Which has to do with the Binding of Books in Half-calf and the Whimsies of Calf Love

When Noll had left his baggage in a quiet hotel by the Strand, and had refreshed his body with much splashing of himself in water and a change of clothes, he sallied out into the streets of London in a vague wonder and surprise as to how to begin the search for Betty, yet firmly determined to start straightway in his quest—the Baddlesmere jaw set firm.

The summer afternoon was closing in, and the Strand was gay with people cheerily making their way homewards from work or amusement. But homewards Noll did not take his steps; he felt a certain sense of shame about going to his own people without Betty at his side—and this, too, not on his own account, but that it seemed disloyal to Betty and likely to make her future entrance into the family circle an embarrassment to her—so sudden was the suddenness with which he had stepped into the realm of his manhood!

The young fellow had been too restless to stay in the dingy mute rooms of the hotel; he could think it out better in the open—striding to his thinking. It was in the blood—he smiled at the restless walk of Lord Wyntwarde up and down that library, of the strange trick that came out in his mother at times....

Ah, London, thou queen of cities, that filchest for ever the hearts of them that dare to love thee! Radiant in thy sunshine, fantastic in thy murk, it is when thou puttest on the habit of thy lilac twilight that thou showest all thy majesty—thy tiring maids, the handsomest women of the world, helping thee to thy wondrous mantle of many hues—pale whitenesses and opal greys, beribboned with purple and ultramarine and the sooty tinge of dusky shadows, adorned with diamonds of a hundred flames and wrought through and through with gold and silvery strands, and thus and so, with smoky art, spinning thyself a mystic robe that it is full fit only the Queen of all cities shall wear.

And what a splendid stage, thy realm, to strut it in! Thy large drama knows no curtain, thy magnificence no boundary but man’s narrow sight. Thy whisper and the song of thee, and thy strange melodies, no strings of violins nor the resounding hollows of deep orchestral ’cellos can yield. From the music of thy ways, where goes thy multitudinous traffic with roll of many wheels, and lurches the gaudy omnibus with reeking horses twain, and lumbers the thundering dray, and winds in and out the teeming welter the quick black hansom seeking the hackney fare, with jigging of horse-bells that sound a catchy measure to the shuffle of many feet, from out thy swarming hive there comes the breath of vigorous life and thinkingness and the atmosphere of quick wits and alert wills that have the habit of decisive action and of dogged enthusiasms.

And the faces that pass, with lingering glance out of the dusk, the pale sweet faces of thy beautiful women and the handsome figures of a vigorous race, how much larger vastnesses are in the communion of these eyes than in wide empty spaces of unthinking continents!

The mystic dusk turns thy many habitations to a thousand shadowy palaces, thy very vulgarities to dulcet musicalities. What comedies are in the making in thy wide hospitable lap to-night! what tragedies! what heroic strivings! what bemeaning indecencies! what crimes!

Thy very mud holds something of dark mysterious lustre—being that which is trod out of thy pageant and thy history.

He only loves thee best who, being divorced from thee, comes to thee again out of the years. He flips thy mantle with no cockney familiarity, but hears in the hollows of his reverent ears the Æolian whisperings of thy large significance....

The sound of footsteps ceased to rouse the echoes in the empty street, as Noll came to a halt before Netherby Gomme’s doorway. He hesitated for a moment; ran up the steps; and rang the bell.

The smoky twilight that held the place was passing into sooty darkness, turning the staid street of lodging-houses into a way of fairy habitations, the lemon flames of gas-lamps showing a sweeping curve of light down its long length to the far rumble of the city’s distant traffic.

A key coughed in its wards as it shot back the bolts of the lock; and the door yawned open.

Noll turned at the sound of its unlatching.

The mother of Netherby Gomme stood in the dark hollow of the doorway; and a grim triumph lurked in her eyes.

Noll saluted her, hat in hand; and she returned his greeting with a grave smile of surprise.

“Is Netherby at home, Mrs. Gomme?” he asked.

The grim triumph slipped back to her eyes, and came lurking into the corners of the old mouth again:

“He came home from his honeymoon to-day, Noll,” she said—“will you go up and see him?”

Noll walked into the house, and the door was shut behind him with a triumphant slam. He followed the grim old lady into the little sitting-room, and as he went the memory of the queenly figure of the little child Betty as she walked into the dingy room and kissed the jealousy out of this old woman’s heart, came back to him like the fragrance of her sweetness, so that for a while he could not speak what he would have said.

“It was only the other day,” she said, “that you were boys together.... To me it is only yesterday that he was a—little one—in my—arms.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But it is all gone.... This passing of youth is as strange as death....” And she added after awhile: “I think he—was glad—to come back.”

Something of the light of triumph came stealing back to the old tear-stained face.

“And Julia?” he asked.

“I’ve sent her out to get tickets for the theatre,” she said drily. “They will want amusing badly to-night—and the tuning of the fiddles would always rouse my Netherby.... But you’d better go up and see him, Noll—you used to know the way.”

Noll made a pause to take breath at the top of the stairs (how he and Betty had raced up those steps!). He pushed open the attic door.

In the midst of the smudgy dusk that filled the room, his head in his hands, elbows on knees, sat the dim figure of Netherby Gomme, sobbing pitifully.

Noll shut the door softly, and went up to the bowed man:

“Good God, Netherby!” said he—“what’s this?”

He gripped his hand upon the other’s shoulder, affectionately.

Gomme signed him to a seat:

“Sit down, Noll—I’ll be all right in a minute.” He blew his nose. “No—better still, light the gas. I must stop. Tears will not bring back one’s dead, nor grief annul the things that are done. Light up! A man can only cry comfortably in the dark.”

Noll struck a light, turned on the tap of the wrought-iron gas-jet; and the gas leaped into flame.

The old attic was gone.

In its place was a picturesque medieval room of quaint nooks and demure corners, with stiff wooden settles of curving line against the wall, and low bookshelves round the rest of the walls; and above, on a deep coloured frieze under the low ceiling, was a long space of rigid trees from the land of Morris, green trees that yielded vasty purple and golden fruits on close-bunched foliage—and in the blue intervals between the stilted trees sailed white-sailed many-coloured galleons and purple triremes—and on the wall beneath the frieze and above the long curves of the low bookshelves was a yellow space splashed with huge orange-coloured dogs, with emerald eyes and scarlet mouths, that leaped along on hind legs to the chasing of each other and an occasional orange stag amidst mighty flowering plants that seemed to whirl in autumn tints with cunning running lines half-flower, half-leaf. And here and there was a knight in armour, and a hawk upon his wrist, and clothes upon his horse, and about him was always written Soe sirre Gallahydde gotte hyme pryckynge to hys pilgrymmynges; and when the knight was faded blue the writing was russet green; but when the knight was russet green the writing about him was faded blue. And here and there was a lady with hair in plait, and she wove at a loom, and sang with ruddy lips, and the writing about her was Chaunted the Queene ande weaved hyre tale righte Fyttyngelye; and when the queen was orange yellow the writing was white, and when the queen was white the writing was orange yellow. The old bookshelves, with their gay untidiness of many-coloured books, were gone; and in their place in more severe order on dark oaken bookshelves of suave design were ranked books all bound exactly alike in uniform yellow half-calf bindings. The floor was rich-stained and polished, and in the middle of it lay a rug of the yellow of saffron.

The old attic was now so rich of hue and yet so stiffly chaste that Noll almost rubbed his eyes to see if he were awake.

It was indeed a handsome room; and yet——

Some faint whisper of the how and the why these things had chanced flashed through Noll’s consciousness. Here Julia had put the savings of her hard-won earnings. A tidy mind frets at the ordered disorder of the workshop. She was of a precise habit that has a ruthless distaste for chips. She had secretly consulted the old lady, who had grimly advised her to “let the man’s room be”; but he who takes to the council of war a decided intention is irked by opposition, and smiles away the wisdom of older heads as the mere caution of senility. And indeed there was something of the poetic intention behind her gentle obstinacy, as there was behind everything she did; for (and she knew it in her secret heart to be not wholly without a little of such jealous venom as her gentle blood could hold) she had been passionately set upon bringing into this man’s life a fresh influence, a fragrance that she was sure he had not known—she was aglow with the glamour of the love-mood to be the all-in-all in the atmosphere of her lover’s day. And as the rich crave ever to be more rich, so she, queening it in her little parish, was blind to the simple fact that all the subtle and gracious tenderness of her gentle womanhood had won her a larger empire over her lover than any she could hope to win by petty endeavour. The old lady, her wise old eyes seeing that the other had come to consult the oracle with the answer rather than the question, had nodded her willingness, after the first demur, to comply with the younger woman’s whim. And the nod of surrender once given, she had addressed herself, during their absence on the honeymoon, to carrying out the young wife’s instructions to the uttermost detail, even employing no small sum out of her own small income to the perfecting of it.

And, be it remembered, for her the doing had been no light ordering—it was a flagellation of her own nakedness with cruel whips; for, as each change obliterated a footprint of the past, the atmosphere in which the boy and man had wrought their career swiftly vanished—the very hint of an early struggle had departed from the place.

Noll felt how the room must have struck Netherby in the face as he leaped up the stair and flung open the door to be welcomed to its old genial comradeship after his journey and absence from his beloved things.

Noll’s eyes came back from his thoughts to rest on the bent shoulders of the disconsolate man; and Netherby realized that the other had digested the situation.

He sighed sadly, his head in his hands:

“Poor Julia!” he said—“ she must never know. She has done this during our absence—as a surprise. And,” he added grimly: “it was!”

Noll smiled:

“But, Netherby, my dear old boy; you must not fret. You are famous, man——”

“Oh yes—quite. A duchess has asked me to dinner—without my wife.”

Noll put out the light:

“Let us sit in the dusk for awhile, Netherby, as we have sat many a day and settled the affairs of the state. We have laughed at care here; and kicked the world about like a football, and striven to dig up the roots of the Universe—the Why and the Wherefore and the Whence and the Whither.”

Netherby sighed:

“Ah, Noll, the old room is gone. I have to begin all over again. These stiff prude seats compel me to order—tell me harshly that I must not be dreaming overmuch, nor thinking—which is next door to dreaming—but nag me to be up and doing, boiling pots or eggs or hitting something or pushing at things. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere. The medieval rigours warn me to be done with visions and the reading of the visions of others; and their hard oaken seats rise up and assault me where I would sit upon them.... But that is nothing. They have left me not even my books. I am bewildered—bewildered—wholly bewildered.”

He sighed sadly, and went on:

“Ah, Noll, he only knows the whole delight of having possessed a child who has lost it.... Books are one’s most intimate friends—they never change—never play us a shabby trick. How they eat into one’s friendship, each dressed in his individual habit! the very ugliness of some a reason for seeking to win their confidence; perhaps a reason for an easy familiarity—we dog-ear them the more—mark them the more—love them the more. Put them in handsome ranks uniform, and their individuality is gone—like sisters that are primly arrayed to the same pattern to simper through a tedious garden-party. We begin to find faults where was once only affection; and their outward seeming being now alike, like critics we seek to taste not the delights within, but carp because this has not Shakespeare’s wit nor that the thunders and the music of Carlyle. These that were once our closest, most garrulous, most intimate friends have gone to join the silent ranks of library editions that no one reads. These stiff and formal backs, these ornamental edges, these dandified and dyed airs, repel me from my ancient friendships. The intimacy of years is broken—frozen. They open no longer eagerly at the old accustomed places, stained with frequent thumbings, where my own hand cut the dear intimate leaves—they are deckle-edged and bedamned and horrible which were wont to be delightfully impertinent. I cannot find my way in the old garden that I loved—the old dog-ears are smoothed out, gone—my pencillings erased, their whisperings mute, they nudge my elbow no more. These, my one-time boon companions snub me; give me but the flabby handshake of necessity. They open their houses to me mincingly, and yawn affected utterance. They no longer tickle me in the ribs, touching me on the sleeve, nor beckon; they do not chuckle familiarly—nor brood with me upon the roll and march of the great significancies. Their new clothes are insistent—upon them as upon me. They smell of the oil of respectability like gagged Sunday-school children. We know each other no longer—except with formal bow and elaborate etiquette—as when a royal person enters the room of entertainment and puts good-fellowship to the rout.”

He made a pause, and, passing his gaunt hand over his brow, he added sadly:

“I have come home to find myself in a strange land.... Shining-faced respectability has usurped my chair.... My kingdom has slipped from me.... The flowers in my garden are dead.”

Noll patted him on the back:

“Tut, tut, man—you have come into a new kingdom.”

He heard Julia’s voice upon the stair; and he saw that the other had heard it, for he stood up and forced a smile upon his long sad face.

Noll went close to him hurriedly:

“One word, Netherby—quick, before she comes—do you know where Betty is?” he asked hoarsely.

Netherby smiled a sad smile:

“Ah, Noll, that you should have to ask me that!”

Noll passed Julia at the stair-head and left them together.

As he stepped across the hall he hesitated, turned, and went into the old lady’s room. She was sitting in the window, looking out; and she turned at his footfall.

Noll bent down and kissed the old face; and he saw that the harsh light had gone out of her eyes:

“Won’t you be a little lonely here to-night?” Noll asked her.

“No,” she said—“she has taken seats for all three of us.”

Wherein it is suspected that, on Occasion, the Trumpet of Fame is not Wholly Immaculate of the Hiccup

Pangbutt’s handsome studio had been cleared for a reception; and the deliberate old butler, throwing open the great folding-doors, walked stiffly into the room and glanced an orderly eye round the brilliantly lighted details in a last complacent survey before the near arrival of the guests.

He started at a loud peal of the door-bell, and pulled out his watch:

“I hope they are arriving early enough!” said he. “It comes of arsking these here artists to the house.... They’re always hungry and they’re always noisy, and they’re always thirsty. Even if I suffered from these here afflictions I’d have the manners not to show it.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I call it letting ourselves down. They don’t even know how to put on their clothes like Christians.”

He straddled stiffly out of the room, grumbling and mumbling.

“Leastwise not like Christians of the Established Church,” he growled....

He returned after awhile through the great hollow of the handsome doorway, ushering in four guests.

When they had entered, he said stiffly:

“Mr. Pangbutt, I fear, will not be down for several minutes, gentlemen; he has only just come in to dress.”

He drew out his watch from his pocket, and glanced at it aggressively.

Robbins laughed gently, and winked to the others:

“We are a trifle early, Dukes, I am afraid,” said he, going up to the dignified old man—“but if Mr. Rippley will insist on sitting between the reins on the top of the hansom, the cabby drives hard to escape the inquisitive attention of the police—a body of men, Dukes, that live feverishly anxious to catch something and are bored with the greyness of the popular virtue.”

He tapped the old man on the shirt-front.

The butler bowed stiffly, and withdrew.

Fluffy Reubens strode airily into the middle of the room and surveyed it:“I say,” said he—“portrait painting seems to pay, eh?”

Lovegood coughed:

“H’m—n’yes,” he grunted; and added tragically: “When you can paint portraits.”

“Get out!” said Fluffy, and flung himself into an easy-chair.

Rippley strolled round the room and tested the electric lights; his hands itching to be at any devilment:

“Oho!” said he—“so the curtain is to go up to-night and discover the real Anthony Bickersteth—the man of mystery—the writer of the book!... I suppose it ain’t Pangbutt himself!”

Aubrey at the mantelpiece, gazing at himself in the mirror, said simply:

“Bosh!”

“Rather a dramatic situation when you come to think of it, eh?” said Fluffy Reubens, lolling his full length in the easy-chair.

Rippley, his hands in his trousers pockets, considered the situation with reflective eye fixed on the carpet:

“And a rippin’ dramatic emotion, eh! To feel one’s self being wrangled about from one end of the country to the other——”

Aubrey turned languidly from the mirror:

“Ah!” said he, “and then to listen to it all, robed in the delightful invisible cloak of pseudonymity!”

Rippley laughed drily:

“No, no, Aubrey, old man—that wouldn’t have suited you at all. You wouldn’t have lasted at it for a fortnight.”

Lovegood smiled:

“We need not get into the quarrelsome stage about it yet,” he said in his big deep voice: “We shall be tearing him to pieces in magazine articles to-morrow and flinging him to the dogs of the lower journalism to snarl at before the year is out.... The failures are always suspicious of popularity.”

Aubrey turned to the mirror again, and said “Bosh!”

Fluffy Reubens winked at the others:

“I don’t see that this chap Anthony Bickersteth’s work is a snap better than Caroline Baddlesmere’s; and he’s prigged a lot of her ideas——”

Aubrey turned round to the room, took up a picturesque literary attitude, elbow on mantel, his cheek leaning on his long fingers, legs crossed, essaying to realize the portraits of the thirties, and, rousing from his adoration of himself, he said petulantly:

“My dear fluffsome Robbins, I have repeatedly told you that Caroline Baddlesmere lacks breadth of view and a man’s humour—to say nothing of that certain something of subtle atmosphere that is called genius.... You really ought not to give me the trouble of reiterating these simple truths.... You compel me to feel as blatantly insistent as a bookmaker on a race-course——”

He was interrupted by the entrance of the old butler, ushering in Bartholomew Doome and Andrew Blotte—Andrew in very much crushed and wrinkled evening dress, and looking unutterably shabby, Doome well groomed.Bartholomew Doome laughed:

“Yes,” said he, “yes, yes—I heard what Aubrey was saying; but Aubrey is a poet, not a critic.”

Lovegood laughed a funny deep nasal laugh.

But Rippley had turned to the strange figure of Andrew Blotte. He smote him on the shoulder with strong genial hand:

“Cheer up, Andrew,” he cried.

Blotte smiled wearily; he roused from his brooding; he was very pale:

“Where’s the bar?” he asked gloomily.

Rippley laughed:

“Vanity Fair has not opened her drinking-saloons yet,” he said. “We’re all before our welcome.”

Blotte sighed, and said absently:

“I have come to tell Pangbutt I cannot sup with him to-night.” He smiled a pale sad smile; and, rousing, added moodily: “I came into my Irish estates last night—took over the keys of my castle in Spain.... Last night I slept under the blue quilt, and filled my belly with the north wind. And,” he added hoarsely, “to-night I sup with the gods.”

Rippley shook the moody man by the shoulders, and gripping them in his big kind hands, he said:

“Shut up, Blotte; you’ve got to sup with us to-night—gods are a large order, even Aubrey is not yet translated.”

Blotte roused; laughed; strode into the middle of the great room. He turned gloomily:

“No—I go to a mighty banquet, old friend. I go to sup with the gods to-night.”

“Now, now,” said Fluffy Reubens, sprawling in two chairs. “Chuck it, Blotte—you make me feel as cold as a dead undertaker.... Lor!” he yawned, “this is precious slow.” He yawned again: “Paul Pangbutt’s a confounded long time, ain’t he? Scenting his beard, I suspect!”

Andrew Blotte roused from his mood, and he began to pace up and down the room as before: “No more Italian waiters for me—with cursÈd oily locks,” he cried—“no more grease-spots on dingy grey tablecloths that hide their offences under smiling napkins!... To-night I shall be waited upon by the gods.... Never again the boiled potato; never again the homely bun, damn them!... This is the night of life—a night for music and gaiety and minstrelsy.... Hunger shall cease, and pain——”

Rippley went up to him and took him by the shoulder, kindly:

“Stop it, Blotte. Aren’t you well, old man?”

Blotte laughed:

“Well?... Psha! I am like a boy. The new genius arrives to-night. And I go off—to sup with the gods.... The world has forgotten Andrew Blotte.”

Rippley turned, a twinkle in his eye, to the others:

“I say, boys,” said he—“as it’s to be a unique night, and Blotte about to be translated, and may be in the papers in the morning——”Blotte laughed grimly, where he paced:

“Oh, yes,” he growled—“I shall be in the papers to-morrow. Have no fear of it.”

Rippley slapped him on the shoulder:

“Then,” said he, “we ought to give Pangbutt’s house an air. There is a lack of the grand manner here. One man-servant is ridiculously inadequate. At least three of us ought to assist to wait on the guests. Doome and Fluffy and I and—and you, Blotte—would make a ripping lot of waiters, and it wouldn’t be half so slow as talking art and rot to people who don’t know.... Genius shall serve the mob. This night must never be forgotten. By Macready, yes—Pangbutt used to play at play-acting! But where are his properties?”

Blotte was striding the room; he laughed:

“Ay, ay—the gala-night of life should be gay and joyous,” cried he—“all the candles lit, as for a bridal.” He came to a halt, scowled at the dark hollow of the great doorway, and strode thither.

The old butler was lurking suspiciously outside.

Blotte grabbed him by his coat lapel, and drew him into the light:

“Hireling fellow,” said he, “bring more lights. This place is like a damned omnibus.”

The old butler held out an expostulant palm in dignified remonstrance:

“Gentlemen, gentlemen—the guests will be arriving in a few minutes——”

Rippley went up to him, and gripping his fingers in the old servant’s waistcoat, pulled him into the room.

“Don’t talk like an unfrocked bishop, Dukes—it’s most irreligious,” said he. “Look here”—he slapped the old man’s chest jocosely—“your master and the amateur aristocracy used to have private theatricals here. Where are his wigs and make-up things? Where does he keep them? Quick!”

The old butler promptly began to retire backwards upon a handsome cabinet:

“Gentlemen, gentlemen; surely I have no need to remind you that Mr. Pangbutt’s wigs are his private property,” said the shocked, anxious old man. “I haven’t Mr. Pangbutt’s permission——”

Rippley followed him up, grimly smiling:

“Get out, you old panjandrum!” said he. “You’ve shown the hiding-place, you naughty old deceiver. Go away!”

He pushed the expostulating old man from the cabinet, and, throwing open the drawers, proceeded to ransack them.

“Hullo!” he cried—“splendid!”

He struck a match:

“Spirit lamp—everything. Ginger! Here’s a glorious short beard affair that goes down the middle of the chin and all along the throat.”

He put it on.“By Clarkson, makes me look like a ducal butler—I’ll be butler.”

He flung off his coat, and his deft fingers began to fix the disguise on his chin.

The butler touched him upon his shirt-sleeve in dignified despair:

“Gentlemen,” said he—“this is not decent. I repeat—it is not honest.”

“Go hon!” said Rippley, punching the old man in the ribs with his elbow, and working away at the fixing of his throat-beard. “Look here, Fluffy,” he called hurriedly—“you and Doome must run this pompous old dolt downstairs and shoot him into the cellar—and lock him in. Quick! or the people will be arriving.... I hear carriage-wheels.”

Robbins and Doome seized the shocked old man and hurried his protesting stiff being out of the room and down the stairs.

Rippley followed them to the top of the stairs, making up his disguise as he went:

“Look here, boys,” he called down in a hoarse whisper—“if the old fool will swear not to move away from the hall door until we release him you needn’t put him in the cellar.... What?... Eh?... He says he surrenders? That’s all right then. Now back with you—quick! or the guests will be here—or Pangbutt himself.”

There was a loud ring at the door-bell.

Rippley skipped back to the cabinet: and from the cabinet he ran to Andrew Blotte:

“Blotte, old boy,” said he, pulling a red wig over the gloomy man’s head and combing the lank red hair down the sides of his pale face—“you must look after the cloak-room and change the tickets and mix the hats.... Ha-ha!” He laughed mock-tragically. “This night must never be forgotten!”

“It never will,” said Blotte; and laughing grimly he got striding again in the red wig, as Fluffy Reubens and Doome burst into the room.

“Here, Fluffy,” said Rippley, “quick, man! put on this yellow wig, and comb it well over your eyes. There isn’t a moment to be lost; Doome, here’s a black moustache and a greyish wig—this is the way to stick it on—see? Splendid! Makes you look like a broken-down Italian tenor.”

He searched about in the cabinet and found a stubbly black wig which he pulled over his own hair, and was at once a son of France:

“Look here, boys, I’m head-waiter, see! And when I bow, you bow: and when I rub my hands, you rub your hands; and don’t forget the foreign accent—try to talk English as you used to talk French.... Doome, you stand at the landing below, and see that old Dukes don’t stir a step from the door—and bawl up the names from him. And you, Fluffy, play the general ass. I’ll stick to the door here.... Are we all right now?... No, Blotte’s not enough disguised. Here, Doome, fasten this fierce moustache on his lip, whilst I shut up.... O lor! here they come!”

Rippley had scarcely hurried into his coat when there entered and halted in the great doorway a hesitating figure in the white satin dress of a courtier of Charles the First, lace frills at his weak knees, white stockings, white shoes, and holding a plumed hat in his hand.

His eyeglass dropped out of his eye, and he stood there stuttering and aghast.

There was a titter.

“Sharles ze Foorst—risen from ze dead!” announced Rippley.

“I say”—the affected drawl discovered Ffolliott. “Rippley told me it was a—fancy-dress—affair,” he said plaintively. “And to come early.”

There was a wild shout of laughter.

Ffolliott looked round nervously at the strange faces, and recognising Aubrey at last, by the mirror, he said peevishly:

“I am exceedingly displeased with Rippley—he—he chose my dress.”

Rippley wiped the tears from his eyes:

“Well—don’t you see we are nearly all in disguise? ... except Aubrey, who thinks that because he looks like an ass no one will know him.” He turned to the others: “I say, boys,” he added, chuckling, “things are beginning to move at last. This is going to be a unique night.”

“Hush!”

They had all turned to Blotte, and a strange silence fell upon the room.

Andrew Blotte stood listening, as to some strange sounds. He roused:

“Ay, I sup with the gods to-night.... And I can hear the guests arriving—all the clever fellows that have made the world a delight—and with them come the dear dead companions that worked with us, and sang with us, and drank with us—in Paris.... I know them—they talk such damned bad French.”

Rippley went and touched him on the shoulder:

“Blotte, old boy; you’re very queer to-night,” he said. “You make me feel as blue as a newly-clipped hearse-horse.”

Blotte roused, and moved towards the door; halted; turned to them all:

“I say I sup with the gods to-night—and mix the hats—and set the table in a roar.... I must hasten away.... I hear them call.... God bless you, dear boys! we shall meet in sunshine——”

Rippley stepped to the door:

“Quick!” said he in a hushed whisper, “make a line, quick there, you Fluffy, Doome, Blotte, to my left here at the door. Here comes Pangbutt.... He blows his nose like the old nobility.... Come along. Blotte—don’t look like a broken-down anarchist in an advanced stage of pip. You must affect the smiling, friendly, neapolitan manner, expectant of a fee.”As Blotte’s pale face took on a deathly smile, Rippley bowed, and there stepped into the open doorway the well-groomed figure of their host.

Pangbutt halted, perplexed.

He gazed in vague consternation at the Vandyke travesty in white silks before him—turned to the solemn countenances of the four waiters:

“May I ask what, in the name of Beelzebub, is happening in this house?” he asked.

Rippley clasped his hands together unctuously, bowed, smiled a large Italian smile. He advanced a step, and said with a strong foreign accent, picking his words with slow deliberation:

“Sir Pangboot—it has arrive to ze domestic bootler that he is indispose sudden-ment. I am he’s friend that he have ask to take he’s place, vis my asseestants.... Your house shall have ze much honour in my hands—we have the habit to attend ze best families——”

There was a loud ringing of the door-bell.

Pangbutt put his hand over his eyes:

“I must be going mad,” he said.

Rippley bowed:

“Sir Pangboot—me and me friends, we speak not very well ze Engleesh—but we much understand it well—and——”

“Yes, yes.” Pangbutt dismissed them impatiently. “Get to your business.... Curse it! I wonder what on earth ails Dukes.”

As the four comic-looking foreign waiters left the room, he hesitated, bewildered. And Rippley, as they passed out, nearly burst a bloodvessel as the tragic Blotte’s moustache fell off. But Pangbutt had suddenly remembered that he was host; and advancing into the room he turned to the others:

“I beg your pardon, I am late I fear.”

He shook hands with Lovegood and Aubrey; and, turning to Ffolliott, a faint smile flickered over his worried face:

“Ffolliott!... Sorry to be late, but there have been domestic difficulties—my butler has gone sick.”

The guests were arriving fast.

“Mistair Maupassant Fosse!” bawled Rippley at the door.

The little man glared at the servant, fussed into the room, and tripped across to his host.

“A nickname they have for me,” he said—“a nickname....”

Rippley watched Blotte solemnly tramp down the stairs, his wig on one side; heard him announce to a lady, just arrived, that he was going to sup with the gods; and he was gone.

Groups of guests came swarming up the stairs and passed into the studio.

Rippley, glancing into the studio, saw the white satin dress of Ffolliott move uneasily amongst the arriving guests; and he heard his thin, affected drawl as he explained to his host:

“D’you know—I feel such an ass——”

Pangbutt patted him upon the shoulder:“Never mind,” said he absently—“it can’t be helped. Make the best of it.”

“Oh, but I assure you—they told me it was to be a fancy-dress affair.”

Rippley bawled at the door:

“Sir Gilders Cinnamon!”

Sir Gilders Persimmon shuffled into the room; and Pangbutt went to meet the old baronet.

“Lady Persimmon coming to-night, Sir Gilders?” he shouted into his ear; the old man shook his head.

“Sorry,” bawled Pangbutt into his ear; “Sir Gilders, allow me to introduce Mr. Fosse, who, I need not tell you, is the well-known critic. He has written a eulogy of Anthony Bickersteth that is to appear in a few days—you must win his favour to your poems.”

The old baronet cackled with senile laughter.

Fosse threw up his head. He glowed. He felt that all eyes were upon him.

“Yes,” he said—“my eulogy appears to-morrow.” He forgot to bawl.

Sir Gilders put his hand to his ear: the entrance and stir of the arriving guests and their announcement and greetings perplexed his weak hearing:

“Eh?” said he—“borrow? Why borrow?”

“No, Sir Gilders,” cried Fosse, getting very hot—“I did not say borrow—I said my eulogy appears to-morrow.”

“Why?” asked the old man.

There was a titter....

Ffolliott, thinking he saw someone he knew, went up to Lovegood and slapped the big man on the back:

“Hullo, old chap!” cried he.

Blank consternation came upon him as Lovegood slowly turned and solemnly faced him. The weak-knee’d, foolish Ffolliott faltered nervously:

“Oh, er—er—I thought you were someone else,” he drawled.

Lovegood nodded gloomily.

“I am,” he said sepulchrally.

Ffolliott tittered confusedly:

“Ye-yes—indeed,” he said, twisting his fingers and fidgeting. “D’you know, I feel such an awful ass——”

Lovegood coughed:

“But that is no excuse for your being in the other ass’s skin!” he growled.

“Oh, but don’t you see—that’s just it! They told me it was a fancy-dress affair....”

“Eh?” bawled Sir Gilders Persimmon.

All eyes turned from Ffolliott to the perspiring Fosse. The little man shifted uneasily under the fire of many amused critical eyes.

“I was saying,” shrilled the minor critic in his thin jerky voice, “that the man who does not play whist is laying up a sad old age for himself.”

The old baronet shook his head:“The man who what?”

Fosse licked his lips sullenly:

“The man who doesn’t play whist,” shrieked Fosse, reddening miserably.

“What about him?” asked Sir Gilders peremptorily.

“Lays up a sad old age for himself,” screamed the miserable little man.

The old gentleman knit his brows:

“A reformed rake?” he asked testily....

But attention was diverted from the fussy little minor critic’s despair by the murmur of admiration which greeted the entrance into the room of a beautiful woman to whom Quogge Myre was paying aggressively marked court as the announcement of her name called the regard of the assembled guests to her arrival. Myre was ever for stealing the lime-light. He was a born filcher of honour. But the beauty’s calm dismissal of him, as she swept towards her host, gave Myre a sudden hysteric desire to talk loudly and hide his chagrin; and he turned at the sound of Fosse’s voice, raised in argument, as hyena goes to offal. Fosse in his despair had turned from Sir Gilders, and launched into the discussion round about him:

“In the arts,” he was saying, “woman does not, cannot, shine. She only exists—on sufferance. A woman’s province——”

Myre had strolled towards the voice:

“I am flattered to find,” said he, “that Mr. Fosse has been reading me. He is right. A woman’s province is to be beautiful; and if she write at all she may write of the nursery—of the domesticities. A woman has not the experiences of life—she writes only from intuition. She cannot experience the emotions of a man—cannot describe all shades of life—is too careful of her skirts to have been on the heights and in the gutters——”

Lovegood coughed:

“Never,” said he, with big deliberate voice—“never shall I again approach a municipal sewer without an ecstatic thrill.”

Quogge Myre took no notice of the shaft:

“A woman,” said he, “cannot be in the thrash and fume of life. She only peeps out fearfully over the window-blind at the doings of the world. She has not physical strength——”

Somebody coughed:

“Tra-la-lee!” said he—“opera—bouffe—bouffe—bouffe.”

Myre went suddenly dumb....

Sir Gilders Persimmon had shuffled over to Fosse, who was wetting his lips, eager to leap into the debate, when Myre’s yawing should give opportunity, and, button-holing the fussy little man, the deaf old gentleman asked him:

“You said, sir, that the reformed rake did what?”

“No, Sir Gilders—I said that the man who does not play whist is laying up a sad old age——”

The old gentleman poked him slyly in the lean ribs:

“Makes the best husband, eh! Indeed, yes—very likely—very likely. But it’s dangerous doctrine—it’s——”“No, Sir Gilders,” shrieked the perspiring little man—“I say the man who does not play whist.” He coughed—his voice breaking. “Oh, damn this old gentleman!” he added, moving irritably away from him....

Quogge Myre turned to Pangbutt:

“Now, Pangbutt, mind you, I don’t say that this Anthony Bickersteth is a Balzac; but he has the true genius for literature. How can you define these things? It is there, or it is not there!”

Fosse skipped up to the group:

“What I say—what I say——”

Quogge Myre stared at his little disciple with contempt; a sneer played about his puffy lip—became too tense for silence:

“This man repeats what I say—what I used to say—like flattery,” he said.

Lovegood smiled grimly:

“Oh,” said he—“he stays in Paris sometimes now. And there are the French newspapers.”

Myre shrugged his shoulders:

“I have changed all my ideas on these subjects——”

But the ridiculous figure of Ffolliott strolled nervously up to the group, and interrupting the critical vapourings of Quogge Myre, he said with affected drawl:

“D’you know, I feel such an awful ass—and I don’t get used to it.”

Lovegood gazed at him solemnly:

“Young fellow,” said he—“you must not be egotistical—it’s bad for the morals. Try and forget yourself in that disguise.”

“I can’t,” drawled Ffolliott miserably—“I am quite angry with Rippley—he told me it was a fancy-dress affair—and——”

Fosse turned his back upon him impatiently:

“I repeat,” said he—“and I have a signed article in The Discriminator to prove it—a genius has arrived.”

“By Pegasus?” sneered Aubrey, raising ironic eyebrows.

Lovegood laughed:

“No—by omnibus,” said he. “Let us all be winged asses to-night. Fosse has not secured a government monopoly.”...

From the great doorway:

“Mistair and Mrs. Nezzerbie Gomme!” announced Rippley; and as the pair were greeted by all near them, Rippley stepped to the head of the great stairs, and going up to a pompous man as that worthy set foot on the topmost step, he said to him confidentially:

“I say, mister, would you mind running down the stairs and telling the fellar with the red hair that I want him?”

Sir Tankerton Wollup swelled slowly:

“Pooh—pooh!” said he, drawing himself up; and he strutted to the door.

“Poof—poof!” said Rippley. “Giddy old thing!”

He glanced over the balustrade down to the next landing, and caught Doome’s eye:

“Beelzebub!” he growled—“the whole town’s coming to this silly theatrical affair.... I say, we ought to go and see that Andrew Blotte’s mixing the hats thoroughly. Hullo! There’s Anthony Baddlesmere just arrived. Wait, I’ll come down. I want to see him.”

He made his way down through an ascending stream of newly-arrived guests, with some difficulty, just as Ffolliott, seeing Sir Tankerton Wollup hesitate at the door, went up to the great man mincingly, and said affectedly:

“Oh, I say, Sir Tankerton—d’you know, I feel such an awful ass—but they told me it was a fancy-dress affair.”

Sir Tankerton, staring with bloodshot eyes of ruffled dignity at the thing before him, sniffed.

“Go away!” he said testily.

Ffolliott went away.

As the pompous millionaire stood irresolute at the doorway, an absent-minded snuffy little old gentleman shuffled up to his elbow, followed at a couple of paces by a little faded old lady of withered prehistoric design, and, touching him on the sleeve inquiringly, said:

“My good man—before you announce our names, will you tell me which is the host? I have never seen my host before—in fact——”

“Poof—poof!” squealed Sir Tankerton Wollup, and strutted into the room.

“Dear me!” The little old gentleman turned to his little old lady; and added in a confidential undertone:

“A most extraordinary person—a most extraordinary house!... But I have always heard, my dear, that Bohemia was a strange country.... In fact, Charlotte, it’s rather thrilling, is it not?”

The little withered lady, all pleased excitement, said: “Quite thrilling, James!”

Pangbutt seeing awkwardness at the door, and missing the loud announcement of names, went a few paces closer to it to meet his newly-arrived guests.

The little old gentleman entered the room vaguely, the dandruff of the philosophic habit upon his coat-collar, and his wig full of reasons—very markedly a professor. He had the air of cataloguing ideas. The little old lady, a couple of paces behind him, followed him.

Pangbutt exchanged greetings with him.

Said the professor:

“Good-evening, sir; my sister’s husband’s brother-in-law, Sir Gilders Persimmon, was good enough to say that you would allow me to meet Mr. Anthony Bickersteth here.... I am writing a work to disprove the insanity of genius.... It is a part of my theory that the human personality cannot be hidden by artifice—that the strong temperament shows itself in the vigorous growth of the hair—and so on.... I am, sir, I may have forgotten to say, Professor Curtis.... I am an inveterate novel-reader.... My wife keeps a diary.... Where are you, Charlotte? Ah, yes. But, fervently as I admire Mr. Bickersteth’s prose, I should like to suggest to him that in his next work he might make more of that unworked mine, the folk-lore of the London coster—or greengrocer.... I am most anxious that Mr. Bickersteth should be a virile person whose moustache springs out strongly from under the nostrils, with a tendency towards ruddiness in the colouring.... But I fear that on this—what I may call his—er,” he tittered—“his unveiling, I am too thrilled.”

He kept button-holing Pangbutt:

“Too thrilled to—er—I am thrilled, sir, thrilled, as indeed is Charlotte—oh, ah, yes—Charlotte!” He searched about behind him for the little old lady, who moved up to his side. “Oh, ah, yes—there you are, Charlotte! Allow me to introduce Mr. Pangbutt, our host. May I ask, sir, if Mr. Anthony Bickersteth has yet arrived? No?... How fortunate! How very fortunate!... Charlotte, I am becoming quite excited.”

Pangbutt led them to chairs.

Two richly-dressed ladies of an age that discovers as much as is concealed by considerable dressing, hesitated at the door; and one, taking a last amused glance over her shoulder at some incident that passed upon the stairs below, tittered, and, turning, swept the room with keen regard through her raised lorgnettes.

“How amusin’! how absolutely amusin’!” she crooned. “I like literary and artistic people so much.”

“Yes,” said the other, “they are so different to one’s own class.... And actresses dress so well!”

She flung back an elaborate head of jewels, and whispered something to the lady of the lorgnettes.

The lady of the lorgnettes laughed:

“Really?” said she

“H’m, h’m!—yes. Pills.”

“Mr. Pangbutt’s father?”

“H’m, h’m! Yes. I assure you.”

“Dear me! And he has such a very distinguished manner!”

“And—d’you know?”

She whispered.

“Lady Persimmon? Indeed?”

The lady of the lorgnettes nodded mysteriously. The withered eyes expressed shocked surprise. She gave a funny little laugh. The lorgnettes were raised again, and she said, surveying the assembled guests critically through the glasses:

“I absolutely adore literary people—and artists—and actors—and those sort of persons. It is so strange to think they have all slept in attics. And really, it’s quite the fashion to go on the stage now.... Who’s the fright in the post-office red?... Oh! is it?... Lady Margaret’s son has gone on the stage.... Gerty, do you know who that dark creature is? with the Italian-looking person.... Oh, yes; and the young fellow is getting on wonderfully. You see, they like to have a gentleman on the stage—besides, he acts in the most gentlemanly manner—quite unlike a professional actor. And then, of course, his manager is rather exclusive—he called the company together the other day, and told them that he did not expect them to recognise him in the street. It’s so nice for the young fellow to be with such a gentleman.”

“Yes. Our gardener’s son has joined a circus too. Such an amusin’ boy, he was.”

“It brings it all so home to one, doesn’t it!”

“Doesn’t it, indeed! But I confess I have always been fascinated by the stage. There’s somethin’ so very romantic about livin’ in green-rooms and paintin’ your face, and—pretendin’ to be someone else.”

The other whispered in her ear.

The lorgnettes were flicked open again, and glittered upon Sir Gilders Persimmon.

“Indeed! But he is so very old—and she—but there is such a difference of social rank between a baronet’s wife and a mere painter—surely! Still, he is very old. Almost permissible sin, Gerty.”

They both tittered.

“My dear,” said the other, “you are really quite naughty.”

Sir Gilders pounced upon Fosse, whom he had followed round the room, put up a hand to aid his dull hearing, and said:

“You were speaking of dotage——”

Fosse winced uneasily:

“No, sir,” he shrieked—“I was not talking of dotage. I say that the man who does not play whist lays up a sad old age for himself.” And, turning on his heel impatiently, “The devil take the man!” said he, and walked away.

Ffolliott espying the two newly-arrived ladies across the room, made his way to them:

“Do you know, Miss Foljambe Pfinch,” he said—“I feel such an ass; they told me it was a—fancy—dress—affair.”

The lorgnettes were turned upon him:

“It’s that ridiculous Mr. Ffolliott,” said she; and laughed immoderately.

Ffolliott sighed, and turned away:

“Everybody seems to think I am an ass to-night,” he said wearily. “Oh, there’s Fosse. I don’t like Fosse—but I’ll talk to him. No—he’s talking to another man. I think I’ll go home. No, I won’t, I’ll sit down.”

He sat down.

“Every fellow does something idiotic in his life,” he said.

He watched Fosse button-hole Gomme; and he saw Gomme’s lips smile amusedly as he gazed at the floor, listening to him.

He bent all his attention to hear what passed between the two.

“Now, you know, Mr. Gomme,” said the fussy little man—“in confidence, all these fellows take themselves too seriously to-day. Look at Rippley! he’s utterly uncultured—he hasn’t an aitch in his composition.”

Gomme nodded:“But there isn’t an aitch in composition,” he said demurely.

“N-no.” Fosse stammered, becoming nervous. “But he can’t even pronounce the names of the ancients whose gods he models!”

Gomme smiled:

“No—but he can model ’em.”

Fosse was puzzled for an answer:

“N’yes, that’s true perhaps. But there’s Aubrey—look at his legs, his knees, his hair, his airs, his ties! He is for ever publishing volumes of poems which no one reads.”

“Yes,” said Gomme. “But the publishers must have their luxuries.”

“Then there is Blotte. You know he has never produced a complete work yet.”

“Maybe. But supposing one day he writes lines that, like some of his handsome acts, shall never fade!”

“Oh, you think that!” said Fosse, licking his lips. “Well now, there’s Lovegood. You know, he never says a really exquisite thing—he is always ponderous—and rather obvious. He has not made his mark.”

Gomme sighed:

“Supposing he has done acts that will live in the memory of his friends, Mr. Fosse! And—perhaps—when he has been dead a hundred years——” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh—er—you really think so.” The foxy little eyes of Mr. Fosse were searching the humorist’s features keenly.

Netherby Gomme took Fosse’s arm:

“And, Mr. Fosse, there’s this Netherby Gomme, the over-rated rogue,” said he, with a whimsical twinkle in the eyes; “you know, he never really says a humorous thing.”

Fosse sighed:

“But he can write them,” he said.

Gomme laughed, and gripping the little man’s thin shoulder, said he:

“Fosse, you are sometimes inspired.... You are inspired to-night.... I have never known you so inspired.”

Fosse smirked:

“Well, anyway,” he said—and he grew taller as he said it—“I think that to-morrow I shall have convinced many that, to create a masterpiece, requires a man’s powers and a man’s wit and——”

“Mr. Anthony Bickersteth!”

The old butler stood at the door and sang out the name, making the announcement in a loud clear voice.

A sudden hush fell upon the assembled guests. There was a craning towards the great open doors.

A rustle of silk, and Caroline Baddlesmere stepped into their sight.

The silence was broken by a hoarse utterance from Fosse:

“My God!” said he; and was dumb.

There was a loud shout from the bohemians, who rushed to greet Caroline; but the smile that had flickered about her lips went out.

Anthony Baddlesmere had entered the room.

“Caroline,” said he—“quick, for God’s sake, where is Paul?”

She signed towards him where he stood near at hand by the door.

“Why?” she asked.

“Kate Ormsby has been found—it’s too horrible,” he said.

He glanced round the room, and hurriedly made for his host:

“Paul,” he said hoarsely—“get rid of these people.”

Pangbutt raised surprised eyes:

“Get rid?” he stammered. “Why?”

Anthony Baddlesmere made an impatient gesture:

“Tell them they must go. Send them down to supper—no, he’s lying on the supper table. Let the butler tell them there’s death in the house——”

“Death?”

“Anything, Paul—get rid of them.”

Pangbutt’s eyes were a blank bewildered surprise:

“But—but——”

Anthony touched his arm:

“For God’s sake, Paul—give the order.”

“But why?”

Pangbutt wet his dogged lips sullenly.

Anthony took hold of his shoulder:

“Andrew Blotte has hanged himself in your cellars. I was just too late.”

“My God!”

Pangbutt’s voice was a shadow of a whisper. The floor swung up to strike him—swung away from his feet so that he nearly fell. He reeled a step, and sank into the gilt armchair that was the splendid seat for his painting-throne.

The whisper spread; and the guests stole quietly from the place.

Wherein Andrew Blotte draws aside the Arras that hangs Across the Unknown and joins the Company at a Larger Banquet