' her drove geese over the common. It 
 couldn't ha' been so fur from where we stands, 
 neither. Here, as you may say, or thereabouts — 
 but the face of the earth do change so." 
 
 He spat on his hands and bent his back to the 
 weary task of tidying the melancholy mound of 
 clinkers and starved ferns. I gave him sixpence and 
 I gave Minnie my arm. She clutched it wildly. 
 There was a shadow on her pretty, common face — 
 the shadow of the unexplainable. 
 
 What did it mean? I don't pretend to say. 
 Odd, wasn't it? But then the world is odd. We 
 just skim it and fancy we have proved all. 
 
 Minnie ? She went back to a City office as typist, 
 and she married the principal in less than a year. 
 
BEYOND THE GRAY GATE. 231 
 
 She was always the sort of girl to do well for her- 
 self — her marriage with Chaytor was an aberration. 
 She lives in a very swagger house at East Croydon, 
 wears rather loud dresses, and talks persistently of 
 " my cook." 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 
 
 Shall I tell you about the set at 7? It is quite 
 a proper story. You might call it dramatic. If 
 poor Nat Chaytor were alive he would turn it into 
 one of his thrilling tales for the penny papers — ^and 
 get it rejected because it wasn't probable. In 
 popular tales you must be probable, and you must be 
 proper. You may cut as many throats and em- 
 bezzle as much money as you please — always re- 
 membering to do it in a thoroughly respectable 
 manner. 
 
 Orchard lived at 7 — the left-hand set on the third 
 floor. His was the most extraordinary affair. 
 Poor Jimmy died there. Orion had the set — has it 
 still, so they say. He comes back. We have a real, 
 if rather foolish, ghost in the Inn. 
 
 The man who took that set after the Great Or- 
 inond Street murder — his name slips me, but he 
 went down in the Drummond Castle — had never 
 
 »33 
 
234 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 seen Orion. I forget his name, but we'll call him 
 Drummond. 
 
 Pearson went to see him one night. He hap- 
 pened to be just going out; he said he wouldn't be 
 more than half an hour, and he made Pearson com- 
 fortable with some whisky and the current Fort- 
 nightly. .When he came back Pearson said, with 
 annoyance, looking a little disgusted and jerking 
 his head toward the bedroom door : 
 
 " Didn't know you were so intimate with Orion." 
 
 " Orion ! Never heard the name. Yet — ^let me 
 see. He had these rooms. I took them over with 
 the furniture." 
 
 " Never heard the name ! Why, he's in your bed- 
 room at this moment. Walked about very much as 
 if he were at home. Came strolling in with his 
 old confounded jaunty air. I haven't seen him for 
 nearly three years, but he hasn't altered a bit. You 
 must have left the outer door ajar, or else he's kept 
 a key. That would be just one of Orion's mean 
 dodges. He walked about with his hands in his 
 trousers' pockets, just as usual. I didn't speak; we 
 had a row once. There was a bill; he wouldn't pay 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 235 
 
 his share. And one night when I was a bit on I 
 broke the glass of the sideboard — ^threw a tumbler 
 at it. He couldn't stand that. 
 
 " Yet, why didn't I speak? What made me keep 
 so quiet? Why didn't I ask him what the devil he 
 meant by prying about another man's rooms ? 
 
 " He went and tinkered with the ornaments, 
 scowled at the dust, picked up a match from the 
 carpet — I could have sworn he picked it up, but it's 
 there still, just near your foot — and then went into 
 the bedroom. He's in there still. Confound it ! " 
 starting to his feet; " what was I doing to let him 
 go in like that? " 
 
 Drummond was looking very queer. 
 
 " Orion," he said quietly, " has been dead six 
 months. He murdered his aunt and then jumped 
 out of the window to evade the hangman. If you 
 hadn't been abroad you would have heard of it. 
 We'll have a look round the bedroom, if you like." 
 
 Of course he wasn't there. That is our ghost 
 story. Several fellows have seen him since — so 
 they say. 
 
 Dick Simpson came after Drummond. He said 
 
236 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 he saw Orion lots of times, and didn't take the least 
 notice. Rather resented sharing his rooms with an- 
 other man who didn't pay a penny rent, and who 
 hadn't the tact to make himself scarce when any- 
 body dropped in — ^but that was all. Poor Dick 
 wasn't nervous or imaginative. Orion used to come 
 in, shake his head at the dust, at torn leather paper 
 on the walls and mangy ball fringe at the mantel- 
 shelf, then go quietly through into the bedroom. 
 Dick told me the other day that he had just smashed 
 the last of the rose-colored gas globes. He had the 
 bits in a bag and was going to match it in the City. 
 If he didn't, Orion would be bound to look in to- 
 night j he was beginning to be a bit of a bore. 
 
 Simpson was an insurance clerk, most common- 
 place, most steady. He was always having his top 
 hat ironed, and recommending one to buy a pair of 
 trouser stretchers. He went to the theater every 
 Saturday night, and stopped in bed late on Sunday. 
 He was quite content and prosperous on his sixty- 
 five shillings a week, yet, because he had the set at 
 7 on the third floor, we all waited without saying 
 anything, to him or to each other, for something 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 237 
 
 extraordinary to happen. In his case we thought 
 it might be just vulgar embezzlement — ^but you can 
 never be sure, it is always the most unlikely thing 
 that happens to the tenant of that third-floor set. 
 When once it gets hold of a man it never lets him 
 go. It never gives him up. More often than not 
 it hands him over to the undertaker. And you 
 know what happened to Dick. 
 
 There was a story of Bob and Barbara Piety. 
 You'll like that. If I were writing the story, instead 
 of just gossiping it to you in the dusk, I should call 
 it " The Play's the Thing." It is Hamlet— in an 
 Inn of Court. 
 
 Bob Piety lived in the Inn as a bachelor. He 
 married a nice girl — Miss Martin — and took a villa 
 at Norwood. A few months before -he married he 
 lent Murphy twenty pounds. We all warned him; 
 Murphy never paid, and made a boast of never pay- 
 ing, but these Irishmen are wheedling, and Bob was 
 pretty flush just then. On this unlucky twenty 
 pounds the whole story hangs. 
 
 Barbara had babies very quickly; servants' wages 
 
238 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 rose each time she changed — and she was always 
 changing. The beer barrel constantly gave out, 
 and it was generally quarter day. Bob had a 
 good post, as the City goes. But four hundred a 
 year, though ample in the Inn, is only a pittance at 
 Norwood, with an extravagant, prolific wife, a 
 seventy-pound villa, and two maids, with a boy to 
 clean the knives. 
 
 One morning, as Barbara was flicking at Bob's 
 coat with the clothes brush before he went to the 
 City, she asked him timidly for a new gown. 
 
 " It won't cost five pounds," she said, pulling 
 his coat down at the back. " You don't like me to 
 look shabby, dear, do you? And, Bob, while I 
 think of it, just leave me Maria's wages. I've had 
 to give her a rise. You can't get a really decent 
 cook general for less than twenty pounds a year. 
 And we want some new linoleum for the nursery — 
 I'd better order it to " 
 
 " I can't really run to it all, Barbara " — he never 
 called her Barbara except in a crisis, and when they 
 were first married it usually made her cry. " There 
 are the taxes, and I ought to have a new overcoat. 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 239 
 
 And there is Pillew's bill for the whooping cough. 
 The kids must do without linoleum. Wear any- 
 thing at the party — or we'll stop at home. I'm 
 hanged if I know where all the things are coming 
 from. Twenty pounds for one girl — it's prepos- 
 terous." 
 
 " Twenty pounds ! Why, you lent some horrid 
 bachelor that. It would pay Maria for a year. Go 
 and get it out of him." 
 
 " It is a bad debt." 
 
 " You must make him pay. Now do, Bob, dear. 
 It breaks my heart to see you worried." 
 
 " I will make him," Bob said after a minute's 
 pause, and added savagely, his nerves racked by 
 wife, babies, and bills, " I'll get it out of him by fair 
 means or foul." 
 
 Barbara cried out, before she kissed him and gave 
 the final pull to his coat at the back : 
 
 " How can you talk in that dreadful way? One 
 would think you meant to murder the man." 
 
 At that moment Maria came out of the dining 
 room with the breakfast tray. 
 
 Well, in the evening Bob went to the Inn and 
 
i-.;o MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 found Murphy at home. He asked him bluntly to 
 pay back the twenty pounds, and Murphy said airily 
 that it was ridiculous — a joke on Bob's part — ^he 
 hadn't twenty pence in the world. This led to 
 words. In the thick of the row there was a knock 
 at Murphy's door and he left the room to open it. 
 Piety heard the murmur of voices — Murphy's and 
 another which he did not recognize. Then he 
 heard a movement like a sharp scufHe of feet on the 
 boards, heard a piercing cry and a heavy fall, and 
 the quick, frightened patter of feet on the stairs. 
 That was all. When he rushed into the little pas- 
 sage both of the outer doors were open, and Murphy 
 was lying stone-dead just inside the " set." There 
 was the handle of a queer-looking knife sticking up 
 from his waistcoat, and his blood had poured out in 
 a great dark pool in which the Syrian curtains that 
 draped the archway of the passage were dabbled. 
 
 Bob tried to raise the body. But the Irishman 
 had been a burly fellow, and he only succeeded in 
 spattering himself with blood. We all heard that 
 fearful scream of poor Murphy's; it even pierced the 
 oak, for Kinsman, who had been shut away in his 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 241 
 
 rooms with Sophia Dominy, came rushingf upstairs, 
 followed by the girl. I had the set opposite 
 Murphy's on the second floor, so I was first on the 
 spot. 
 
 Sophia gave a yell when she saw the dead man. 
 Kinsman bade her pull herself together, and in a 
 minute or so she flew away down the stairs, saying 
 she would find a policeman. By this time the whole 
 square was roused. There were lights at most of 
 the windows, sashes were flung up, men ran out in 
 their slippers and with their pipes still stuck in the 
 corner of their mouths, asking what was up. Kins- 
 man and I ran down too. Piety didn't move. He 
 might have got away easily, but he stood dazed, star- 
 ing at the heavy body of the dead Irishman; stood 
 and stared sluggishly, with the splashed blood dry- 
 ing on his face and hands, just where it had spurted, 
 and dropping heavily from his limp red cuff, the 
 corner of which was soaked. Of course, everybody 
 said that he had murdered Murphy in a fit of temper, 
 because he couldn't get his twenty pounds back. I 
 knew they had been rowing, heard their angry 
 voices across the passage when I went to my door to 
 
242 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 admit a visitor. It looked bad for Bob. Yet I 
 didn't believe that he had done it. All the other 
 fellows pooh-poohed his lame explanation, and some 
 said that Murphy, who was a thorough bad lot, was 
 well out of the way, and others, who had known 
 Mrs. Bob as Miss Martin, were full of sympathy for 
 the poor little woman. 
 
 It was a wet night. Warm rain fell straight 
 from the sky to the square. The light of each lamp 
 above the hooded doors was reflected on the pave- 
 ments. The stair leading to the second floor at 7 
 was crowded — with men in slippers and girls with- 
 out any hats. One of the g^rls went into hysterics. 
 Another one propped her up against the wall and un- 
 did her collar and called out shrilly for cold water 
 and smelling salts. And then, after what seemed 
 an interminable time, Sophia brought a policeman 
 — ^he had been ofif the beat, of course — and Bob was 
 arrested. 
 
 I went with him to the station, and after that I 
 went down to Norwood and broke the news to 
 Barbara. 
 
 I never believe in those women who, when trouble 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 443 
 
 comes, sit at home and weep and wait and pray. 
 They are fools, or callous. Your true woman must 
 be doing something. Barbara never shed a single 
 tear. She didn't wring her hands or scream or 
 faint. She only kept saying, with pitiful monotony, 
 that it was her wicked vanity and extravagance 
 which had got Bob in a mess, and that she meant to 
 get him out of it. 
 
 She seemed to rise all at once out of villadom — 
 that smug, narrow life which ruins so many people. 
 .Villadom! It promulgates the hateful, stultifying 
 creed of "paying your way." Barbara told me 
 once that a lady at Norwood refused to visit another 
 lady because she hadn't paid her butcher's bill. She 
 threw off her shackles — the shackles of that spick- 
 and-span house, with the stiff white curtains at the 
 windows, the demure maidservants, and the noisy 
 overflow of babies. She sent for Mrs. Martin to 
 keep house, then packed a little black box, kissed 
 her children with the air of a Spartan, and came 
 away to the Inn with me. 
 
 With me ! Why not ? She had my set. I went 
 and turned in with Hawkins. He had a little den 
 
244 M^^ OP MARLOWE'S. 
 
 leading out of his bedroom, which he used as a car- 
 penter's shop, and his laundress as a kitchen! It 
 was very good of me to do that for a comparative 
 stranger! But she wasn't. You see — hadn't I 
 mentioned it? — Barbara was an old flame of mine. 
 It was a close running between me and Bob at one 
 time. But I backed out. He had four hundred 
 pounds a year and I hadn't a penny — that could be 
 called certain. Sometimes I make a haul and some- 
 times I starve. That would have killed Barbara. 
 She had always been educated to the necessity of a 
 certain income. 
 
 She came and settled in my rooms, so as to be near 
 Bob. At Norwood she might as well have been in 
 Alaska — these suburbs are so beautifully isolated. 
 And then, as she confessed to me, she hoped to pick 
 up evidence. Of course she believed in her hus- 
 band's innocence. She went farther than that; she 
 was convinced that the murder was committed by 
 someone in the Inn — in the house — at 7. 
 
 I gave her a list of all the tenants. I tried to 
 show her how impossible it was. On the ground 
 floor was Kinsman, who had been shut up with 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 245 
 
 Sophia. The set opposite was empty. The sets on 
 the first floor were rented as offices, and both prin- 
 cipals and clerks had been gone for hours at the 
 time Murphy was stabbed. On the second floor. 
 Murphy had one set and I the other. On the third 
 floor, one set was empty and the other — the fatal 
 set, although she knew nothing about that — ^be- 
 longed to Stapley. 
 
 Stapley was a quiet young fellow. He was en- 
 gaged to his cousin, spent his Sundays with his 
 widowed mother at Dulwich, and was reading hard 
 for a Civil Service appointment. As I pointed out 
 to Barbara, Murphy was murdered on Saturday 
 night, and Stapley always left for Dulwich on Satur- 
 day afternoon. I saw him come back myself at the 
 usual time on Monday morning. But she wouldn't 
 be convinced. She was certain that the murderer 
 was in the Inn, in the very house. 
 
 The Inn bore with her. Laundresses stared after 
 her sympathetically as she went up and down the 
 old stairs, and called her to each other, " Pore young 
 thing." The fellows, many of whom had met her 
 as Miss Martin, didn't know how to show their 
 
246 MEN OP MARLOWE'S. 
 
 sympathy. They brought her flowers and new- 
 laid eggs — anything. One brought a stray white 
 kitten that he'd found in a doorway. Arnold 
 offered a pure-bred bull pup, and was hurt when she 
 refused it. Arnold was a great fancier. His book 
 of devotion was a bulky volume, " Druid on Dogs." 
 
 The girls who spend a social evening or a Sunday 
 at the Inn occasionally talked of her with honest 
 tears. They are good, kind, hard-working souls, 
 these gay little shop girls, as a rule. And I think 
 they felt it all the more because they could not do 
 anything for her; dare not even say how sorry they 
 were. Between them and her was the unbreakable 
 barrier which stands breast-high between the women 
 who are — well, particular — and the women who are 
 not. 
 
 She brought a faint air of repression and tragedy 
 into the Inn, but no one dreamed of resenting it. 
 The careless, rather wild life we all lead seemed sud- 
 denly hollow, feeble — wicked almost. Many a host 
 said to a noisy friend : 
 
 " Don't make so much row, old man. You'll 
 frighten Mrs. Piety." 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 247 
 
 She used to creep about at all hours; used to listen 
 on the stairs, peep into sets if a door happened to be 
 open, watch men and girls in and out with the air 
 of a hungry cat. But everybody understood and 
 everybody sympathized. The little light-haired 
 woman in black, with the sad, inquisitive glances, 
 became our Deity. 
 
 I went with her to every curio shop and marine 
 store in Bloomsbury. There are many. Some of 
 the people who keep them are regular characters in 
 their way. We were trying to find out the history 
 of the dagger — that queer-handled weapon which 
 had stuck out from dead Murphy's waistcoat. The 
 police had it. They were making every inquiry of 
 course, but Barbara thought she could do better than 
 they. As I said, a true woman must do something 
 — even if it is something foolish. The little stuffy, 
 foul courts of Holborn grew to know her and to 
 pity her. All the other women pointed after her 
 furtively and said, as the laundresses said, " Pore 
 young thing." 
 
 You don't want me to go into the detective side of 
 the aflfair. You can well imagine the array of evi- 
 
248 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 dence against Bob; you can see the damning impor- 
 tance of his row with Murphy, of the soaked red cor- 
 ner of his cufifs, and the red-ocher splashes on his 
 face and hands. 
 
 Barbara heard him committed for trial. She 
 didn't cry out or even shudder. But her eyes grew 
 more wide and somber than before. 
 
 That night I took her to the theater. Several 
 fellows came to me quite seriously and said : 
 
 " Do something to distract her. The poor 
 woman's going out of her mind." 
 
 Hemming — he had been a friend of Jimmy's, and 
 was on a dramatic paper — added: 
 
 " Take her to a music hall, make her dead-drunk 
 — anything for a distraction. The theater for a 
 compromise. I can pass you into the Adelphi. 
 There is a splendid melodrama on there. Some- 
 thing exciting." 
 
 I had expected opposition, but, queerly enough, 
 she jumped at the idea. She dressed herself very 
 smartly; I think her face was rouged. She kept 
 laughing as we jolted to the Strand in a cab. 
 
 In the second act there was a row between two 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 249 
 
 men, and one stabbed the other to the heart. It was 
 most unlucky. Barbara was staring up at the dress 
 circle. She turned to me suddenly, her cheeks and 
 eyes blazing. She got up and slipped on her cloak, 
 pulling the hood well over her head before she was 
 out of doors. When I rose too she made a quick, 
 excited gesture, and whispered: 
 
 " Don't follow. Whatever you do, don't fol- 
 low." 
 
 I let her go out quietly alone. When I happened 
 to look up at the dress circle I saw a vacant seat. 
 
 When one man on the stage stabbed the other, 
 Barbara naturally turned her head away. She hap- 
 pened to look up at the dress circle, and her eyes 
 fixed on a family party in the front row. It was 
 Stapley, the girl he was engaged to, and her mother. 
 
 Barbara was struck by the look on his face. He 
 seemed as much moved by that murder on the stage 
 as she was. He looked a guilty man, a terrified 
 man. His face was the face of a corpse; his eyes 
 were the eyes of a corpse — some corpse whose last 
 impression had been one of fearful horror. 
 
 Presently he rose, whispered a word or two to 
 
250 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 his companions, and went away. At the same 
 moment Barbara slipped up from her seat in the 
 stalls. 
 
 She followed him out of the theater, along the 
 brilliant whirl of the Strand, through dirty little 
 streets to Holborn, across the road, under the gate- 
 'way, and into the Inn. The square was quiet. The 
 trees waved troublously. There were peep-holes of 
 bright light at men's windows, and once she heard a 
 loud peal of laughter. 
 
 Stapley turned in at No. 7. 
 
 The policeman happened to be taking shelter in 
 the doorway of No. 5. It was a wet night. She 
 stepped back and whispered to him before she crept 
 with a stealthy, springy step up the stairs. Stapley 
 went on, past my rooms, past Murphy's, to the top 
 floor. He put in his key and opened the door of his 
 set — the fatal set, which had been responsible for so 
 much; the set which had egged on Orion to murder, 
 which had saddled poor Orchard with such a horrid 
 companion — I'll tell you that some other day — 
 which had seen Jimmy die. He opened the door. 
 There was a bracket lamp on the wall immediately 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 251 
 
 opposite. It was burning feebly, and there was a 
 dark circle on the wall paper behind it, where the oil 
 had sweated. Below the lamp was a little glass 
 which Orion had gilded with a sixpenny bottle of 
 dye. Barbara was close behind Stapley — so close 
 that she could see her own face in the little glass 
 slightly behind his. 
 
 He stepped in. She leaned over the banisters and 
 swiftly beckoned. She heard the roar of the streets 
 through the open window on the staircase, and she 
 heard the heavy tread of the policeman's boots on 
 the wood. Then she glided after Stapley. Before 
 he turned to shut the door she was in the passage 
 alone with him at the top of the big, quiet house, 
 with the policeman coming steadily up the stairs. 
 Her eyes, when later on she told me the scene, were 
 the glowing, deadly eyes of a wild beast. I suppose 
 she must have looked at Stapley in the same way — 
 accusingly, fiercely, without a shimmer of mercy. 
 No doubt she thought of Bob waiting for his trial, 
 of the quiet, narrow life at Norwood which had 
 satisfied her, and which she was in danger of losing. 
 She said crisply : 
 
252 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " A policeman is coming up to arrest you for the 
 murder of Denis Murphy." 
 
 When she saw Stapley's face she no longer had 
 the least doubt of his guilt. 
 
 The policeman came up, pufifing a little, to the 
 third flight, and Stapley, taken utterly by surprise, 
 not knowing how much had been found out, never 
 said a single word in defense, never resisted when 
 he was arrested. There wasn't a tittle of evidence 
 against him. It was a woman's instinct, only a 
 woman's instinct, that — hanged him? No; the set 
 spares its victims that. It gave Orion a hint to 
 fling himself out of the window. Only a woman's 
 instinct. If I had not taken her to that melodrcima, 
 Bob Piety would have swung. 
 
 " The Play's the Thing." Now, wouldn't that 
 be a splendid title? If only poor Nat had 'been 
 alive ! 
 
 Stapley was tried. He made a full confession. 
 The jury, finding his story much too fantastic, 
 brought him in mad, and, so far as I knoWj he is 
 alive, at Broadmoor at this moment. 
 
 It came out in evidence, and on his own showing, 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 353 
 
 that he had been going queer for some time before 
 he stabbed Murphy. He had been reading very- 
 hard, and then, of course, those rooms got on his 
 nerves. He exaggerated trifles. For instance, he 
 fixed a certain hour for his laundress to turn up in 
 the morning. He used to get up and wait for her 
 with his watch in his hand, dreading that she would 
 be a minute late. That morning arrival of hers 
 became the one moment of his day. He could think 
 of very little else. Would she come in time to- 
 morrow ? Was it worth' his while to pay her if she 
 wouldn't be punctual, if she wasted daily five 
 minutes? Five minutes! Ten sometimes. How 
 much did that mount up to in a month? The 
 woman was deliberately robbing him. He would 
 not stand it. One must draw the line somewhere. 
 He used to beseech her, bully her, raise her money, 
 threaten to sack her. He bribed her with old hats 
 and trousers for her husband. If she would only 
 turn up to time, so that the one hour of the day — 
 that hour of nine — could take its place with the 
 others, sink into comparative insignificance like the 
 rest! 
 
854 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 He used to ask other fellows very earnestly — we 
 all remembered it afterward : 
 
 " What would you do if your laundress was al- 
 ways five minutes late in the morning? I want 
 practical advice. I don't want to be hard on the 
 woman; but, then, no one likes to be imposed upon." 
 
 Sometimes he would oversleep and she would slip 
 in quietly with her key and wake him by planking 
 his boots down outside his bedroom door. On those 
 days he was more wretched than ever, because he 
 had no means of judging how late she had been. 
 
 He used to decide beforehand what dress the 
 pretty cousin would wear next time they met. He 
 dared not influence her. But if she wore blue, that 
 meant damnation for him — ^this world and the next. 
 But red was bliss forever. He used to say to him- 
 self, " This is the very last time I'll play these mental 
 pranks. To-day shall decide everything." 
 
 And she would be on the platform waiting for his 
 train, smiling and radiant in a blue gown, and he 
 would have to go over it all again. 
 
 The fang of some dread or other was always fas- 
 tening in him. He was full of all kinds of 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 255 
 
 whimsical fancies — those whims which seem so 
 unimportant, so imbecile and contemptible to the 
 level-minded, and which are so tragic to the morbid. 
 You understand the sort of thing; avoiding the 
 seams of paving stones, taking your fate from the 
 chance expression of the first strange face you meet 
 when you go out of doors, from the color of a horse, 
 the chime of a clock, street cries — anything. 
 
 He was very candid when he stood on his trial 
 for his life; he poured out all his troubles, piteously 
 magnifying trifles, blaming the laundress, the blue 
 dress, the clock in the square, the cab outside, for his 
 misfortune. The prison doctor and another exam- 
 ined him. Of course they said he was mad. He 
 may have been. Yet, if he had taken some other 
 set, he would have been as sane as you are to-day. 
 
 On the Saturday that he killed Murphy he had 
 delayed going to Dulwich by the usual early after- 
 noon train. He was afraid for one thing — afraid 
 of the poor little cousin's frock. He kept putting it 
 off — the time-table spread out in front of him — 
 from one half-hour to the other. And then, as the 
 afternoon went on, a new terror presented itself. 
 
256 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 The Inn began to fill up and grow gay with fellows 
 home early from their offices, and smart shop girls, 
 light-hearted with the weekly half-holiday. He 
 could see them all at the open windows — men in 
 lounging coats and women in cambric bodices. 
 
 Pretty faces peeped over flower boxes and round 
 idly flapping curtains. He was afraid to cross the 
 square. Directly the girls saw him they would 
 lean over the window ledges, make funny grimaces, 
 and cough. There would be a perfect chorus of 
 short, dry, mocking coughs. He had a little ner- 
 vous trick of clearing his throat, and the girls, who 
 were full of chaff, and not over-fond of him because 
 he was so grave and proper, always mimicked him 
 and called him Splutters. They have a nickname 
 for most of the men, but no one but Stapley ever 
 took any notice. 
 
 He was afraid to run along that line of little 
 coughs and bantering cries of " Splutters ! Splut- 
 ters ! " He looked at one girl immediately opposite, 
 a girl with very fluffy hair and a flashing steel buckle 
 at her waist, and said tragically : 
 
 " If that girl coughs and calls out ' Splutters,' I 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 257 
 
 may as well go and hang myself. I shan't have any 
 luck. It will be all up with me." 
 
 So for fear that she would, he waited until dusk, 
 when he thought he would be able to glide out of 
 the Inn unobserved. 
 
 .While he waited he noticed that there was some- 
 thing unusual about the paneling of the wall — •' 
 something that he had never observed before. It 
 was near the window, at a part where Orion's 
 leather paper had peeled off. There was a slight but 
 unmistakable difference in the molding. The possi- 
 bility of a secret cupboard in the wall at once oc- 
 curred to him. At the same moment he seized it 
 feverishly as an omen, a thing that might make a 
 free man of him once more. The nervous, prompt- 
 ing fiend at his side made him say to himself, as his 
 quivering fingers fiddled at the wood: 
 
 " If there should be a secret place behind, then 
 there will be an end to your foolery. It won't mat- 
 ter whether Augusta wears red or blue. Mrs. ;Wor- 
 sell may stay away until ten, if she chooses." 
 
 He tapped and pushed and pressed and coaxed 
 for a little, and at last the panel moved slightly up- 
 
258 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 ward. He put his hand in, felt a bolt, drew it down, 
 and sliding up the panel saw a shallow cupboard. 
 It was full of dust, and empty except for a knife. 
 Ah ! The knife. The knife which later on was to 
 investigate the very recesses of Murphy's heart. A' 
 knife with a chased silver handle and a fine blade. 
 
 He held it in his hand, and stood pondering on it 
 and on the shallow hidden place behind the panel. 
 He became conscious of something heavy and still 
 in the air, something waiting, watchful, as his hand 
 gripped that handle. Every little sound in other 
 sets became full of portent. That knife! Who 
 had hidden it there ? How had it been used ? How 
 long ago was it since a human hand, warm with life, 
 made a blur on that polished, delicately chased 
 handle ? 
 
 Then he suddenly thought that he would take it 
 down and show it to Kinsman, who was very inter- 
 ested in curios and had some knowledge of them. 
 He gave a last rapid look at the time-table, and de- 
 cided that he would not go down to Dulwich in time 
 for dinner; he'd have a steak at Gatti's. Kinsman 
 would be interested in the knife. He went down- 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 259 
 
 Stairs as he was, in his old slippers, leaving his door 
 ajar and his rooms in darkness. He had not lighted 
 the lamp because he had been telling himself every 
 half-hour that he would get off to Dulwich. 
 
 On the way downstairs he heard a woman's clear 
 strong voice singing " Tatters." It was Sophia's 
 voice, and Sophia was the worst tease of them all. 
 He began to clear his throat directly he thought of 
 her. He would not go downstairs to Kinsman. 
 He would wait until he could find him alone. He 
 would go upstairs and get his hat and bag, and put 
 on his boots and be off to Dulwich. It was evening. 
 Augusta — dear, tender little Augusta — would have 
 on her evening gown — red nun's veiling. 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, there was a light under 
 Murphy's door. And Murphy's oak was hospitably 
 back, and the inner door with its gleaming brass 
 knocker seemed to wink an invitation. The very 
 knife in his hand seemed to point to Murphy's door. 
 Well, why not show it to Murphy? He was a bit 
 of a fool, but he would be interested. 
 
 So he pulled up, knocked at the door — and you 
 know the rest. 
 
26o MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 He swore to the very last that he did not do it, 
 that he was merely the agent of the knife — that 
 diabolical knife with the secret history. 
 
 Murphy came to the door. His pretty, dissolute 
 face was rather flushed with annoyance. His lips, 
 those pouting, cherry-red lips like a girl's, showed 
 his white, even teeth under his mustache, which was 
 turning white. His sodden brown eyes, half veiled 
 in a web of crow's feet, his smirking, unfailing air 
 of conceit and satisfaction, struck clean-living, 
 over-wrought Stapley as disgusting. The man was 
 an evil clod upon an honest earth. There was the 
 trail of twenty years' intrigue, shuffling, and sham 
 on his features. His eyes were dull with the ruin of 
 many women. He was accursed, heavy, hateful 
 with old secrets, old sins — like the knife. The 
 knife! It claimed kinship. It flew forward to his 
 heart. 
 
 That is all. As Murphy shouted out and fell, 
 Stapley went, quick and silent like a panther, up the 
 stairs — quick and silent, with the cunning of a wild 
 animal, just as Barbara, a few weeks later, stole up; 
 after him. He softly shut his oak — ^the oak is al- 
 
THE SET AT SEVEN. 261 
 
 ways discreet — ^and sat shivering, almost breathless, 
 in the dark, listening to the tramp of feet and the 
 anxious buzz of tongues underneath. 
 
 When everything was still he stole out and went 
 to Dulwich. 
 
 Augusta had a blue gown — it was the Boat Race 
 day — and Stapley was a Cambridge man. 
 
 She wore blue constantly afterward. This was 
 one of his plaintive injuries when he babbled out 
 everything at the trial. Blue at the theater that 
 night when his face betrayed him to the vigilant eye 
 of Barbara. Blue when she came to the court to 
 give evidence against him. I wonder if she wears 
 blue when she goes to see him at Broadmoor. Some 
 women would do that in the hope of a cure; though, 
 as you say, they probably don't allow visits at 
 Broadmoor, and a cure wouldn't be of any real help 
 in Stapley's case. 
 
HOPKINS. 
 
 Orchard was artistic — and talked about it. 
 How tiresome such people are ! He split the world 
 into two factions — ^the artist and the rank, impos- 
 sible Philistine. Religious bigots talk in the same 
 way — of professing Christians and the unregener- 
 ate. I knew a dear old lady once who thought that 
 we had a perfect right to stone some Mohammedan 
 missionaries who came to England. 
 
 In the middle of a country walk Orchard would 
 stop, with a deep gulp of admiration, and ask you to 
 admire the view. He raved of autumn tints, apple 
 blossoms, bare boughs. He pretended to like a fog. 
 He painted landscapes — or seascapes, according to 
 your imagination — on the panels of his walls; he 
 stenciled his ceilings, and produced an idealized por- 
 trait of his laundress. 
 
 He had all the delightful courage and egotism of 
 the amateur. He boasted that he had only once 
 been to the Xcademy — that temple of mediocrity. 
 
a64 MEN OP MARLOWE'S. 
 
 He told you coolly that there was only one English 
 artist of talent — and he was Whiffin, " Never 
 heard of Whiffin ! Who is Whiffin ? You astonish 
 me. My dear fellow," he would say pityingly, 
 " there is only Whiffin." 
 
 The others — ^men whom the ignorant regard as 
 leading — he disposed of glibly. This one was color- 
 blind; he thought that was common knowledge. 
 That one employed a ghost; the fellow could hardly 
 hold a brush himself. Another only painted flesh 
 tints ; you can't have a picture all flesh. " My dear 
 fellow, I assure you there is no one but Whiffin. He 
 is the coming man. I'm surprised you don't know 
 his work. Galleries! A man like Whiffin wouldn't 
 exhibit at the galleries." 
 
 Orchard was willing to undertake anything — 
 artistic. But his great hobby was house-building. 
 He said that the average architect didn't get the 
 surroundings in harmony. The architect's work 
 only began when the roof was on. He should de- 
 sign the garden, the furniture. He should choose 
 the pictures, the tenants. Every new house ought 
 to be embowered in creepers from the very start. 
 
HOPKINS. 26s 
 
 [An old lawn and a clipped yew tree were as essential, 
 more essential, than water pipes. The house must 
 cultivate a ghost. It must have a peacock with a 
 spread tail, a fish pond, full of hoary carp, a raven 
 that would say " nevermore." 
 
 He was full of amusing sentiment. He bought 
 his bread at Mackary's, the confectioner's near Ber- 
 nard Street. It was a queer old shop. Orchard 
 said that it reminded him of Hogarth. Of course 
 he had the greatest possible contempt for Hogarth — 
 but he liked the faint flavor of hoops and beauty 
 patches which hung about Mackary's. 
 
 Mackary's business, so it is said above the door, 
 was founded in 171 2. The shop window was bow- 
 fronted and had small square panes. Behind these 
 panes were home-baked puffs and Banburys, straight 
 glass bottles full of pink lozenges or sponge fingers. 
 Mackary kept up the traditions of his house. He 
 still made a feature of a special cake said to have 
 been a favorite with Queen Charlotte, and he ig- 
 nored French pastry. 
 
 Miss Mackary kept the books, arjd wrote poetry 
 after the shutters were up. Mrs. Mackary was 
 
266 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 plump, wore a lace cap, and had house property iri 
 her own right near Tarn's. They were superior 
 people. Orchard willingly paid a halfpenny more 
 on the half-quartern loaf for the privilege of stqp- 
 ping in with the assured air of a regular customer. 
 He never paid his bill, so that it really made no dif- 
 ference. He used to sit and eat Queen Charlotte's 
 cakes and talk poetry with Miss Mackary. They 
 were all very civil to him — ^he used to say that noth- 
 ing demoralized a tradesman more than cash 
 payment. 
 
 I don't know why I tell you of Whiffin, of the 
 Madcarys, of Orchard's crazy architectural ideas — 
 they have nothing to do with the story. But they 
 will prove to you what a harmless simpleton he was 
 before he took set 7, before the advent of Hopkins. 
 
 Hopkins had the set on the other side of the land- 
 ing — the right-hand side as you go up. Orchard 
 took the one on the left, he moved there from a 
 ground floor in the other square. Set 7 was cheaper 
 — that baleful set, which held at different times the 
 tragedies of Orion, of Jimmy, of Stapley. 
 
 No one had ever seen Hopkins, he was said to be 
 
HOPKINS. 267 
 
 abroad. Therefore it surprised me when Orchard 
 said casually, with faint annoyance, that his neigh- 
 bor across the landing was a nuisance; he came 
 in late and made an awful row taking off his 
 boots. 
 
 I didn't see Orchard for two or three months after 
 this. It was astounding when next I went up to 
 his rooms to see that Hopkins' name was painted 
 out from the oak on the right-hand set and bracketed 
 with Orchard's name on the left. There it was, 
 as plain as white paint on a black door could 
 make it : 
 
 MR. D. B. ORCHARD. 
 MR. GEOFFREY HOPKINS. 
 
 ■ I was surprised, I was also interested; no one had 
 ever seen Hopkins. No one particularly wanted 
 to. Still, as I waited for Orchard to let me in, I 
 had a languid curiosity to know what his co-tenant 
 was like. 
 Orchard was not looking well. He didn't tallc 
 
268 MEN OP MARLOWE'S. 
 
 in his usual airy, sweeping way. There were no 
 new daubs on the wall. .When I said, with a look 
 round the room : 
 
 " What's this about Hopkins ? " he jerked his 
 head toward the bedroom wall, with the cautious 
 remark : 
 
 " Don't speak so loudly : he's in the bedroom. 
 Hopkins! Oh! he's all right. We thought it 
 more convenient for him to come here. Great au- 
 thority on Italian art; subject I'm interested in, as 
 you know." 
 
 I didn't know, but I waited on, chatting in rather 
 a strained way, and expecting Hopkins — who never 
 came out of the bedroom. Orchard wasn't conver- 
 sational that night. He let every subject I started 
 flaccidly drop. He wanted perpetually winding up. 
 His accustomed dogmatic manner had quite deserted 
 him. He didn't bring out his sketchbook. He 
 talked disjointedly of Hopkins. I must come in 
 some other night and look over Hopkins' books on 
 Italian art — thirteenth century principally. It was 
 quite a valuable collection. Hopkins played the 
 violin. That was his fiddle case in the corner. To 
 
HOPKINS. 269 
 
 hear him play Rubinstein's " Melody in F " was a 
 genuine musical treat. 
 
 Other men noticed the change in Orchard. Some 
 said that he was drinking too much beer; others that 
 he was in love with Miss Mackary, who had pro- 
 duced a true degenerate poem. He was not 
 sociable, rarely came out, and took to sporting his 
 oak. He said that he and Hopkins were deep in 
 thirteenth-century Italian art, and had no time for 
 anything else. They were writing a book on it. 
 No one ever saw Hopkins. I, living immediately 
 underneath, never heard his violin. 
 
 It was about this time that Orchard took to mak- 
 ing me his father confessor. He was always ad- 
 mitting small sins. He came in one night and said 
 earnestly : 
 
 " You know we were playing ha'penny nap at 
 Green's last Wednesday. Yes. Well, I didn't put 
 in the pool. It worries me. It was a mean 
 trick, wasn't it ? Green kept saying, ' Tit up,' 
 and I — I didn't. Nobody noticed. It was 
 pretty late. I feel ashamed of myself. What 
 can I do?" 
 
270 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 " I don't know that you can do anything now," 
 I returned, staring at his anxious face. 
 
 " It was a mean, dirty trick," he said despair- 
 ingly. " I must have cheated you fellows first and 
 last out of two bob. What can I do ? " 
 
 " You can't do anything. What — what does 
 Hopkins think? How is Hopkins, by the way? 
 Quiet kind of fellow, isn't he? Why don't you 
 bring him down some night ? " 
 
 " Hopkins ! Oh ! he's a regular recluse. Steeped 
 to his eyes in Italian art. Plays well, doesn't 
 he?" 
 
 " Don't know. I've never heard him." 
 
 Orchard looked at me in perplexity. 
 
 " Never heard him ! That's odd. Why, he was 
 practicing until one this morning." 
 
 Another night he came in, his pocket bulging 
 with a book. He sat down in my saddle-bag 
 chair with a groan. His face was clammy with 
 emotion. 
 
 " I've — I've stolen this book," he said, bringing 
 out a fat volume with lots of plates. " Couldn't 
 help it for the life of me. What on earth am I to 
 
HOPKINS. 271 
 
 do? It was on a stall in front — that shop at the 
 corner of the Turnstile. They'll run me in. What 
 do you advise? " 
 
 " That's a matter for Hopkins. It's on Italian 
 art, isn't it? The plates look good; no doubt he'll 
 be delighted. All's fair in love and collecting, you 
 know — ^but the policeman doesn't admit that. I 
 wouldn't do it again." 
 
 ' The third time I happened to go up to him. He 
 answered the door to my knock. For a moment, 
 before he recognized me, there was blank horror on 
 his once carelessly cynical face. 
 
 " Hopkins in ? " I asked, with a comprehensive 
 movement of the head. 
 
 Hopkins was a nuisance, although — perhaps be- 
 cause — one never saw him. I had more than once 
 asked Orchard why he had taken in an odd, churlish 
 chap like that, and he had answered, in a short, 
 matter-of-fact way, that it was a perfectly natural 
 selection — they had tastes in common. That night 
 he said, looking very relieved : 
 
 " Hopkins is out." 
 
 .We went into the sitting room. Before he sat 
 
272 MEN OP. MARLOWE'S. 
 
 down he added, with a vague, troubled stare about 
 the place : 
 
 " Hopkins is a very untidy chap. He leaves his 
 things about." 
 
 He made an irritable movement with his hands 
 about the bare, big table in the middle of the room 
 ■ — and only shifted the evening paper. Then he 
 threw himself into the easy chair on the opposite 
 side of the hearth, and I brought out my tobacco 
 pouch. 
 
 " I'm going from bad to worse," he broke out, 
 but retaining enough presence of mind to hand me 
 a box of matches and an ash tray. 
 
 " I paid something on account of Mackary's bill 
 to-day — with a bad sovereign. But that isn't all. 
 I picked that picture up in a saleroom — ^put it under 
 my arm and walked away, you know. I believe it is 
 a ' Simms.' " He looked gloatingly at a dark, little 
 oil on the wall. " And I — I stole ten pounds from 
 my young nephew. He gave it me to buy a bicycle 
 — -and I've spent every penny." 
 
 " These confidences are becoming oppressive," I 
 said. " So long as you restricted; yourself to not 
 
HOPKINS. 273 
 
 putting in the pool, it didn't matter so much. 
 Cheating at cards may be one form of moral pro- 
 test. Stealing books and pictures is simply an over- 
 flow of artistic enthusiasm. But passing bad sov- 
 ereigns and spending other people's money is repre- 
 hensible — to say nothing of its being idiotic. You'll 
 get found out, arrested, ruined. My dear fellow, 
 you are suffering from a severe attack of crime. 
 Crime is merely an infectious disease, like the 
 measles; all sensible people admit that nowadays. 
 Some of us have it; some escape. Occasionally 
 there is an epidemic — look what a run there often is 
 in a certain form of murder. You must see a doc- 
 tor. It seems to me that you have only developed 
 the attack since Hopkins " 
 
 He stopped me with an eager wave o£ his un- 
 steady hand. 
 
 " Hopkins," he began excitedly, " Hopkins ! 
 Good Heavens ! " — ^lie stopped, then concluded 
 calmly, with a sort of mechanical cordiality toward 
 the other man — " Hopkins is a very good 
 fellow." 
 
 A couple of mornings later I met him in the 
 
274 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 square. He had developed a peculiar walk; several 
 men had commented on it. He seemed to be pain- 
 fully trying to keep step with Someone. Occasion- 
 ally he threw a hunted, conciliating look over his 
 shoulder. Sometimes he started off in a spasmodic 
 trot, and then pulled up as if it were no use to strug- 
 gle, and tried to keep step again. He meant to pass 
 me with a nod, but I stepped in front of him and 
 took his hand. He looked round, started, stared 
 across the square, and then said: 
 
 " Excuse me for not having introduced you to 
 Hopkins. Don't think it strange of him to make 
 off like that. He's a student, you see, very retiring 
 and preoccupied." 
 
 "Hopkins!" 
 
 " Yes, there he goes — ^that man with a pronounced 
 stoop, a Norfolk jacket, and a soft hat." 
 
 The square was absolutely empty except for Or- 
 chard and me. There was no man with a stoop and 
 a Norfolk jacket anywhere in sight; there never 
 had been. Orchard, with his halting, timid walk, 
 had crossed the square alone, had come out of his 
 own doorway alone. Absolutely alone. I had 
 
HOPKINS. 27s 
 
 watched him. I had never taken my eyes off him, 
 from first to last. I took his arm. 
 
 " Come over to No. 2 and see Harrowsmith," I 
 entreated. " You don't look well. He'll give you 
 a tonic. Perhaps you're smoking too much — don't 
 believe in a pipe myself. There isn't half so much 
 harm in a mild cigarette." 
 
 The square was empty, empty. It was a shock 
 to me. It came so suddenly, it was utterly unex- 
 pected — the fact that Hopkins was a mere myth. 
 There possibly was a Hopkins, that absent man, 
 reputed to be abroad, whose name had been painted 
 up on the right-hand set, who had, so I'd heard, 
 been in the habit of sending regularly every quarter 
 day the rent for his empty rooms. But Orchard's 
 Hopkins — ^the man who played the violin, who was 
 a crank on early Italian art — simply didn't exist. 
 It was then I remembered that when Orchard had 
 said casually, "There's his violin," I had not no- 
 ticed one, that I had never heard a violin, or a 
 strange voice, or a second pair of feet in the set im- 
 mediately above my own. I remembered, too, that 
 when Orchard had said^ with annoyance, "Hop- 
 
276 MEN OF MAliLOWE'S. 
 
 kins is an untidy chap; he leaves his things about," 
 the room had been in perfect order. I had never 
 seen the collection of books on Italian art — the man 
 was a delusion, the product of an excited brain. 
 Orchard was in a bad way. I repeated, " Come up 
 to No. 2 and see Harrowsmith." 
 
 He dragged his arm away, gave another keen look 
 across the square, and said impatiently : 
 
 " I shall do nothing of the sort. Don't believe in 
 doctors. When I'm hard up for a chronic disease 
 I'll consult one, not before. Hundreds of men have 
 been killed by going to a specialist or by trying to 
 get their lives insured. The specialist shakes his 
 head, the insurance doctor looks grave, and you're 
 done. No! It's a preliminary to going to the 
 undertaker." 
 
 This had been one of his many eccentricities in 
 the old extravagant days. I simply said soothingly : 
 
 " But you don't go to the undertaker. Someone 
 else has to go — when the time comes. So the bot- 
 tom's knocked out of your argument. Come on." 
 
 He twitched himself away, quite petulantly, like 
 a child; and said: 
 
HOPKINS. 277 
 
 " I'm off to the country for the day; that will do 
 me more good than doctors' stuff. I shall take 
 train from Baker Street and get down to the valley 
 of the Chess." 
 
 I was out late that night. When I came home I 
 noticed a light in Orchard's window. So he was 
 back! I decided not to go up to him. I was half 
 undressed when I heard his oak slam violently, 
 heard heavy, hurried feet coming downstairs. 
 They seemed to come, those feet, half a flight at a 
 time. I knew at once that something was up. My 
 doors were open in a moment. Orchard came top- 
 pling into my passage, shutting the oak behind 
 him. 
 
 "I've murdered him," he said. "My God! 
 Murdered him. Hopkins ! " 
 
 " Keep cool. It's all a delusion. There isn't any 
 Hopkins. Your nerves are unstrung " 
 
 " No Hopkins ! " the poor fellow interrupted, 
 with a derisive laugh. " You shall hear all about 
 it. No Hopkins! Haven't I lived with him? 
 Hasn't he been tempting me to every devilry? It 
 was Hopkins who. made me steal the picture, the 
 
278 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 book, the bicycle money; he gave me the bad sover- 
 eign for Mackary, he's got a bag full. The man 
 was bothering me. I made a mistake at first to pay 
 him anything on account — you lose their respect 
 directly you make a cash payment. Hopkins! 
 And he was egging me on to — what do you think? 
 To murder you, old man. To murder you, because 
 you've got Rogers' " Italy," with plates after 
 Turner, and he wanted it. The very word Italy is 
 enough for him." 
 
 This was startling. I had reason to be grateful 
 that I had pricked the Hopkins bubble in time. Or- 
 chard continued, dropping his voice and looking up 
 now and then at the ceiling, and putting his head 
 aside in a listening attitude : 
 
 " I dodged him this morning. I went ofif to 
 Chesham alone, meaning to think the thing out 
 quietly. I'd made up my mind to emigrate, if I 
 could raise the passage money without his suspect- 
 ing it. And then — well, I might have known — 
 there were steps behind me; his face over my shoul- 
 der. He said, — he knows my very thoughts, — 
 
 " ' Emigration would be the worst thing in the 
 
HOPKINS. 279 
 
 world for us, dear boy. They want muscles, not 
 art, in a new country.' 
 
 " It was more than I could stand. I shoved him 
 into the Chess when he was off his guard. It gave 
 me positive honest enjoyment to see the water eddy- 
 ing over him." 
 
 I took his hand and shook it heartily. 
 
 " Shoved him into the Chess ! You are sure he 
 sank? It is the best bit of news I've heard for a 
 long time. The fellow was a bad lot evidently — 
 what is worse, he was a confounded nuisance. You 
 haven't been the same man since he shared your 
 rooms." 
 
 I thought it wiser, just at the moment, not to irri- 
 tate and excite him by again disputing Hopkins. It 
 was really a remarkable business. The delusion 
 was so perfect, so realistic. From the moment Or- 
 chard complained that he could hear Hopkins tak- 
 ing off his boots through the wall, I had never 
 doubted the man's existence — no one had doubted. 
 Yet it was all a delusion. There was no Hopkins. 
 Consequently, Orchard had not cheated at nap, had 
 not betrayed Mackary by a bad sovereign, had not 
 
28o MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Stolen the book with the fine plates nor the picture 
 that he believed to be a Simms, had not spent his 
 nephew's ten pounds. But he might have murdered 
 me if the delusion had gone on long enough. Hop- 
 kins! Whiffin! I began to wondei: whether 
 Whiffin really existed or whether he also was a 
 myth. It did not matter much. Orchard said 
 tremulously : 
 
 " You haven't heard the worst. I knocked him 
 over into the Chess. I walked into Chesham and 
 had a feed — never enjoyed anything so much in my 
 life, never felt so free and hopeful. I got back to 
 the Inn about ten. As I crossed the square I saw 
 a light move across my window. It struck me as 
 rather odd, but then I remembered that Mrs. Neaves 
 had told me she was coming back to fetch her apron, 
 or a bundle of newspapers she was going to sell at 
 the butcher's, I forget which. It does not matter — 
 nothing matters. I went upstairs. I let myself in 
 with the latchkey. The passage was dark, but there 
 was a steady light under the sitting-room door. No 
 sound. Only the steady yellow light. I went in. 
 As I live, he was sitting there. Hopkins ! the man 
 
HOPKINS. 281 
 
 I had drowned. I staggered to the first chair and 
 sat like a fool, staring at him. He was cutting a 
 portrait out of a ragged pamphlet he bought yester- 
 day at the shop near Tottenham Court Road; he's 
 making an illustrated copy of some book or the 
 other. I forget the title; I forget everything. 
 ,When he had done he turned round deliberately and 
 looked at me. He didn't seem annoyed in the least. 
 He actually didn't seem conscious of that dip in the 
 Chess. I wanted to ask him how he got out, but I 
 couldn't, to save my soul, speak one word. He was 
 sitting there calmly cutting pictures out of a book. 
 The man I had drowned! I saw him drown. I 
 took devilish good care not to leave the river until 
 I was sure. Yet there he sat. He said: 
 
 " '.Which train did you come back by? I took 
 the 8.05.' " 
 
 " I couldn't bear it any more. I came down to 
 you. What am I to do? How am I to get 
 rid of him? You see, I am absolutely in his 
 power. He owns me. He could hang me if he 
 liked." 
 
 " I'll come U£ and have a talk with him." 
 
282 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 We went up to his set together. The sitting 
 room was perfectly dark. 
 
 " I expect he's gone to bed," said Orchard. 
 
 We looked into the bedroom. It was the only- 
 bedroom, but Orchard had put up a second bed, a 
 camp. The sheets on it were dingy, but absolutely 
 unruffled. The bed had never been slept in. He 
 had provided a second washstand — one of those 
 skeleton, brightly painted metal things. It was 
 covered with dust. 
 
 " He's gone out," I said encouragingly. " You 
 get to bed and I'll sit up and wait for him to come 
 back." 
 
 Orchard undressed as docilely as a child, and 
 stretched himself with a groan of fatigue beneath 
 the sheets. His eyes were wide open — on the empty 
 camp bedstead with the smoothly turned down sheet 
 and the gayly striped blanket which served as a 
 quilt. 
 
 " You'd better go back to your own place, old 
 man," he said suddenly. " I shall be all right. 
 Head's been a bit queer, but a sleep will make me 
 all right. I'm very sleepy. It would bother me to 
 
HOPKINS. 883 
 
 ^ know you were waiting, and there is no necessity. 
 Good-night." 
 
 His eyes closed drowsily, then opened, and fixed 
 themselves on that empty bed. 
 
 " I want you to go," he said more positively. " I 
 shan't get to sleep until you do." 
 
 I went. I thought that he would sleep, and after 
 a good night's rest he would be reasonable. I'd 
 take him to the doctor in the morning. I slept my- 
 self. It was past nine next morning when I woke. 
 There was an envelope in the letter box. It was 
 from Orchard. He inclosed the key of his set, and 
 a little note in pencil. So far as I can remember, 
 this is pretty much how it ran : 
 
 " Not a bit of good, old fellow. Hopkins won't 
 leave me alone. He was in bed all the time — his 
 own bed, under the window. I wonder you didn't 
 see him. He looked hard at me, and I knew he 
 meant me to send you away. Not a bit of good try- 
 ing to resist a man like that — a fellow who won't 
 drown! He's making me hang myself; says he's 
 a firm believer in capital punishment. I murdered 
 him, and I must swing for it. You'll find me, if 
 
284 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 he leaves me alone, behind the kitchen door. . I'm 
 going to bring this note down, with the key, and 
 put it in your letter box. Hope Hopkins won't get 
 it. I should like you to know the truth. Suicide 
 is vulgar — hanging the most popular form of self- 
 effacement. I dislike popularity, as you know. 
 Hopkins reassures me; he says it's only justice. 
 He's reading every word I write. Sell the sticks — 
 if he'll let you — and square up Mackary. Poor 
 
 Miss M , she was a little sweet on me. Clever 
 
 girl ! Wasted on a ' good family trade.' " 
 
 That was all. I know that the reference to Miss 
 Mackary came last. She's still at the shop in Ber- 
 nard Street; you must come and have a couple of 
 Queen Charlotte cakes. 
 
 I went up. . He was hanging, as he said he would 
 be, behind the kitchen door. Th€ door is half glass. 
 As I pushed it back I saw him gently swinging. 
 You won't believe it — I'm not sure that 1 believe it 
 myself — but I'll swear that as I put the key in the 
 outer, door I heard the long, wailing cry of a violin. 
 
 /A gqod year afterward I was dining with the 
 
HOPKINS. 285 
 
 Prays at Kensington. There was another man 
 there — a tiresome fool. The second Mrs. Pray has 
 a knack of collecting stupid people — the sort of 
 stupid people who are small somebodies in their par- 
 ticular line. This man had been abroad collecting 
 rare orchids. His name was Hopkins. It is such 
 a common name that, although I remembered poor 
 Orchard at once, I never thought of asking him if 
 he knew the Inn. Still, I brought the conversation 
 round to it. After dinner, when Mrs. Pray had left 
 us, I said to Pray: 
 
 " There is a man called Jackson in your old set. 
 [And Kinsman's gone — to the bad some say." 
 
 Hopkins pricked up his ears. 
 
 " You are talking of the Inn," he said, and men- 
 tioned my number. " Odd thing ! I have a set in 
 that very house. Top floor, right-hand side as you 
 go up the stairs. Of course you've seen my name — 
 Hopkins." 
 
 I could only look at him and nod my head. He 
 filled his glass and carefully cut the end of a cigar. 
 
 He was the most commonplace, prosperous-look- 
 ing man you can possibly imagine. I thought of 
 
286 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 Orchard's Hopkins — " Decided stoop, Norfolk 
 jacket, and soft hat." This man's shoulders were 
 well squared back and ingeniously padded by his 
 tailor. He was the sort of man who would never 
 wear a Norfolk jacket in town; a man who would 
 go to spend Sunday in the country in a black diag- 
 onal coat, and take his top hat with him in case of 
 emergency. I looked at him, looked into his dull, 
 bulging eyes. Eyes without depth, without secrets, 
 without soul — just eyes ! hard, glassy things put for 
 purely practical purposes into his head! It was 
 clearly superfluous to ask him if he took an interest 
 in Italian art or played the violin. 
 
 " Perhaps you can explain," he continued. " I 
 went to the Inn the week before last. They've 
 painted my name out on the door of the right-hand 
 set and stuck it on the left-hand set with another 
 man's. I took his name — wait a moment." 
 
 He brought out a fat notebook — he was the kind 
 of accurate dullard who would be sure to take notes. 
 
 " D. B. Orchard. That's it. Now, who is he? 
 I couldn't find out. I went and beat up the man 
 who does most of the painting, and he didn't 
 
HOPKINS 2 87 
 
 know. It was a piece of confounded impudence. 
 It may have done me some injury — I use the place as 
 a business address. If it was a practical joke, then 
 it was a very foolish one, and in precious bad 
 taste." 
 
 He began to look swollen and angry; looked at me 
 as if he half suspected that I'd a hand in it. No 
 doubt I looked guilty. 
 
 " Who is D. B. Orchard ? " he persisted, in the 
 puffy, thick-throated way of the pompous man. 
 " How is one to get at the fellow ? I hammered at 
 the door for the best part of half an hour. D. B. 
 Orchard ! " He laughed ironically. " I'd teach 
 him not to play stupid jokes on me. I'd have him 
 understand, sir, that Geoffrey Hopkins is not a man 
 to be played with." 
 
 Geoffrey Hopkins! I felt my very lips grow 
 white. I must have looked like some foolish, 
 anaemic girl. 
 
 " How is one to get at him ? I might claim 
 damages." He brought his broad, hairy fist down 
 vigorously on the shining table. Pray, looking 
 from one to the other — my quivering countenance 
 
288 MEN OF MARLOWE'S. 
 
 and the inflamed features of the man Hopkins — 
 was evidently uncomfortable. 
 
 I looked at that man. Geoffrey Hopkins! I 
 could have taken that flabby body in my grip and 
 shaken it for all that it had made poor Orchard 
 suffer. And yet! Was this the man? Instinct 
 told me, common sense told me, that it was not. 
 
 "D. B. Orchard is dead," I said curtly at last; 
 then, with a savage laugh and a terror-stricken 
 glance at the coarse face, added, " You can't get at 
 him. He's out of your reach, poor devil, at last." 
 
 I didn't know; I don't know, now — how can one 
 be sure! Of course he wasn't Orchard's Hopkins. 
 But! What an affair! 
 
 Tell him? No. I saw him look at me with dis- 
 gust and suspicion — no doubt he thought I was a 
 little drunk. No doubt he went away and told his 
 friends that I wasn't quite a gentleman. That sort 
 of man talks like that. 
 
 When we were alone I told the whole story to 
 Pray.' But he, with a pathetic droop of his mouth 
 and a mystic flicker in eyes that were hard with 
 success, said — glancing at the door — ^that such sub- 
 
HOPKINS. 289 
 
 jects didn't interest him. He hated to dabble on 
 the edge of the infinite — ^he'd had enough. He 
 seemed to sigh as he lighted his pipe. 
 
 I haven't seen Hopkins since. If ever I see him 
 again I shan't tell him — ^he's too commonplace. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LAVIGNAC'S MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 
 
 By Prof. Albert Lavignac, of the Paris Conservatory, author 
 of The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner^ Edited for America 
 by H. E. Krehbikl, author of How to Listen to Music^ and trans- 
 lated by William Marchant. With 94 illustrations and 510 ex- 
 amples in musical notation. 2d Edition. 504 pp. 8vo. $3.00. 
 
 •' It is impossible to speak too highly of this volume " {Literary 
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 journal). 
 
 Circular on application* 
 
 THE MEMOIRS OF BARONESS DE COURTOT 
 
 Lady-in- Waiting to the Princess de Lamballe. Edited by Moritz 
 TOO Kaisenberg. Translated by Miss Jessie Haynes. 8vo. fs.oo. 
 
 Retnarlcably vivid descriptions of France during the Terror, 
 Prussia under Frederick William III. and the beautiful Queen 
 Louise, and France under the ail-powerful First Consul. 
 
 New York Times Saturday Review : " It has all the charm of a 
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 Living Age: "An intensely fascinating book, varying in its 
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 romance." 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. ^^ ^%^^^tr^««* 
 
 n, 1900 
 
''Better than *The Prisoner of 2enda'"-CriV«V. 
 loth Impression of 
 
 HOPE'S RUPERT OF HENTZAU 
 
 A Sequel to ''The Prisoner of Zenda" 
 
 With eight full-page illustrations by Charles Dana Gibsow. 
 xamo, $1.50. 
 
 B. A. Dithmar in New York Times' Saturday Review: "De- 
 lightfully stirring and irresponsible, ... a sequel . . . for a 
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 bring romance to life again." 
 
 Life: " A sequel to ' Zenda ' which does not let down one bit 
 the high standard of chivalrous love which was the charm of 
 that romance. . . Mr. Hope's heroes are never dull. . . These 
 *Zenda' stories have added a distinctly modern value to what 
 men and women mean by the ' sense of honor.' . . . The closing 
 chapters are simply written, elevated in sentiment, and an ideal 
 solution of the fate of Plavia and Rudolf.''^ 
 
 Geo, W. Smalley in New York Herald: "A story which lays a 
 spell upon you. The animation is unceasing, and so, therefore, 
 is the interest. . . Mr. Hope has not lost his old deftness in dia- 
 logue. . . The scene between the two men [Sapt and James] 
 after the murder ... is a masterpiece." 
 
 New York Tribune : "Everything moves swiftly and naturally 
 to the climax, upon which, we may add, Mr. Hope has wreaked 
 himself with a tact that is perhaps the best thing in the book. 
 ... It is absorbing, and especially is it an excellent sequel, 
 which is more than can be said of most books of its kind." 
 
 Springfield Republican : "It is a question whether it does not 
 rival 'The Prisoner of Zenda' itself in excellence. . . It strikes 
 a stronger and deeper note." 
 
 Brooklyn Eagle : " Has the ring of genuine humanity and true 
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 Chicago Tribune : " Considered as a sequel, the book is sur- 
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 6th Impression of the New Edition, 51st of 
 
 HOPE'S PRISONER OF ZENDA 
 
 With five full-page illustrations by CHARLES DANA GIBSON, 
 and a view and plan of the castle by HOWARD INCE. zamo, 
 $1.50. 
 
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 Indiscretion op the Duchess, tath Impression. 
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 A Man of Mark, xith Impression. 
 
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3d Impression. 
 
 WELLS' H IS LORDSHIP'S LEOPARD 
 
 A Tmtlifiil narration of Some Impossible Facts. Br 
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 way as the ' Alice ' books — those exquisite masterpieces of topsy- 
 turvy art." 
 
 Cleveland Plain Dealer ; "Just what might be expected of the 
 author of 'Her Ladyship's^Elephant.' . . . Very good fooling." 
 
 Cincinnati Times-Star.: "Any one who enjoys a good laugh 
 should read 'His Lordship's Leopard' by Uavid Dwight Wells. . . . 
 Mr. Wells defies criticism, but he need not fear it. Any critic who 
 does not enjoy his book is unworthy of the name. ... I most 
 assuredly felt sorry when the end was reached, and regret that Mr. 
 Wells should have felt that any end was necessary," 
 
 loth Impression 
 
 WELLS' HER LADYSHIP'S ELEPHANT 
 
 By David Dwight Wells. 12010. $1.25. 
 
 A very humorous story, dealing with English society, 
 growing^ out of certain experiences of the author while 
 a member of our Embassy in London. The elephant's 
 experiences, also, are based on facts. 
 The Nation: "He is probably funny because he cannot 
 help it." 
 
 New York Tribune: "Mr. Wells allows his sense of 
 
 humor to play about the personalities of half a dozen men 
 
 and women whose lives, for a few brief, extraordinary 
 
 days, are inextricably intertwined with the life of the 
 
 aforesaid monarch of the jungle. . . . Smacksof fun which 
 
 can be created by clever actors placed in excruciatingly 
 
 droll situations." 
 
 New York Commercial Advertiser : **A really delicious chain of 
 
 absurdities which are based upon American independence and 
 
 impudence; . . . exceedingly amusing." 
 
 Buffalo Express : "So amusing* is the book that the reader is 
 aMost too tired to laugh when the elephant puts in his appearance." 
 Chicago Tribune: "The courting customs of England and Amer- 
 ica are hit off in a most happy vein, with great good humor. . . . 
 The author employs his powers of invention with excellent effect." 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 V, 1900 
 
 S8 WeBt 23d Street 
 JIow York jj, 
 
•' One of the most important contributions yet made to literary 
 history by an American scholar."— The Outlook. 
 
 BEERS' ENGLISH ROMANTICISM— xviii. century 
 
 By Professor HENRY A. Beers of Yale. Gilt top. lamo. 
 $3.00. 
 
 N. Y. Times' Saturday Review: "Remarkably penetrating 
 and scholarly. . . It is a noteworthy book by an acknowl- 
 edged authority upon a most interestmg period." 
 
 Literature : " Not without its strong bearing upon contem- 
 porary letters. . . The author presents in himself a rare 
 combmation— a scholarly and historical knowledge, which 
 
 Iilaces at his command a seemingly inexhaustible fund of 
 iterary data, and a keen and appreciative taste. . . The 
 author is always interesting and lucid, his analyses are clear 
 and profound, and his lighter details of literary happenings 
 are often delightfully amusing. . . A notable example of 
 the best type of unpedantic literary scholarship"." 
 
 Alfred W. Pollard, the English critic : " I have read it with 
 great enjoyment ... it is a thoroughly good book, pleas- 
 antly written, and bringing together an important mass o£ 
 facts and criticisms." 
 
 Professor IVm. Lyon Phelfs in Neva Haven Register: " Its publi- 
 cation is a literary event. . . The style is dignified, sincere, 
 luminous, and bright, with an occasional touch of delicate 
 humor. This is a work that one can read as steadily as if it 
 were a romance itself." 
 
 Boston Journal : "A fascinating volume . . . the chapters called 
 'The Landscape Poets,' 'The Gothic Revival,' and 'Percy 
 and the Ballads,' each has a perfection of its own that tempts 
 one to read it without regard to sequence. . . In this section, 
 as in many others of the book, there is a rare sympathy shown 
 in the bringing together of the quotations fi-om the poets. 
 The influence of Mrs. Radcliffe and her ilk is delightfully 
 illustrated . . . the Percy chapter is unique, and has some- 
 thing of the dramatic vigor that distinguishes the old ballads 
 themselves . . . one is loath to leave a subject so admirably 
 handled.'; 
 
 LAVIGNAC'S MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 
 
 Edited for America by H. E. Krehbiel and translated by 
 William March ant. With 94 illustrations and 510 examples 
 in musical notation, zzmo. $3.00. 
 
 A brilliant, sympathetic, and authoritative work covering 
 musical sound, the voice, instruments, construction esthetics, 
 and history. 
 
 In view of the great mass of information concentrated in this 
 single volume, and making it practically a cyclopedia of its 
 subject, the charm of the author's style isremarkable. And 
 this style has been most happily retained by the translator, 
 who did a similar service so well for Chevrillon's In India. 
 Mr. H. E. Krehbiel, author of How to Listen to Music and 
 other popular books, has contributed some interesting pages 
 on music in America and given tho book the few touches, 
 such as additions to the bibliographies, that it needed to flt it 
 for American readers. The illustrations are numerous, 
 especially those of orchestral instruments, and many ex- 
 amples in musical notation elucidate the text. 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO., ^ ^^^^^Itr^^^ 
 
GODFREY^S THE HARP OF LIFE ..mo. $1.50. 
 
 A very human account of certain events in the life of the 
 first violin of the Pinecliff (England) orchestra. 
 
 Boston Transcript: **She has literary skill, Rrace, delicacy. . . . 
 Hcte and there are bits of description sketched in with as much 
 sympathy as truthfulness. . . . Her artistic sense is very keen. 
 She doesn^t introduce a description like this for the mere sake 
 of describing something, but for the purpose of contrast with a 
 mood or situation, and she never spoils a perspective. Although 
 she is writing a musical novel, she never rhapsodizes. . . . The 
 characterization is effective throughout. . . . This masterly tale 
 cannot want for readers, it seems to us." 
 
 Public Opinion: **Miss Godfrey writes understandingly of music 
 and the musical temperament.'' 
 
 Outlook: "There are several characters of interest, and^the some 
 what unusual situations in which they are placed are handled in a 
 clever and novel manner." 
 
 N. Y. Herald: "She draws human nature, delights in the opposi- 
 tion of character, and has, in fact, written a first-race modern 
 novel." 
 
 Buffalo Commercial Advertiser: "A thoroughly good, strong, 
 pure story." 
 
 GODFREY'S POOR HUMAN NATURE 
 
 A musical novel. Sd Impression, lamo. $1.50. 
 
 The story of some Wagnerian singers at the Court Opera 
 of Blankenstadt. It has been said that this name thinly 
 veils Dresden, and that the book gives an intimate picture 
 of musical life at the Saxon capital. 
 
 Bookman : " It is curiously convincing. The characters, toOi 
 are peculiarly real. . , Each and every one stands out with 
 vivid distinction, and is not soon to be forgotten. . . The 
 portrayal of local life, particularly that appertaining to 
 operatic circles, is full of freshness and interest. . . fi: is 
 -well written, it is nobly felt, it Is altogether an admirable 
 work." 
 
 Xfeiu York Tribune : " One of the cleverest musical novels we 
 know, and it is particularly creditable in that it holds nothing 
 of the hysterical gush with which the feminine writer usually 
 fills fiction of this kind. . . The study of the group of 
 singers at the Royal Opera in a minor German city is aston- 
 ishingly well done, and so is the portrait of the great tenor's 
 peasant wife ... so unmistakably true that she must have 
 Deen drawn from life ... an uncommonly attractive and 
 interesting novel." 
 
 Boston Transcript: "We have nothing but praise to say o£ 
 this fine, strong tale, and con recommend it heartily and 
 without qualification." 
 
 Literary World: "There is a distinctly original touch in this 
 story. . . Full of interest." 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO, ^« ^'e^^^t,!*'-* 
 
 V, 1900 
 
^8th Impression of a New York Novel 
 
 THE HON. PETER STIRLING 
 
 AND WHAT PEOPLE THOUGHT OF HIM 
 
 By Paul Leicester Ford. lamo, cloth. $1.50. 
 
 The Nation: *' Floods of light on the raison d^itre^ origin, and methods 
 of the dark figure that directs the destinies of our cities. ... So strongly 
 imagined ana logically drawn that it satisfies the demand for the appear- 
 ance of truth in art. . . . Telling scenes and incidents and descriptions of 
 political organtzatioaf all of which are literal transcripts of life and fact — 
 not dry irrelevancies thrown in by way of imparting information, but lively 
 detail, needful for a clear understanding of 5tirling''s progress from the 
 humble chairmanship of a primary to the dictator's throne. ... In the use 
 of dramatic possibilities Mr. Ford is discreet and natural, and without 
 giving Stirling a heroic pose, manages to win for him very hearty sym- 
 pathy and belief. Stirling's private and domestic story is well knit with 
 that of his public adventures. ... A very good novel. 
 
 Tht Atlantic Monthly: " Commands our very sincere respect; . . . 
 there is no glaring improbability about his story; . . . the highly dramatic 
 crisis of the story. . . . The tone and manner of the book are noble. . . . 
 A timely, manly, thoroughbred, and eminently suggestive book.** 
 
 The Review of Reviews : *'His relations with women \vere of uncon- 
 ventional sincerity and depth. . . . Worth reading on several accounts." 
 
 The Dial : " One of the strongest and most vital characters that have 
 appeared in our fiction. ... A very charming love story. To discern the 
 soul of good in so evil a thing as municipal politics calls for sympathies 
 that are not often united with a sane ethical outlook; but Peter Stirling is 
 possessed of the one without losing his sense of the other, and it is this 
 combination of qualities that make him so impressive and admirable a 
 figure. . . . Both a readable and an ethically helpful book.*' 
 
 The New York Tribune: " A portrait which is both alive and easily 
 recognizable." 
 
 The New York Times: *'Mr. Ford*s able political novel.'* 
 
 The Literary World : *' A fine, tender love story. . , . A very unusual, 
 but, let us believe, a possible character. . . . Peter Stirling is a man's 
 hero, . , . Very readable and enjoyable.** 
 
 The Independent : " Full of life. The interest never flags. ... It is 
 long since we have read a better novel or one more thoroughly and natu- 
 rally American." 
 
 The Boston Advertiser: " Sure to excite attention and win popularity.** 
 
 The Brooklyn Eagle : '* A love and labor story; . . , terribly pictur- 
 esque. , . . Abundance of humor.*' 
 
 The Baltimore Sun: "The team of politics and love drive very well 
 together. . . . Mr. Ford has created a very effective character under very 
 dimcult' <;ircumstances,'* 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO., ^^ l,%^^^^,r°»' 
 
BARROW'S THE FORTUNE OF WAR A novel of the 
 
 laat year of the American Revolntion. i2mo. $1.25. 
 
 The scene is laid mainly in New York City during 
 
 the British occupation, pantly on one of the prison 
 
 ships, and partly in the patriot camp at Morristown. 
 
 The life in the headquarters of the two armies is 
 
 cleverly contrasted. The story has a strong "love 
 
 interest." 
 
 JV. Y. Times Saturday Review : " The story is a good 
 one, the historical data accurate, and the ways and man- 
 ners of the period are cleverly presented." 
 
 The Outlook: "Miss Elizabeth Barrow has done her 
 work, not only well, but delightfully well." 
 
 Chicago Times-Herald: "[Another tale of the time of 
 Washington, but one that is more deserving both of 
 popular and critical appreciation than some of the 
 much-vaunted financial successes." 
 
 Springfield Republican: "It gives a good picture of New 
 York City as it was in the eighteenth century. . . . The 
 story is agreeable reading." 
 
 Hartford Courant : " She has done good work in her 
 romance; ... it is told in a very attractive way. . . . 
 The book is decidedly one that will entertain." 
 
 GODFREY'S THE HARP OF LIFE 
 
 Uniform with the author's " Poor Human Nature." 
 i2mo. ,$1.50. 
 
 An intensely human story of an episode in the life 
 of the first violin of an orchestra, at an English water- 
 ing-place. Miss Godfrey has again been uncom- 
 monly happy in creating a "musical atmosphere." 
 
 LUCAS'S THE OPEN ROAD 
 
 A little book for wayfarers, bicycle-wise and other- 
 wise. Compiled by E. V. LucAS, editor of " A Book 
 of Verses for Children." With illustrated cover-lin- 
 ings. Green and gold flexible covers. i2mo. $1.50. 
 
 Some 125 poems of out-door life and 25 prose pas- 
 sages, representing over 60 authors, including Fitz- 
 gerald, Shelley, Shakespeare, Kenneth Grahame, 
 Stevenson, Whitman, Bliss Carman, Browning, 
 William Watson, Alice Meynel, Keats, Wordsworth, 
 Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, William Morris, Maurice 
 Hewlett, Izaak Walton, Wm. Barnes, Herrick, Gervase 
 Markham, Dobson, Lamb, Milton, Whittier, etc. 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. *« TeV-?orl*"'' 
 
 ni, 1900 
 
BOOKS ABOUT MUSIC 
 
 LAVIGNAC'S MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 
 
 Edited with a chapiter on Music in America and brought down 
 to 1897 by H. E. Krehbiel, author of "How to Listen to 
 Music," etc., and translated by W. Marchakt. With 94 Illus- 
 trations and 510 Examples in Musical Notation, izmo, $3.00. 
 A brilliant, sympathetic, and authoritative work covering 
 musical sound, the voice, musical instruments, construction 
 aesthetics, and the history of music. A veritable musical cyclo- 
 pedia. 
 
 BANISTER'S MUSIC 
 
 A small but comprehensive book on musical theory. 80c. net. 
 " One would have to buy half a dozen volumes in German, 
 French, and English to acquire the contents of this one little 
 book."— i\^. Y. Times. 
 
 WAGNER'S ART, LIFE, AND THEORIES 
 
 Selections from his Writings translated by E. L. Burlingame, 
 with a Preface, a Catalogue of Wagner's published works, 
 and drawings of the Bayreuth Opera House. Revised Edi- 
 tion. x2mo. $2.00, 
 
 The contents includes The Autobiography— The Love Veto, 
 being the Story of the First Performance of an Opera— A Pil- 
 grimage to Beethoven— An End in Paris — Der Freischfltz in 
 Paris— The Music of the Future— TannhSuser in Paris— The 
 Purpose of the Opera— Musical Criticism— The Legend of the 
 Nibelnngen. 
 
 WAGNER'S RING OF THE NIBELUNG 
 
 By G. T. DiPPOLD. Revised Edition, izmo. $1.50. 
 
 The mythological basis is explained. (76 pp.) Then the 
 stories of the four music dramas are given with translations of 
 many passages and some description of the music. (160 pp.) 
 
 MOSCHELES' RECENT MUSIC AND MUSICIANS 
 
 (1794-1870) as described in the Diaries and Correspondence^ of 
 
 Ignatz Moscheles. Selected by his wife. lamo. $2.00. 
 
 A highly readable book. Spohr, Schumann, Beethoven, Paga- 
 
 nini, Mendelssohn, Malibran, Chopin, Jenny Lind, Meyerbeer, 
 
 Wagner, Liszt, Rossini, Gounod, etc., etc., figure in its pages. 
 
 GODFREY'S THE HA RP OF LIFE 
 
 A very human account of certain events in the life of the first 
 violm of the PineclifE (England) orchestra. i2mo. $1.50. 
 "Her artistic sense is very keen. . . Although she is writmg 
 a musical novel, she never rhapsodizes. . . The characteriza- 
 tion is effective throughout. . . This masterly tale cannot 
 want for readers, it seems to us." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 GOD FREY'S POOR HUMAN NATURE 
 
 A novel of German musical life to-day. i2mo. $1.50. 
 
 While the love-interest predominates, this story gives an in- 
 teresting picture of operatic affairs in Germany. 
 
 FOTHERGILL'S THE FIRST VIOLIN 
 
 i6mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 3tjc. 
 
 A novel giving a remarkably true picture of German musical 
 life. It has passed through over twenty impressions. 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO., ^ ^^l^trt''^^ 
 
 -vi, 1900 
 
I'riiU^'^mi