O'Sullivan Rua to the Secret Rose

by W.B. Yeats.

Originally published in The Savoy (Leonard Smithers) vol.1 #5 (Sep 1896).

                Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
                Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
                Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre,
                Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir
                And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
                Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
                Men have named beauty. Your heavy leaves enfold
                The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
                Of the crowned Magi; and the Hound of Cu
                Who met Fand walking among flaming dew,
                And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
                And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
                And till a hundred morns had flowered red
                Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead;
                And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
                And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
                Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;
                And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,
                And sought through lands and islands numberless years,
                Until he found, with laughter and with tears,
                A woman, of so shining loveliness,
                That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
                A little stolen tress.
                        I, too, await
                The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
                When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
                Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
                Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
                Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

The Bachelor Dreams

by Robert Buchanan.

Originally published in The Argosy (Strahan & Co.) vol.1 #6 (May 1866).

                The world is dreary, I am growing old,
                        Wife nor bairn makes glad my chamber still,
                The wintry season cometh with its cold,
                        The hearth is dark, and the wind without is shrill;
                Yea! twilight gloams around me—hope and power
                Depart, like scent and colour from a flower—
                        Yet, where I sit, sweet music floats to me:
                'Tis the falling, falling, of a silver shower
                        Around a forest tree!

                Ah! can I hear the scented rain intone?
                        Can I hear the leaves that stir and sigh?
                Or hear I but the movement and the moan
                        Of busy folk that hurry darkly by?
                Nay!—for a white hand lies in mine, sweet eyes
                Shine on me, and a happy maiden cries!
                        Nay! for my blood again flows fresh and free,—
                To the falling, falling, of the shower that sighs
                        Around the forest tree!

                And can it be so many years ago,
                        Since I clasp'd her, 'neath the leaves, that summer day?
                And were there words of parting, words of woe?
                        Sits she among her children far away?
                Can she hear the sweet and melancholy sound?
                Doth she see the shining dewdrops on the ground?
                        Doth she flutter like the leaves and dream of me,—
                To the falling, falling, of the rain around
                        The murmurous forest tree?

                The city closes round me, I am old,
                        Yet 'tis melody from country lanes I hear;
                The wintry season cometh with its cold,
                        The hearth is dark, and the end of all is near;
                Yet, love, the city fadeth with its pain!
                The old bright dream is drowsy on my brain!
                        And my life is flowing earthward fast and free,—
                To the falling, falling, of the summer rain
                        Around a forest tree!

To My Sister

(from the Russian of Slepoushkin.)
by Charles Hervey.

Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.4 #18 (Jul 1843).

                Once as young as flowers
                        That in spring-time blow,
                Now I more resemble
                        Winter's chilly snow.

                My fair locks already
                        Change to sily'ry white,
                And mine eyes are dimmer,
                        Robb'd of half their light;

                And my hand is weaker
                        Than it used to be,
                And my foot moves onward
                        Slow and wearily.

                Autumn turneth yellow
                        All that bloom'd in May;
                Leaves once green, now wither'd,
                        Wind-blown, fly away.

                Even so our autumn
                        Cometh chill and drear,—
                Age to us its sorrows
                        Bringeth, sister dear!

The Boy Next Door

The Romance of a Foundling.
by Una Hudson.

Originally published in The Novel Magazine (C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd.) vol.2 #10 (Jan 1906).

How a misunderstanding brought happiness to an old lady, an old gentleman, and a small boy.

Little Maggie O'Hara, sitting red-eyed and tearful in the garden at the back of the orphan asylum, would have been very much surprised indeed had anyone told her that Tommy Jones envied her.
        But such was the case. For Maggie, being a girl, could cry when and where she pleased, while Tommy, who was quite as lonely and miserable as she, was debarred by the accident of sex from the relief of tears.
        Tommy hated the orphan asylum, where he had lived all his life. He hated the boys' blue clothes and stout shoes—all alike and all ugly. He hated the rows of little cots wherein they all slept at night, and the long tables at which they ate. He hated being forced to mingle with children whose hands were dirty, and who did not speak King's English. Tommy differed from the others in that he voluntarily washed his hands when they needed it, and instinctively used good grammar when he talked. But, more than all else, he hated not belonging to anyone. The one desire of his heart—so great, so overmastering that it crowded out all others—was to belong to someone.
        He walked down to the gate, opened it, and deliberately stepped on to the pavement. Now, this was strictly against rules, but Tommy was so very miserable and unhappy that he really was not accountable for what he did.
        "Of course," he thought, "if I had a mother I wouldn't go anywhere 'thout asking her. But there's no one to care where I go or what I do."
        He drew his blue sleeve furtively across his eyes and walked to the corner. Tommy craved forgetfulness. The same impulse that drives some men to drink sent him on down the street to where a furniture van was being unloaded.
        "Hullo," said one of the men, "want to lend a hand?"
        Tommy nodded and caught the footstool that was flung to him. It had suddenly flashed across his mind that anyone passing would think he belonged to the people who were going to live in that nice red brick house.
        Instantly and quite unconsciously he assumed towards the piece of furniture in his hands an air that was distinctly proprietary. He tugged in chairs, and pictures, and small tables. He worked with an energy that sent the perspiration streaming down his face.
        The owner of the house came out and watched him with amused eyes. Elderly gentleman though he was he knew something about boys, for he had had one himself a good many years ago.
        He put out a helping hand as Tommy staggered up the steps with a chair several sizes larger than he was.
        "Hard work, eh?" he said.
        "Oh, no, sir!" Tommy protested quickly.
        He carefully placed the chair in the hall and came back to the porch. "I like to do it," he explained. "You—you don't mind, do you, sir?"
        "Mind!" said Tommy's new friend. "Well, I should say not In fact, I'm very glad of your help. Those van men seem to me to be rather slow, and I'm in a hurry to get settled."
        Tommy fairly tingled with pride.
        "It's nice furniture you've got," he said, doing his best to make a return in kind.
        The gentleman smiled. "Some of it's rather good," he admitted.
        "Are you," questioned Tommy, "are you going to live all alone by yourself in this great big house?"
        "All alone by myself in this great big house," the gentleman repeated gravely.
        "And isn't there," pursued Tommy, "anyone at all belonging to you?"
        The gentleman sighed and shook his head.
        "No one at all," he said.
        "My!" said Tommy, speaking from experience, "that's hard lines."
        The gentleman looked long and earnestly at the small boy in the blue suit.
        "What's your name?" he said.
        "Tommy, sir."
        "Well, Tommy, you seem to understand some things that other people do not. In spite of the disparity in our ages I think we're going to be great friends. You'll come to see me again, Tommy?"
        "Rather!" said Tommy, with much emphasis.
        The gentleman thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out a half-crown.
        "Tommy," he said, "you've been good enough to help me when I needed help. Will this be about right, do you think?"
        It was more money than Tommy had ever thought to possess all at once, but he made no move to take it.
        "If," said he, "you had a little boy, I 'spect he'd move your things for nothing just because they were your things, wouldn't he?"
        "Why, yes," said the gentleman, "I expect he would, Tommy."
        Tommy heaved a sigh.
        "'Course," he said, "I'm not your little boy, but perhaps you'd let me do it for nothing just because I like you?"
        The gentleman dropped the money back in his pocket and held out his hand to Tommy.
        "Of course I would," he said. "And thank you, Tommy."
        They shook hands and the gentleman went into the house. Tommy heard him say to one of the van men: "Nice little chap out there. Wonder where he belongs."
        Tommy heard, too, the man's answer, and it filled him with joy. "Next door, I expect," he said.
        "Next door" was a house whose front garden was a continuation of the gentleman's lawn, divided by a low fence. Tommy got up and strolled carelessly across and seated himself on the fence. A grocer's boy drove up and hurried round to the back with an armful of parcels. When he returned he carelessly left open the gate between the front garden and the back. Tommy, watching, saw a big white cockerel walk out and strut sedately across the lawn. He was breathlessly followed by his owner, a plump little lady, alert and bright-eyed in spite of her grey hair.
        "Dear, dear," she scolded briskly, "can't you ever learn to stay where you belong?"
        Tommy jumped from the fence and pulled off his cap.
        "I'll catch him for you, ma'am," he offered eagerly.
        "Will you, my dear?" said the little elderly lady. "That's very kind of you. I can't run so fast as I could once, and he knows it—the rascal!"
        The cockerel led Tommy a pretty chase, across the lawn and even out into the street, but in the end he was captured and taken where he belonged.
        "I'm so much obliged," said the little lady, "I don't believe I ever could have got him myself that time."
        Tommy quite glowed with pride, but he only remarked with careful carelessness: "Oh, I can run lots faster than that!"
        "I haven't a doubt of it," said the little lady warmly. And Tommy thought her a most delightful person.
        Then she took him into the house and brought out a plate of doughnuts. He modestly helped himself to one, and she stood back and stared with uplifted hands.
        "One doughnut!" she cried. "Good gracious me! I thought boys were always hungry. One doughnut indeed! Here, my dear, eat all you can possibly hold—I should say six at least."
        Tommy sighed rapturously and reached for another. "My!" he said, "but wouldn't you make a lovely grandmother!"
        The little grey-haired lady laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. Tommy felt her hand tremble on his shoulder.
        "I've always thought," she said, with a queer little catch in her voice, "that I would make rather a nice grandmother. I had a daughter once, but she died—she was—killed in a railway accident, she and her husband, and she didn't leave me even a tiny baby to take care of. That was ten years ago—almost, but I can't somehow seem to get over it."
        Tommy was only ten, and his experience of life was of necessity limited, but it was somehow borne in upon him that not all the lonely people in the world were housed in Orphan Asylums.
        The little elderly lady wiped her eyes and Tommy sniffed sympathetically.
        "Now, to think," she cried the next minute, "of my telling you that! I wonder why I did it?"
        Then she showed Tommy her two canary birds, and made him laugh with stories of the big cockerel's queer pranks. She filled his pockets with doughnuts and gave him a big apple.
        "People never do remember to feed children when they're moving," she said.
        Tommy's heart gave a joyful leap. She thought he belonged to the gentleman next door! And the gentleman thought he belonged to her! Well, it wouldn't be his fault if they found out that he belonged to the Orphan Asylum.
        Tommy was too young to trouble himself with questions of an ethical nature. When he returned to the Orphan Asylum and found that his absence had gone unnoticed, he carefully planned for himself a double life.
        Every day he slipped away for a few minutes—sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes even three times. He perched by turns on the old gentleman's imposing stone terrace and the little old lady's humble wooden verandah. He ran errands for the one, and he fed the other's chickens. One day the little lady told him to call her "grandma." Tommy was obliged to pinch himself twice to make sure that it wasn't a blissful dream.
        His one fear was that as his supposed grandfather and his supposed grandmother became better acquainted, awkward explanations would ensue. But their intercourse, though friendly, was formal and carried on mainly through Tommy as a sort of connecting link. As a matter of fact, neither one had thought even to inquire the other's name.
        It was the coming of the circus that marked the beginning of Tommy's undoing. Tommy had seen the posters, of course, and with the other Orphan Asylum boys he had gloated over the handbill one of them had managed to obtain. But not even his wildest flight of imagination had suggested to him the possibility of his seeing the circus. Indeed, he could scarcely believe his own cars when Mr. Etheredge—the old gentleman—suggested that they should go to it together.
        "Run in, and get your grandmother's permission," he said, "and tell her I'll take good care of you." Tommy obediently disappeared into the next door house. "I'm going to the circus," he announced jubilantly.
        "How very nice," said the little old lady warmly. "Now, that's the kind of a grandfather to have, I think."
        "Yes," said Tommy And dashed out again.
        "It's all right," he announced to his waiting "grandfather."
        Which was not strictly true. For so long an absence from the Orphan Asylum would not, as Tommy very well knew, go either unnoticed or unpunished. But little Tommy was philosopher enough not to mar present joys by the anticipation of future ills.
        He laughed joyfully as he trotted along beside Mr. Etheredge, trying to force his short legs to keep step with his companion's lengthy stride.
        "I 'xpect that when people see us there together they'll think you're my grandpa taking me to the circus, don't you?"
        Mr. Etheredge smiled down at the sturdy little figure beside him.
        "Yes, Tommy," he said, "I expect they will."
        Tommy sighed blissfully. "P'raps," he suggested shyly, "you wouldn't mind if I called you 'grandpa'—just for to-day?"
        "I wouldn't mind at all," said Mr. Etheredge. "Indeed, I'd be very glad if you would."
        "Did you ever take a little boy to the circus before, grandpa?" said Tommy.
        "Often, Tommy. I had a little boy of my own once. I called him Percival. We went to a good many circuses together."
        Though Tommy did not know it, it was the first time for many years that Mr. Etheredge had spoken of his dead son.
        "He grew up to be a man, Tommy," he said, being strangely impelled to talk, "and then—he was killed in a railway accident."
        Tommy drew a sharp breath. "Oh!" he said. "Oh!" He slipped a sympathetic little hand into the man's.
        "But, Tommy, that wasn't the worst of it. I'd quarreled with him—with my boy whom I loved so. He did something I didn't want him to–"
        "A naughty something?"
        "No, Tommy, a perfectly natural and inevitable something. But I told him I'd never forgive him. And, Tommy, he—died before I had a chance to take that back."
        It was late when they turned homeward after the circus—so late that Tommy, in spite of a brave front, quaked inwardly, for he knew that a very bad quarter of an hour awaited him at the Orphan Asylum.
        "Good-bye, grandpa," he said at Mr. Etheredge's front door, "I've had such a bea-u-tiful time."
        Then he went on to the house next door.
        "Grandma," he said, "it was lovely. I just looked in to tell you. Now I must go to supper."
        He sobbed just once on his way to the Orphan Asylum. Then he set his teeth and went in to take what was coming to him.
        When three days had gone by and still no sign of Tommy, Mr. Etheredge grew uneasy.
        "He must be ill," he decided. "Certainly he ate a good many nuts and apples, but, as I remember it, Percival used to eat even more. I daresay it was the lemonade; yes, it must have been the lemonade. Miserable stuff—circus lemonade."
        Then he put on his hat and stepped across to the next door house. Coming out of her own door he met Tommy's "grandma."
        "I called," said the gentleman, "to inquire after Tommy. Is he ill?"
        The lady stared at him. She thought he had taken leave of his senses.
        "Is Tommy ill?" she repeated. "Why, don't you know! I was coming over to ask. You're his grandfather, aren't you?"
        And then the gentleman stared in his turn.
        "Tommy's grandfather! I?" he said. "My dear madam, how could I be your grandson's grandfather?"
        The lady reached behind her and felt for the door-knob. She was as brave as the average woman, but to find oneself unexpectedly face to face with an insane man is enough to unsettle even the strongest nerves.
        "Tommy is not my grandson," she said, ready for an instant retreat. "I never saw him till the day you moved in. I supposed, of course, that he belonged to you."
        "That is curious—very," said the gentleman. "I found Tommy helping to carry in my furniture, and in some way—I can't recall just how—I was led to believe that he belonged to you. And I must say," he added, "that Tommy himself fostered the delusion."
        Again they stood and stared at each other. The gentleman passed his hand dazedly across his forehead.
        "Can we have dreamt Tommy?" he said.
        But the little old lady—she who had known joy and great sorrow, and again, like a stray sunbeam struggling through a cloud, a little taste of joy—trembled and began to cry softly.
        "I had a daughter once," she said quiveringly, "and she died—ten years ago, almost—she and her husband. And I've missed her so, and I've so often thought that if only she'd left me a little child to care for it wouldn't have been so hard to bear. Don't you think—you know perhaps—"
        Mr. Etheredge laid a firm hand on her shaking one. "No, no," he said. "Tommy was no spirit child." He thought of the nuts and apples Tommy had eaten and smiled. "He was much too real for that," he said. "There's a mystery here, but, believe me, one we can solve."
        He considered for a moment. Then he beckoned to a boy who was passing.
        "Have you noticed a little chap about here?" Mr. Etheredge asked. "A boy in a blue suit?"
        "Tommy?"
        "That was his name. Do you know where he belongs?°
        The boy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Orphan Asylum," he said.
        The two standing on the verandah looked at each other in silent consternation. Then with one accord they turned and started in the direction the boy had indicated.
        "I suppose you mean Tommy Jones," the matron said, when they had stated as well as they could the object of their visit. "He's shut up for disobedience. Last Tuesday he was gone all the afternoon and where he was he will not say."
        "He was with me," Mr. Etheredge said. "We went to the circus."
        The matron gasped. "Good gracious!" said she. "Will you tell me how on earth you came to take Tommy Jones to the circus?"
        Mr. Etheredge told her. He told her, too, the old lady helping, of their first meeting with Tommy, and of his subsequent visits, the exceeding shortness of which they now understood as they before had not. "Good gracious!" she said again. "It does beat everything what some children will think of. But what could have made him do that?"
        "I think," explained the little elderly lady, "that he was lonely."
        The matron flung up both hands.
        "Lonely!" said she. "With a hundred children for company! That's impossible."
        But the lady and gentleman exchanged comprehending glances. They understood, even if she did not.
        "We don't know much about Tommy," said the matron, in answer to their questioning. "We don't even know who he is. He was rescued unharmed from a railway accident ten years ago, almost."
        She was busy searching for something in her desk, and so failed to notice how one of her hearers went very white and the other started violently.
        "What accident?" It was the little lady's voice, strained and eager.
        Without looking up the matron told her.
        "Ah!" she breathed, like one in pain. And the ghost of an echo came from across the room.
        "This," the matron went on, producing something from a drawer, "was round his neck. It's all there was by which to identify him, and it's very insufficient, as you see." She held out a slender gold chain of a peculiar pattern, from which there dangled a little heart-shaped locket. It was en graved with a single word—"Percival."
        "We supposed," she explained, "that that was his name. But 'Percival' is rather too fancy for every day wear, so we called him Tommy, and Jones because when we don't know their last names we call them either Jones or Smith."
        Mr. Etheredge was scarcely conscious that she was speaking. His eyes were riveted on the trinket and he silently held out his hand. He turned it over and studied it intently. And as he looked the dawning hope in his eyes gave place to sure certainty.
        "This was my boy's—my baby's," he said, "When he was born I gave my wife a chain like it, only larger. The design was my own—true lovers' knots linked together and the heart-shaped locket engraved with her name. It was her fancy that the baby should have one, too, so to please her I had this made. She said that he must keep it always as a token of our love for him, and that when he grew up and had children of his own, it must go to his first-born child. Tommy is my son's son."
        "Percival Etheredge was your son?" It was the little elderly lady who spoke.
        "Yes."
        "Percival Etheredge was the man my daughter married."
        Then Percival Etheredge's father stood abashed before the mother of his son's wife. He remembered how he had condemned this woman's daughter unseen and unheard, and he knew how his conduct must appear to her. He lifted his eyes to hers and in them was a mute plea for forgiveness.
        "You did not know," she said softly, "what a dear, good girl she was, nor how much they loved each other. I think now they must understand, even as I do."
        The matron looked at them curiously. Then she went out, softly shutting the door behind her.
        "I've longed," said Percival's father, "yes, I've prayed for some token of my son's forgiveness. I do not deserve it—I who drove him from me because he dared to make his own that which is every man's right—to win the woman he loves. But he forgives me, he forgives me, for he has sent me his boy to care for."
        "My Anne wrote me," said the little lady tremulously, "that she had a surprise for me, but I did not know, I never guessed that she meant a baby. They were coming to me when it happened. And to think that Tommy is my Anne's baby!"
        Then they looked at each other in sudden blank dismay. There were two of them and there was but one Tommy!
        Anne's mother spoke first.
        "You have suffered the more," she said simply. "Tommy must be your boy."
        Percival's father shook his head.
        "I had thought," he said, "that I had suffered the full penalty for my pride and stubbornness. Now I know that I have not. And the price must be paid to the uttermost. Tommy belongs to you."
        There were tears in the old lady's eyes.
        "I think they would wish it otherwise," she said. "I cannot take Tommy."
        "Nor can I."
        They stood, looking each at the other, and in neither face was there sign of yielding. Mr. Etheredge spoke at last.
        "It is possible," he said, "for us both to have Tommy, but in one way only. Madam, I am growing old, and I cannot offer you love as I once knew it. But I can and do give you great regard and honest admiration and deep respect. I would strive to make you happy and I think I would not wholly fail. Madam, will you be my wife?"
        The little old lady's eyes rested searchingly in his. "Are you asking me for Tommy's sake?" she said.
        He met her gaze unwaveringly, and looked deep in her eyes.
        "If your daughter," he said at last, "were at all like you I can quite understand my son's infatuation for her. No, I am not asking you for Tommy's sake, but for my own."
        She drew a long breath.
        "Then I," she said, and her cheeks were stained an almost girlish pink, "then I will be your wife, but not for Tommy's sake."
        And then Tommy, sent by the matron, came in—a half-frightened, wholly bewildered Tommy, who was finding it quite impossible to believe that his make-believe grandparents had suddenly developed into really, truly ones.
        But together they convinced him, and his little heart full to overflowing, he wept for pure joy, and was unashamed, for were there not tears in his grandfather's eyes?

Toads, Past and Present

by E. Kay Robinson.

Originally published in Longman's Magazine (Longmans, Green & Co.) vol.2 #12 (Oct 1883).

It will surprise some people to learn that Great Britain regularly imports toads from Austria and elsewhere, carefully packed like shell-less plover's eggs with moss in wooden boxes, and that they 'fetch from 3l. to 4l. per hundred.' Those who know toads intimately will not, however, be surprised at that; for a toad has his good points—not in his person, indeed, for that is only distinguished by a certain 'baggy squatness' of outline, said to have been intentionally enshrined by Milton in his famous description of Satan, who

'Sat like a toad, squat at the ear of Eve.'

But in a greenhouse or a garden, other than that of Eden, the toad is as welcome as he is out of place in a drawing-room. Solitude and moisture are his elements. With these and gnats in abundance he will straddle in comfortable obesity to the end of his days. An American writer, Mr. Dudley Warner, has recorded his experience, that to keep beetles—'bugs' he calls them—out of a melon patch, next to soot, which is blacker than the beetles, and so disgusts them into going away, the best thing in the world is a toad. The difficulty in keeping the toad on guard where you have placed him can be obviated by building a light fence all round him. Then, we are told, it is touching to observe the intimate relations which the toad at once establishes with the 'black bug,' the 'straddle bug,' and the 'striped bug, the saddest of the year.' Mr. Warner's American toads seem, however, to have been more lively and 'jumping' than our English ones. In this country the great artifice of the toad in stalking an unwary gnat lies in its prolonged simulation of philosophic indifference to all earthly appetites. With the wisdom, and certainly with the ugliness, of Socrates, the toad appears to ponder upon the great inscrutable, and takes up his position, plunged in deep thought, a few inches from his quarry. A long silence succeeds, then—flap!—there is one gnat less in the world, and again that mystic solemnity is drawn like a mask over the toad's wrinkled and corrugated countenance. A quick eye might perhaps have noticed some slight vibration of the air between the insect and the toad;but neither seemed to stir, and yet the gnat has gone, and the toad has swallowed it. For Providence has compensated the toad for his ugliness and his evil reputation by the gift of a patent reversible tongue, firmly fixed in front and with the gummy free end pointing down his throat. This organ he fillips out suddenly and 'nails' his mosquito with scientific dexterity.
        This gift, however, which may be said to be the only merit of a modern toad, has been consistently ignored by the poets and others who have held their crooked mirrors up to nature from time to time. What is marvellous in nature has little attraction for the inspired poet unless it be also untrue. This is the grand secret of 'poesie.' When Shakespeare lived to write, toads were a power in this country. They possessed the valuable secret, since lost in great part, of getting sweltered venom under cold stones. For many years the semi-scientific public had learned to regard this story as an ignorant superstition, and the toad itself—at a distance—as a perfectly harmless and much maligned reptile. Real science, however, in the guise of the 'Lancet,' has come more or less to Shakespeare's rescue; for that journal last year discovered more suo that the venom of a toad 'injected beneath the skin of a dog'—always some unhappy dog is the 'friend of man' in his pursuit of science as of woodcocks—'produces convulsions.' When this piece of intelligence shall percolate into country districts it will be hailed with pleasure; not that there they value Shakespeare more, but that they love toads less. The summary immolation of toads, whenever and wherever found, has long been the sacred privilege and pastime of the youthful rustic; and the 'Lancet's' timely 'discovery' will set the seal of scientific authority upon the act.
        It was not always necessary, however, to inject the toad's venom beneath the skins of dogs to find out that it was tolerably powerful. A duke once loved a maiden of low degree. Her father and lover disapproved, but the magnanimous nobleman did not allow that unfortunate circumstance to embitter their relations as landlord and tenant. He invited them to a feast at the ducal mansion; when they, not content apparently with all the special dishes he had provided for them, foolishly ate a leaf (history does not state which took the larger portion) of rue that grew in the garden. Now, it unfortunately happened that a toad had burrowed under that identical plant, and both of the men died during the afternoon. There could be no doubt about the matter. There was the plant, there were the dead men; and when the rue, by the duke's orders, was uprooted, the toad was found underneath and promptly immolated. The men were buried, and his Grace received much commendation for his discretion in divining the causa mortis. Whether the course of true love ran subsequently smooth is uncertain. At all events the duke never married the maiden. But the impartial toad of those days did not confine itself to doing to death impedimental male relations. It could, and did, spit venom upon man and beast with discrimination and accuracy from a distance of many cubits. The cattle disease of the period, as well as those mysterious human deaths, which a modern jury would bring in as 'wilful murder against persons unknown,' were generally understood to be the work of the hated batrachian. It would, indeed, not have been surprising if the whole clan had been annihilated for their misdeeds.
        Still, it is some consolation to know that even in the rank hey-day of its venom the toad was sometimes over-matched. The astute spider of ancient times secreted an opposition poison so deadly that in single combat with the toad it invariably triumphed. His Grace the Duke of Bedford, we are told, was once taking his walk with divers gentlemen of his household, when they espied a spider and a toad struggling near a 'certaine plante.' The duke was apparently not a practical botanist; but the toad was, and knew that the 'certaine plante' was efficacious as an antidote to spiders' venom. After each round it retired to eat a leaf and returned to the charge with longer and 'more manful' leaps, His Grace thereupon ordered a certain honourable gentleman to uproot the plant, which was speedily done. Then a marvel, wonderful to relate, came to pass. The toad, who had 'come up smiling' for the fifteenth time, was bitten as usual by his agile antagonist, and, retreating for medicine, found it gone. Whereupon it gave itself up to despair, 'grew blacke, and burst asunder insomuch that all were astonished.' How much it was necessary that the toad should burst asunder before the company were astonished is not stated. People were apparently not easily astonished in those days. Still they were practical; for a godly society of monks having observed a toad 'to take up his station' upon the mouth of a sleeping brother, 'and knowing that to arouse him was certain death, but to leave the animal there was worse,' carried the sleeper carefully into a corner of the room where there was a spider's web. Guessing at once what was required of her, the spider spun her thread downwards and promptly burst the toad. The sensation of the imperilled ecclesiastic must then have been enviable. Spiders, however, soon degenerated. A philosopher of an inquiring mind shut up a toad and some spiders in a glass, At first, indeed, the spiders commenced 'without resistance to sit upon his head,' but later 'upon advantage, he swallowed them down, and that in a few hours, to the number of seven.' It is humiliating to confess that nowadays toads eat spiders with business-like regularity, and look as healthy as toads can. Sometimes they eat nothing and grow stout onit. A young toadling once hibernated within the empty rose of a large watering-pot. When spring arrived, it was much exercised in mind by a cork which the ingenuity of juvenile malice had thrust into the entrance. When, later on, the obstacle was removed, the golden moment had passed and the toad was found to be too stout to get out. When last seen as a two-year-old, it seemed a little cramped for room, but by no means impatient.
        Patience, indeed, would appear to be the toad's only good quality, unless, indeed, want of beauty, as in those novels of 'a good moral tendency,' can be magnified into a cardinal virtue. With philosophic equanimity the toad will creep head first into a hole, and then, reversing its engines with great difficulty and much asthmatic puffing, turn round and gaze out upon the world with the imperturbable visage of Herodotus' prince, who 'would have been handed down to posterity as the wisest of men if he had not lain on his back and gesticulated in an unseemly manner with his legs.' The toad never gesticulates with its legs, but continues to peer solemnly out of the hole until the gardener fills it up with a spadeful of earth. The gardener says it is good for toads to be buried for fifty years. Nor, if the ordinary estimates of batrachian longevity are to be trusted, would the toad miss that half-century of retirement from business. Mr. Arscott, of Devonshire, has recorded how, as a boy, he became acquainted with a toad which his father had for many years noticed haunting the steps of his father's front door. From the first this particular toad had been remarkable for its patriarchal dimensions, and when, after thirty years, Mr. Arscott undertook to tame the creature, it responded to his approaches with all the effusion of youthful confidence, and after having haunted the front-door steps for three generations, became at last a welcome guest at the supper-table, and ate maggots.
        But it is childish to calculate a toad's age by human generations or by centuries A.D. Long before the days of Noah's great-grandfather's predecessors, toads, we are told, used to seat themselves, for purposes known only to themselves, in the plastic sediment of the antediluvian past. There, oblivious of the world, they remained, while the sediment became sandstone, and geological periods came and went, each dragging on its endless tale of years. Through their stone walls perchance the toads speculated upon the lapping and murmuring sound of those waters that drowned the earth, and the clinking of mallet and chisel upon that useless tower of old, and listened with solemn wonder to the strange outcry that followed the confusion of the workmen's tongues. Then a long silence, gilded with the distant recollection of the flavour of those plump palæozoic mosquitoes that used to settle upon the sedimentary deposits into which the toad was surely but slowly sinking. Once more the silence is broken by the distant sound of human tools and voices. Nearer and nearer they approach until, at last, the toad's prison is burst open, and, with its blear eyes dazzled by a flood of nineteenth century daylight, the toad gazes dreamily upon the wondering face of Silas Browne, of Liverpool, quarryman. Then he crawls forth laboriously, and 'nails' the housefly of civilisation with a relish that would almost seem to imply a previous acquaintance with the insect. He is agile, too, considering his age. But the agility of a toad is not to be compared with that of a quarryman, who knows a scientific gentleman 'as pays well for fossuls and cur'osities.' Then the toad and fragments of his prison are enveloped together in a red handkerchief, and subsequently displayed to the ecstatic eyes of the representative of science, who takes down Browne's 'ocular evidence' with circumstantial accuracy, though, as he naively remarks, 'corroborative testimony is hardly necessary,' for the cavity in the stone could not have fitted the toad better, 'if it had been made to measure. Whereat Silas Browne glances uneasily round the room. Then he pockets his money, picks up his fur cap from under the chair, and departs. The man of science has been to London, reads an address to the Royal Society for Scientific Investigation of Impossible Phenomena, illustrated with diagrams of a coal mine, sections of geological strata, plaster casts of toad-holes, fragments of the genuine toad-hole, and the antediluvian toad himself surveying the audience through his glass prison, like Solomon in a greenhouse. Then the man of science carries out, for the good of mankind, a series of instructive experiments. He buries a number of toads, for the good of mankind, underground in stone prisons with glass fronts; digs them up at the end of a year. He finds some of the toads dead others still alive, though 'much emaciated.' He reads another lecture to the R.S.F.S.L.O.I.P., and again buries the toads. At the end of another year all the toads are dead and shrivelled up, and he reads no more lectures. It would not be for the good of mankind to do so; but somehow of late years the market price of a toad in a coal mine has fallen off considerably, which is perhaps only one more instance of the degeneracy of the modern toad.
        They were once invaluable in many respects. Fortune-tellers were helpless without fried toads. A witch's incantation was obviously incomplete unless 'Paddock' (the familiar name of the reptile) called. An ointment of toad's fat gave immense muscular strength if applied to the body at the moment of conjunction of certain favourable planets. A cubic inch of dried toad worn round the neck on a string was an infallible antidote against many diseases of the body and mind; and a powdered toad, swallowed in spoonfuls, formed a love philtre irresistible by the most obdurate swain, perhaps because the nature of the medicine was such as to compel him to throw up his previous engagements. The common or garden toad of the present day must, indeed, admit with sorrow that virtue has gone out of him, Batrachian powders would only make a modern misogynist very ill; and ordinary toads shrivel up to such an extent that the happy effects of a solid cubic inch of dried toad are unattainable. Even the priceless jewel that each toad used to carry in his head, in order, out of pure toadish spite, to prevent human beings from finding him, is not easily discovered now-a-days. Nature is more niggardly of diamonds than she used to be, and the supply of precious stones for the toads' heads has therefore run short. In Sir Thomas Browne's days they were abundant enough, being 'often to be met with in toads, at least by the induration of their cranies,' and, though fewer in number than the 'toadstones' found in the earth, were valuable enough, 'and in substance not unlike the stones in crabs' heads.' As far as at this distance of time we can recollect, the results of childhood's scientific investigations for the pearl of great price in a toad's 'crany' produced a decided opinion that a toad's head was partly full of water and partly empty. Doubtless the vinegar aspect of that toad—for his malevolent expression haunts us still—dissolved his pearl. Or it may be that the race has suffered from hereditary water on the brain to such an extent that not only is there no stone in the cerebellum, but not even any cerebellum—nothing but water. One inquiring naturalist has stated that this water has an acid taste, It is to be hoped that he became aware of that valuable fact by accident.
        There is another kind of English toad distinguished from the 'common' or 'garden' toad (Bufo vulgaris) by its title, the 'Natter-jack' toad, by its comparative rarity, its superior agility, and a yellow stripe down its back. But these are poor substitutes for the venomous, medicinal, jewelled, and immortal toad of poets, philosophers, and men of science of the last generation. Their toad exists no longer.

What Was It?

A Mystery.

Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.18 #106 (Mar 1859).

It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approach the strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose detailing are of so extraordinary and unheard-of a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under my observation in the month of July last, and which, in the annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.
        I live at No. — Twenty-sixth Street, in this city. The house is in some respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence, surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green inclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a fountain, and a few fruit-trees, ragged and unpruned, indicate that this spot, in past days, was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.
        The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a vast spiral staircase winding through its centre; while the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A—, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A—, as every one knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached this country, and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No. — was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a care-taker and his wife, placed there by the house-agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters. The caretaker and his wife declared they would live there no longer. The house-agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several parties negotiated for it; but somehow, always before the bargain was closed, they heard the unpleasant rumors, and declined to treat any further.
        It was in this state of things that my landlady—who at that time kept a boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up town—conceived the bold idea of renting No. — Twenty-sixth Street. Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly every thing she had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of one or two timid persons—a sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that they would leave—every one of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.
        Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were all charmed with our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is situated—between Seventh and Eighth Avenues—is one of the pleasantest localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down nearly to the Hudson, form, in the er time, a perfect avenue of verdure. e air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does, straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the ragged garden which surrounded the house on two sides, although displaying on washing-days rather too much clothes-line, still gave us a piece of green sward to look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our cigars in the dusk, and watched the fire-flies flashing their dark-lanterns in the long grass.
        Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. — than we began to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the boarders, who had purchased Mrs. Crowe's "Night Side of Nature" for his own private delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire household for not having bought twenty copies. The man led a life of supreme wretchedness while he was perusing the volume. A system of espionage was established, of which he was the victim. If he incautiously laid the book down for an instant and left the room, it was immediately seized and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story, entitled "The Pot of Tulips," for Harper's Monthly, the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form.
        After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Once the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by some invisible agency while in the act of undressing himself for the night; but as I had more than once discovered this colored gentleman in a condition when one candle must have appeared to him like two, I thought it possible that, by going a step farther in his potations, he might have reversed this phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought to have beheld one.
        Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare memory of the occurrence. It was the 10th of July. After dinner was over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed between the Doctor and myself, we were linked together by a secret vice. We both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret, and respected it. We enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought; that marvelous intensifying of the perceptive faculties; that boundless feeling of existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole universe; in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will never—never taste.
        Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly smoke the drug of Paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While smoking we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and calmest channels of thought. We talked of the East, and endeavored to recall the magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticised the most sensuous poets, those who painted life ruddy with health, brimming with passion, happy in the possession of youth, and strength, and beauty. If we talked of Shakspeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," we lingered over Ariel and avoided Caliban. Like the Gebers, we turned our faces to the East, and saw only the sunny side of the world.
        This skillful coloring of our train of thought produced in our subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendors of Arabian fairy-land dyed our dreams. We paced that narrow strip of grass with the tread and port of kings. The song of the Rana arborea while he clung to the bark of the ragged plum-tree sounded like the strains of divine orchestras. Houses, walls, and streets melted like rain-clouds, and vistas of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a rapturous companionship. We each of us enjoyed the vast delight more perfectly because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were ever conscious of each other's presence. Our pleasures, while individual, were still twin, vibrating and moving in musical accord.
        On the evening in question, the 10th of July, the Doctor and myself found ourselves in an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings; we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the currents of our thought. They would not flow through the sun-lit channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable reason they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk, and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper vessel, until they blotted every thing bright from our vision. Insensibly we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the human mind to mysticism and the almost universal love of the Terrible, when Hammond suddenly said to me:
        "What do you consider to be the greatest element of Terror?"
        The question, I own, puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew. Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did, a woman floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly-lifted arms and awful, upturned face, uttering, as she sank, shrieks that rent one's heart, while we, the spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests a huge terror, the proportions of which are vailed. But it now struck me for the first time that there must be one great and ruling embodiment of fear, a King of Terrors to which all others must succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe its existence?
        "I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any other thing, I feel. I can not attempt, however, even the most vague definition."
        "I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to experience a terror greater than any thing yet conceived by the human mind. Something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in Brockden Brown's novel of 'Wieland' is awful; so is the picture of the Dweller of the Threshold in Bulwer's 'Zanoni;' but," he added, shaking his head gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than these."
        "Look here, Hammond," I rejoined; "let us drop this kind of talk for Heaven's sake. We shall suffer for it, depend on it."
        "I don't know what's the matter with me tonight," he replied, "but my brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as if I could write a story like Hoffman tonight, if I were only master of a literary style.
        "Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk I'm off to bed. Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it is! Good-night, Hammond."
        "Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."
        "To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."
        We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book, over which I generally read myself to sleep. JI opened the volume as soon as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the other side of the room. It was Gondon's "History of Monsters"—a curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which, in the state of mind I was then in, was any thing but an agreeable companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so turning down my gas until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of the tube, I composed myself to rest once more.
        The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained lighted did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the darkness, and tried to think of nothing- It was in vain. The confounded themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me. While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical inaction I would hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest, and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat, endeavoring to choke me.
        I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The suddenness of the attack instead of stunning me strung every nerve to its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity. Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp slipping every moment by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not confine—these were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the strength and skill and courage that I possessed.
        At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It-was apparently as exhausted as I was, that was one comfort. At this moment I remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a large, yellow silk pocket-handkerchief, for use during the night. I felt for it instantly; it was there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the creature's arms.
        I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the capture alone and unaided.
        Never loosing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's-length of the tiny speck of blue light, which told me where the gas-burner lay. Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.
        I can not even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. I saw nothing! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing, panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a throat as warm, and apparently fleshly, as my own; and yet, with this living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld nothing! Not even an outline—a vapor!
        I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found myself. I can not recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.
        It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, just like my own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone—and yet utterly invisible!
        I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force that I felt the creature shivering with agony.
        Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon as he beheld my face—which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to look at—he hastened forward, crying,
        "Great Heaven, Harry! what has happened?"
        "Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. Oh! this is awful! I have been attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can't see it—I can't see it!"
        Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. Now, I can understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision, should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where they stood.
        "Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's sake come to me. I can hold the—the Thing but a short while longer. It is overpowering me. Help me. Help me!"
        "Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been smoking too much opium."
        "I swear to you Hammond that this is no vision," I answered, in the same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its struggles? If you don't believe me convince yourself. Feel it—touch it."
        Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry of horror burst from him. He had felt it! In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of cord, and was the next instant winding it, and knotting it about the body of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.
        "Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry, it's all safe now. You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The Thing can't move."
        I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.
        Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible, twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting, as it were, he beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe. Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was not daunted.
        The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house, who were witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself—who beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something—who beheld me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was over—the confusion and terror that took possession of the by-standers, when they saw all this, was beyond description. Many of the weaker ones fled from the apartment. The few who remained behind clustered near the door, and could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the existence of a living being in that room which was invisible. They were incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a solid, living, breathing body be invisible? they asked. My reply was this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us—conquering our fearful repugnance to touching the invisible creature—lifted it from the ground, manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of a boy of fourteen.
        "Now my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is a solid, ponderable body which, nevertheless, you can not see. Be good enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."
        I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of scientific pride in the affair which dominated every other feeling.
        The eyes of the by-standers were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was the dull sound of a heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a sort of low, universal cry, and rushed from the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.
        We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the bedclothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement. Then Hammond spoke.
        "Harry, this is awful."
        "Ay, awful."
        "But not unaccountable."
        "Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"
        "Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but which we can not see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to be totally invisible. It is not theoretically impossible, mind you, to fabricate a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light—a glass so pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun shall pass through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We do not see the air, and yet we feel it."
        "That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances. Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. This thing has a heart that palpitates. A will that moves it. Lungs that play and inspire and respire."
        "You forget the strange phenomena of which we have so often heard of late," answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,' invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round the table—warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal life."
        "What? Do you think, then, that this thing is—"
        "I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."
        We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long by the bedside of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it slept.
        The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could be induced to set foot in the apartment.
        The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty, which themselves were invisible.
        Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human. There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which, however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a smooth surface and tracing its outline with chalk, as shoemakers trace the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value. Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.
        A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mould. Another thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs—that was evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do with it what we would. Doctor X— was sent for; and after the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a well-known modeler of this city was busily engaged in covering.the invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a mould, and before evening a rough fac-simile of the Mystery. It was shaped like a man. Distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and its limbs betrayed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness any thing I had ever seen. Gustave Dorè, or Callot, or Tony Johannot never conceived any thing so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to "Un voyage ou il vous plaira," which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should have fancied a ghoul to be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.
        Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house over to secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer. Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even approach the Mystery.
        The most singular part of the transaction was, that we were entirely ignorant of what the creature habitually fed on. Every thing in the way of nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes toss and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.
        Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly ceased altogether. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on I felt miserable. I could not sleep of nights. Horrible as the creature was, it was pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.
        At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to Doctor X—, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.
        As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come to my knowledge.

Harry Escott.        

---

        [Note.—It is rumored that the proprietors of a well-known museum in this city have made arrangements with Dr. X— to exhibit to the public the singular cast which Mr. Escott deposited with him. So extraordinary a history can not fail to attract universal attention.]

The Thirteenth Column

by Barry Pain.

Originally published in The Windsor Magazine (Ward, Lock & Bowden Ltd.) vol.1 #2 (Feb 1895).

I knew Charles Backerton Salemaker fairly intimately. He was a young man, mild-eyed, fair-haired, good-tempered, and—before he went on to the staff of Home Happiness—conscientious. He was fond of describing himself as a good all-round journalist. I was one of the people who saw him last before his unfortunate and mysterious disappearance; and as far as anyone can know why he disappeared, I know it.
        I think the trouble really began when Home Happiness, an excellent magazine, supplied a long-felt want. The very first number supplied it fully; after that first number hardly anybody seemed to want any more. The streets of London were filled with crowds of people who were doing without the last issue of Home Happiness, and not minding it. Wherever the English language—or any other language—was spoken, there were earnest men and women who had never heard of the magazine, and did not even want to hear of it. And yet the editor was a man of talent. When hardly anybody bought his second number, he sent round a paragraph to the other papers to the effect that their esteemed contemporary, Home Happiness, was rapidly securing the first place among weekly journals of the domestic class. It is true that the other papers never inserted that paragraph, not considering it to be 'altogether funny enough, but still the thing showed enterprise. Then again, when the third number did not sell quite so well as the second, he advertised Home Happiness at all the railway stations as "A success unprecedented in the history of journalism!" Some people called this also enterprise, and some called it something shorter. And, finally, the editor did a very clever thing when he secured, at a moderate salary, the services of Charles Backerton Salemaker. Salemaker loved work; he worked willingly, and he was—at one time, at any rate—a conscientious man.
        The paper started its first number with great profusion. In return for his salary, Salemaker was asked to write only one column a week, a column entitled "Politics for Papa." I know that he was uneasy about this, thinking and saying that he was afraid he was not really doing enough for the money he received. However, he did that column well. Any Liberal or any Conservative who read it would have found nothing with which it was possible to disagree. Salemaker said that it was written from the independent standpoint. Subsequently expenses were cut down; journalists fell off the staff of that paper like leaves before the blast, and their work was assigned to Salemaker without increase of salary.
        When the art critic went, it was Salemaker who was appointed to write that delightful column "Through the Picture Galleries." "And this," he said to me, "gives me great pleasure, for I have never before had it practically recognised that I know something about art." I could understand that, and told him so. I do not think he was quite so pleased when he was given a third column to do every week, because the third column was called "Notes for the Nursery." "However," he said, "one can always read up a subject." He bought two second-hand medical works on the treatment of children, and quoted them alternately. The two medical works were diametrically opposed to each other on several important points, and in consequence there was a little trouble. He also invented a new game for infants, to be played with wax matches, and the editor got a furious post-card saying that if the author of "Notes for the Nursery" had the feelings of a mother, she would never have advocated a game which must lead to phosphorus-poisoning and incendiarism in the end. Salemaker said that he would be more careful in future, and the editor—to show that he still had confidence in him—gave him two more columns to write every week.
        I met him in the street a fortnight afterwards, and he was not looking quite as enthusiastic as usual. "Well," I said, "how's the paper, and have you got the feelings of a mother yet?"
        "The paper is beginning to turn the corner," he said. "It'll do very well in time. Of course, there is none of the silly extravagance that there was at first. The staff has been very much reduced."
        "Then who does the work?"
        "Well, I write eight columns for every number myself now, and the editor does most of the rest. Of course, it's no hardship to me; a good all-round journalist does not want to be tied down to one subject. Besides, the paper is practically turning the corner now."
        I advised him not to overwork himself, and he hurried away to the office; I thought he seemed paler and thinner than he used to be.
        That night, after dinner, I was alone in my chambers, when suddenly Salemaker arrived.
        "It's a terrible business!" he exclaimed, as he came in at the door. He did not look himself. He seemed indignant and distraught. He was wearing his hat very much on the back of his head. I gently removed his hat, made him sit down, gave him something to smoke, and asked him what was the matter.
        "It's a perfectly terrible business. I've just come from the office. I wanted to consult you," he said, rather incoherently.
        "I see," I said. "The success unprecedented in the history of journalism is going to stop—going to put up its poor, unhappy shutters."
        "Nothing of the kind. The paper is now, as a matter of fact, definitely turning the corner."
        "Do you know," I asked, "that you've already told me that twice to-day?"
        He sighed.
        "Have I?" he said drearily. "Very likely. I've got into the habit of saying it whenever I hear the paper mentioned. Let me tell you what's happened. We've got a column in the paper called "The Height of Fashion," a column for women, you understand."
        "Quite so."
        "Well, it used to be written by a lady journalist, a Miss Catling. It was one of the most popular features of the paper. Now the editor, on the plea of economy, has turned her off, or, rather, asked her to write gratuitously. She said she won't work for nothing, and she doesn't care. She says she shall go and be a new woman, and write an improper novel. You can see she's cut up about it."
        "Well," I said, "I'm sure your sympathy with her does you credit, and if the editor discontinues the most popular feature, it may retard the progress of the paper, but after all—"
        "Stop!" he said irritably, "that isn't it at all. 'The Height of Fashion' is to come out every week as usual, but the scandalous—the absurd—I may say the unspeakable thing about it is, that I've got to write it." He laughed bitterly. "I, Charles Backerton Salemaker—moi qui vous parle—have got to write a fashion article for women. Think of it! Picture it!"
        "Why don't you protest?"
        "Protest? What else do you think I've been doing at the office except protesting? Heaven knows I don't mind work. I give them plenty for their money. I write the politics, the art, and the nursery notes, and other things besides, and I've never complained. I told you that I did eight columns a week. That was a lie. I wrote eleven then, and I have just had two more put on to me. 'The Height of Fashion' makes the thirteenth. I lied to you because I was ashamed to say how much I did. I had high principles once, but Home Happiness has about done for them. You see, publishers won't send us books for review—say they've never heard of us. Theatre managers won't send us tickets. What's the consequence? I review books I've never read, and criticise plays I've never seen; I always notice them favourably, and so I've never been found out. Last night I wrote an obituary of a man who isn't dead, and some 'Genuine Experiences of a Detective,' which I never was. But that was honesty itself compared with what the editor wants now. Besides," he added, more quietly and reflectively, "it will be a very difficult thing to write that article without being bowled out."
        I said that the subject was probably much easier than was generally supposed. I had known some girls who appeared to be singularly, impressively stupid, and yet they thoroughly understood fashions.
        "Ah, yes," he said, "it is not so much a question of brains as a question of instinct. All women have the instinct. You think the subject easy? I'll guarantee you don't even understand the elements of it, the mere question of structure, letting alone ornamentation. Here's a thing which may happen any day, and I've seen it myself: The top half of a woman's dress has two rows of buttons and button-holes; one row is genuine, practical, and works; the other row is pure 'fake,' just put on out of exuberance. Can you tell me which is which? No, you can't, and I can't, but a girl of twelve could without looking. Then there are dresses which can never be put on at all—at least, one would say so if there wasn't a woman inside them. How did the woman get there? The only possible explanation is that she was melted down, poured in through the collar, and allowed to set. I say that it is the only possible explanation, but I am perfectly well aware that it is not the right one. And you can't tell me the right one, I don't know and can't find out the bare elements of the subject."
        "Then why didn't you tell the editor so?"
        "I did," said Salemaker, pacing excitedly up and down the room. "He's a married man, and has got two sisters into the bargain to my certain knowledge. He lives in the atmosphere of it. He would only have to leave the women in a room together, and nature would do the rest. They would begin to talk clothes, and he could have his clerk at the keyhole to take it all down in shorthand. That would give him something to go upon. As for me, I have not got one living female relation. However, he wouldn't hear of doing it himself. He said he had enough to do already. He told me that a good all-round journalist could write any article on anything."
        "You said yourself once that you would tackle any subject if you were allowed half an hour to read it up."
        "Certainly, but this is the one subject that you can't read up. You can't get it out of a book, because any book upon the subject would be out of date before it could be published."
        "Can't you get it out of other papers?"
        "Even then you can't be certain of being up to date. I tell you—and you can believe it or not, as you like—that the shape of a sleeve has been known to change completely in a single night. Of course, the other papers would give me the right vocabulary—words like 'selvage,' and 'ruching,' and things of that kind."
        "M'yes. They wouldn't tell you what they meant."
        "No. There you are again; the thing's too difficult."
        "Look here," I said, "you must know some good-natured woman of the world—one of the kind that likes young men—one of the kind that believes that journalism is connected with authorship, and authorship is connected with romance. You had better go to her, tell her frankly what your position is, and ask her—"
        He interrupted me. "You are being perfectly useless to me," he said, with clenched teeth and studied calm. "If you know me at all, you must know that I would sooner be boiled alive in non-corrosive ink and have my blue-black carcase eaten by half-caste Kaffirs, than let any woman of my acquaintance know that I had been even asked to do anything so presumptuous and immodest. If I attempt this article at all, it will be to prove to the editor that I really am an all-round journalist, and you must understand that I don't want it talked about."
        "Certainly. But if you're going to write the article, how do you propose to get your information?"
        "I can't say exactly. I shall look in the windows of the big shops, and take notes of the people in the Park. Then the managers of the shops would tell me something in return for a gratuitous advertisement. I thought, perhaps, you might have some other notion."
        "No," I said, "I'm afraid I am not of much use. However, I can say that I am sincerely sorry for you."
        He shook my hand warmly on leaving, and thanked me. "If anything should happen," he said hopelessly, "it will, at any rate, be a consolation to me that I have had your sympathy. Good-night." He had no sooner shut the door behind him than he opened it again, and put his head in, "You don't happen to know what a basque is, do you?" he asked in a melancholy voice, "No? Well, it doesn't matter. It's only one thing out of many. Goodnight again." He looked very depressed, as if he had some presentiment that he had undertaken a task beyond his powers, and evil would come of it.
        Three times on the following day I saw Salemaker. The first time was in the morning, outside the Law Courts. He was walking very fast in the direction of the west, and seemed more energetic than on the previous day. He came up to me, and said at once in rather a peremptory way, "What's accordion-pleating?"
        I confessed that I didn't know.
        "That's just like you," he said impatiently. "You never do know anything. I can't stop."
        He hurried on. I noticed that he was carrying under his arm two or three of the feminine journals.
        Later in the day I found him staring into the windows of a big shop in Regent Street where they sold bonnets. As for his appearance, [I can only say that he looked like a desperate man. "I am glad to see you," he said gloomily. "If you'd come a minute later, it would have been all over. I should have broken that window, thrown the bonnets and things into the street and trampled on them. I have been thinking about doing it for the last five minutes."
        "Look here, Salemaker," I said, "you've been over-working yourself. You wouldn't get yourself into this condition if you didn't take things so seriously."
        "I'll give you a sovereign," he replied, "to stick your foot through that window. Go on. Do it. Nobody's looking. I can't do it myself, because it would injure the paper if I got into the police-courts. You've got no position to speak of, and it wouldn't matter if you did it. If you don't want the sovereign, do it out of friendship. There's a hat at the back trimmed with two shoe-buckles and a split humming-bird. If I could tear that in half and throw it under an omnibus I should feel better."
        "Control yourself," I said firmly, "I'm going to take you to the club, and give you tea, and, so far as it is humanly possible, stop you from behaving like a lunatic. What have you been doing all day?"
        "I have been collecting material for an article entitled 'The Height of Fashion.' That's what has brought me to this. You won't do this little thing to oblige me? Just what I thought. You call yourself a Bohemian, and as a matter of fact you're eaten up with respectability."
        With some difficulty I persuaded him to come with me to the club. There I gave him tea and consolatory cigarettes. When he was a little calmer, I pressed him to tell me his experiences. He did so, with some reluctance.
        "I began," he said, "by going to Bond Street. I found a window there with just the right kind of clothes in it. They were so ugly as to be almost indecent. That was why I knew they were all right; they couldn't have been exhibited at all if they hadn't had style. They must have been simply saturated with style. Besides, Bond Street's always all right, anyhow. So I pulled out my note-book, and it was just then I saw her with her green eyes fixed on me."
        "What her?"
        "Miss Catling. Didn't I mention it? I believe she must have been lying in ambush there. She saw, of course, what I was doing, saw it at a glance. I was doing her work. She just bowed, and came at me like an angry cow. I took off my hat and walked quickly away. She pursued. I quicked my pace, and got on to an omnibus. She got on to another omnibus immediately behind it. I waited a few seconds, and then stepped off my 'bus. So I got clear away."
        "But how? When she saw you get off the one 'bus, why didn't she get off the other, if she wanted to catch you?"
        "Because she had paid her penny and couldn't bring herself to take less than the full pennyworth. Women mostly like value for their money. I had counted on that. As I say, I had got clear off, but I believe the incident spoilt my nerve. After that I had no intention of going anywhere in particular, but I found myself in front of another big shop window in Oxford Street. I pulled myself together. I decided to go in, say that I wanted the latest news about the fashions, and offer in return for the information a gratuitous advertisement of the firm. Well, I went in. Inside there was a tall stately man. He smiled at me just as if he wanted to be a friend to me, and yet all the time his stateliness seemed to be a kind of bar between us."
        Here Salemaker paused, and buried his head in his hands.
        "Well," I said, "what next?"
        "I lost my pluck suddenly. I tried to speak about Home Happiness, but I couldn't. He asked me what he could have the pleasure of doing for me, and I stammered out something about elastic. It was the only thing I could think of. He took me up to a counter with a proud, beautiful girl behind it, and I said, 'Elastic, please.' The girl said, 'How many yards would you require?' I didn't know anything about that, and so I said twopennyworth. Then I thought that seemed rather a poor thing to say to a girl in that position, and so I altered it to sixpennyworth. She said, 'Certainly, and what kind of elastic?' How was I to know that there were two kinds of elastic? However, I said, 'The kind they use for catapults.' She went behind a sort of desk, and stopped there patiently for some time. She may have gone there to laugh, or she may not. After a few minutes she came back and remarked, 'Elastic you said, I think?' Then she began to measure it out. I took it away in a whitey-brown paper parcel, and everybody stared at me. When I got outside the shop I threw the parcel down on the pavement, in a fit of irritation, I suppose. A boy picked it up and handed it back to me again. Then I went on to the Park. I thought I might make some notes of the dresses there, and also get rid of the parcel. I sat down on a chair, paid my penny, and got out my note-book. I made notes of three dresses that I saw. These are the notes:
        '"No. 1. Black.
        "'No. 2. A kind of brown. Buttons on it.
        "'No. 3. A sort of bluish. Looked as if it hurt.'
        "It struck me then that I was not getting enough detail. I had only jotted down the general effect. A woman was sitting opposite me with a good many things on; so I began to sketch them. I was absorbed in my sketching, but I remember that I did have a shadowy idea that the woman was beginning to look uneasy. Presently she got up. It was out of sheer absent-mindedness (I was only thinking of the sketch) that I said to her, 'Sit down again. I've not done with you yet.' A policeman was passing near, and she went to speak to him."
        "Well?"
        "Oh, I didn't stop. There didn't seem to be anything to stop for. I was out of the Park and into a hansom before the woman had finished with the policeman. I told the man to drive fast to Charing Cross. In my hurry and confusion I had forgotten to leave the elastic behind me, and when I had paid the cabman I found that I was still grasping the parcel in my hand. That didn't matter. I left the elastic in a flower-pot at a restaurant where I lunched."
        "But this thirteenth column. What have you done towards it?"
        "I've read the fashion papers, but that's about all. Since luncheon I've been doing nothing but stare into shop windows. They muddled my head more than you can possibly understand, and they caused in addition a distinct amount of nervous irritation. Perhaps you noticed it when you met me just now."
        "Look here," I said, "you'd better give up the whole thing. You can't possibly do this column, and you'd better write to your editor and say so."
        He would not take my advice.
        "A good all-round journalist can write an article on anything," he said obstinately. "I'm going off to write my article now—this minute."
        "But do be reasonable," I said. "Why attempt the impossible?"
        "It's not impossible," be answered, as he picked up his hat. "Observation is no good. I've found that out. Study is also no good. The male man can find out nothing about the female fashions in those ways. But I have just thought of a third course—thought of it while I was talking to you—and I am now going to try it." He put on his hat. "On the whole," he added, "it is perhaps as well that you refused to smash that window for me. You may have been right: and I daresay I spoke too harshly when I said that you were respectable. I was much worried at the time, and you must make allowances. I shall bring you the article to look at to-night. Au revoir."
        He did bring me the article, and it was the last time that I ever saw Charles Backerton Salemaker. Possibly, as he said in a subsequent letter, I shall never see him again. That night he looked radiant, triumphant, happy in the pride of achievement. He brought with him several type-written sheets. They were the article in question, which he had just completed.
        "First of all," he said, "let me explain the theory on which the article is written. The novelist works both from observation and imagination. He overhears some chance remark in the street, and from that, with the help of imagination, he constructs a character—even an entire novel. I've worked on the same lines. I've taken as my starting-point the little that I remember of the fashion papers and the shop windows, and I've allowed my imagination to play all around it."
        He began to read the first sheet. It was to the effect that the season would soon be at an end, and that the autumn would follow with its beautiful foliage, and subsequently he and other high-bred English girls would give themselves up to a round of country-house visiting.
        "That's all very well," I observed, "but it's not fashions."
        "No; that's the introduction."
        "Well, cut the introduction."
        He turned over a few sheets and read as follows:
        "In the meantime the Park every Sunday looks very gay and smart. One of the best dressed women that I have seen there lately is unquestionably Lady B. She wore a coat and skirt of Irish guipure of a dull bronze colour, with tabs of eau-de-nil silk bordered with passementerie. The same colour was repeated in the accordion-pleating on the pom-pom, and the whole was surmounted by a hat of vieux rose surah, trimmed with skunk?' What do you think of that?"
        "I must confess that it sounds just like the real thing."
        "Quite so. And it's all imagination. Here's another bit: 'An equally tasteful confection was worn by a lady of a rather more matronly type. The skirt, cut after the present approved fashion, was of petunia face-cloth, shot with bombazine; this was suitably allied with a cape of Roman satin of a somewhat deeper tinge, edged with brown Siberian dachshund, and having a deep Empire collar of amber velvet cut V-shape.'"
        I did not care to hear any more. I thought then, and still think, that it sounded all right. Apparently it was not all right, as the following extract from a letter I received from Salemaker two days later will show:
        "You will never see me again. It is all over. The editor apparently showed my copy to his wife, and has written to ask me what I mean by sending a cowardly and offensive parody in place of the work that he ordered. He has told me to call and, if possible, explain. I shall not do so. I do not think that I can look him, or anybody else, in the face again. I feel that I am rightly punished for my presumption. It was wrong of me, in my pride in my own versatility, to have undertaken that thirteenth column. Everything is against me now. I went into a restaurant the other day, and there was Miss Catling lurking behind some tea and a large bun. I dashed out, jumped on to a 'bus, and found that the woman whose clothes I had so mistakenly attempted to sketch in the Park was sitting opposite to me. I cannot escape from my unspeakable shame. Fate reaches out a long arm of coincidence and collars me at every turn. That attempt to write the thirteenth column seems to have swelled up and filled my entire life. Before the sun has set I shall probably find myself in the same railway carriage with the proud girl that sold me so much elastic. But I must risk that. England has become too small for me, and I must go."
        The remainder of the letter was purely personal. That week Home Happiness announced that its fashion article was unavoidably crowded out, but would appear in the next number. There never was a next number. In the following week the whole of Home Happiness was crowded out, and it never appeared again.
        Meanwhile the friends and relations of Charles Backerton Salemaker are getting very anxious, and any information as to his whereabouts would be thankfully received.