Zeritsky's Law By ANN GRIFFITH - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51234/pg51234-images.html

 

HUNTING DINOSAURS IN THE BAD LANDS OF THE RED DEER RIVER ALBERTA, CANADA BY CHARLES H. STERNBERG - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77814/pg77814-images.html

 Please, dear reader, return with me to the first camp we made below Steveville. I would like to tell you of our successful hunt for horned dinosaurs, the reptiles that carry on their shoulders the largest known skulls of any land animal living, or dead. I had gone around the flood plain to the mouth of a ravine below camp and following it up to its head searching the denuded exposures, on either side. Suddenly, I stumbled on a couple of orbital horn-cores of a new genus of these strange creatures. The nasals and much of the face had been disintegrated by exposure to rain and frost; one complete lower jaw and part of the other was in place, however. With eager hands I used my little pick and digger, cutting into the face of the cliff. The horn-cores were pointed heavenward. I soon got behind them and followed up the great crest that projected backward into the rock, of which some fifteen towered above; I needed help and returned to camp a mile over the hills, for the boys. George and Levi responded to my call. The rock was thrown out and scraped away with team and scraper, tons on tons of it, my enthusiastic assistants[79] threw down. We soon found that most of the skeleton was present, and it required a large floor to lay all the bones bare. At least enough of them so we could take them up without injuring them.

"Rise, Robin, rise! The partans are on the sands!" The crying at our little window raised me out of a sound sleep, for I had been out seeing the Myreside lasses late the night before, and was far from being wake-rife at two by the clock on a February morning. It was the first time the summons had come to me, for I was then but young. Hitherto it was my brother John who had answered the raising word of the free-traders spoken at the window. But now John had a farm-steading of his own, thanks to Sir William Maxwell and to my father's siller that had paid for the stock. So with all speed I did my clothes upon me, with much eagerness and a beating heart—as who would not, when, for the first time, he has the privilege of man? As I went out to the barn I could hear my mother (with whom I was ever a favorite) praying for me. "Save the laddie—save the laddie!" she said over and over. And I think my father prayed too; but, as I went, he also cried to me counsels. "Be sure you keep up the grappling chains—dinna let them clatter till ye hae the stuff weel up the hill. The Lord keep ye! Be a guid lad an' ride honestly. Gin ye see Sir William, keep your head doon, an' gae by withoot lookin'. He's a magistrate, ye ken. But he'll no' see you, gin ye dinna see him. Leave twa ankers a-piece o' brandy an' rum at our ain dyke back. An' abune a', the Lord be wi' ye, an' bring ye safe back to your sorrowing parents!" So, with pride, I did the harness graith upon the sonsy back of Brown Bess—the pad before where I was to sit—the lingtow and the hooked chains behind. I had a cutlass, a jockteleg (or smuggler's sheaf-knife), and a pair of brass-mounted pistols ready swung in my leathern belt. Faith, but I wish Bell of the Mains could have seen me then, ready to ride forth with the light-horsemen. She would never scorn me more for a lingle-backed callant, I 'se warrant. "Haste ye, Robin! Heard ye no' that the partans are on the sands?" It was Geordie of the Clone who cried to me. He meant the free-traders from the Isle, rolling the barrels ashore. "I am e'en, as ready as ye are yoursel'!" I gave him answer, for I was not going to let him boast himself prideful all, because he had ridden out with them once or twice before. Besides, his horse and accoutrement were not one half so good as mine. For my father was an honest and well-considered man, and in good standing with the laird and the minister, so that he could afford to do things handsomely. We made haste to ride along the heuchs, which are very high, steep, and rocky at this part of the coast. And at every loaning-end we heard the clinking of the smugglers chains, and I thought the sound a livening and a merry one. "A fair guid-e'en and a full tide, young Airyolan!" cried one to me as we came by Killantrae. And I own the name was sweet to my ears. For it was the custom to call men by the names of their farms, and Airyolan was my father's name by rights. But mine for that night, because in my hands was the honor of the house. Ere we got down to the Clone we could hear, all about in the darkness, athwart and athwart, the clattering of chains, the stir of many horses, and the voices of men. Black Taggart was in with his lugger, the "Sea Pyet," and such a cargo as the Clone men had never run—so ran the talk on every side. There was not a sleeping wife nor yet a man left indoors in all the parish of Mochrum, except only the laird and the minister. By the time that we got down by the shore, there was quite a company of the Men of the Fells, as the shore men called us—all dour, swack, determined fellows. "Here come the hill nowt!" said one of the village men, as he caught sight of us. I knew him for a limber-tongued, ill-livered loon from the Port, so I delivered him a blow fair and solid between the eyes, and he dropped without a gurgle. This was to learn him how to speak to innocent harmless strangers. Then there was a turmoil indeed to speak about, for all the men of the laigh shore crowded round us, and knives were drawn. But I cried, "Corwald, Mochrum, Chippermore, here to me!" And all the stout lads came about me. Nevertheless, it looked black for a moment, as the shore men waved their torches in our faces, and yelled fiercely at us to put us down by fear. Then a tall young man on a horse rode straight at the crowd which had gathered about the loon I had felled. He had a mask over his face which sometimes slipped awry. But, in spite of the disguise, he seemed perfectly well known to all there. "What have we here?" he asked, in a voice of questioning that had also the power of command in it. "'Tis these Men of the Fells that have stricken down Jock Webster of the Port, Maister William!" said one of the crowd. Then I knew the laird's son, and did my duty to him, telling him of my provocation, and how I had only given the rascal strength of arm. "And right well you did," said Maister William, "for these dogs would swatter in the good brandy, but never help to carry it to the caves, nor bring the well-graithed horses to the shore-side! Carry the loon away, and stap him into a heather hole till he come to." So that was all the comfort they got for their tale-telling. "And you, young Airyolan," said Maister William, "that are so ready with your strength of arm—there is even a job that you may do. Muckle Jock, the Preventive man, rides to-night from Isle of Whithorn, where he has been warning the revenue cutter. Do you meet him and keep him from doing himself an injury." "And where shall I meet him, Maister William?" I asked of the young laird. "Oh, somewhere on the heuch-taps," said he, carelessly; "and see, swing these on your horse and leave them at Myrtoun on the by-going." He called a man with a torch, who came and stood over me, while I laid on Brown Bess a pair of small casks of some fine liqueur, of which more than ordinary care was to be taken, and also a few packages of soft goods, silks and laces as I deemed. "Take these to the Loch Yett, and ca' Sandy Fergus to stow them for ye. Syne do your work with the Exciseman as he comes hame. Gar him bide where he is till the sun be at its highest to-morrow. And a double share o' the plunder shall be lyin' in the hole at a back of the dyke at Airyolan when ye ride hame the morn at e'en." So I bade him a good-night, and rode my ways over the fields, and across many burns to Myrtoun. As I went I looked back, and there, below me, was a strange sight,—all the little harbor of the Clone lighted up, a hurrying of men down to the shore, the flickering of torches, and the lappering of the sea making a stir of gallant life that set the blood leaping along the veins. It was, indeed, I thought, worth while living to be a free-trader. Far out, I could see the dark spars of the lugger "Sea Pyet," and hear the casks and ankers dumping into the boats alongside. Then I began to bethink me that I had a more desperate ploy than any of them that were down there, for they were many, and I was but one. Moreover, easily, as young Master William might say, "Meet Muckle Jock, and keep him till the morn at noon!" the matter was not so easy as supping one's porridge. Now, I had never seen the Exciseman, but my brother had played at the cudgels with Jock before this. So I knew more of him than to suppose that he would bide for the bidding of one man when in the way of his duty. But when the young laird went away he slipped me a small, heavy packet. "Half for you and half for the gauger, gin he hears reason," he said. By the weight and the jingle I judged it to be yellow Geordies, the best thing that the wee, wee German lairdie ever sent to Tory Mochrun. And not too plenty there, either! Though since the Clone folk did so well with the clean-run smuggling from the blessed Isle of Man, it is true that there are more of the Geordies than there used to be. So I rode round by the back of the White Loch, for Sir William had a habit of daunering, over by the Airlour and Barsalloch, and in my present ride I had no desire to meet with him. Yet, as fate would have it, I was not to win clear that night. I had not ridden more than half-way round the loch when Brown Bess went floundering into a moss-hole, which are indeed more plenty than paved roads in that quarter. And what with the weight of the pack, and her struggling, we threatened to go down altogether. When I thought of what my father would say, if I went home with my finger in my mouth, and neither Brown Bess nor yet a penny's-worth to be the value of her, I was fairly a-sweat with fear. I cried aloud for help, for there were cot-houses near by. And, as I had hoped, in a little a man came out of the shadows of the willow bushes. "What want ye, yochel?" said he, in a mightily lofty tone. "I'll 'yochel' ye, gin I had time. Pu' on that rope," I said, for my spirit was disturbed by the accident. Also, as I have said, I took ill-talk from no man. So, with a little laugh, the man laid hold of the rope, and pulled his best, while I took off what of the packages I could reach, ever keeping my own feet moving, to clear the sticky glaur of the bog-hole from them. "Tak that hook out, and ease doon the cask, man!" I cried to him, for I was in desperation; "I'll gie ye a heartsome gill, even though the stuff be Sir William's!" And the man laughed again, being, as I judged, well enough pleased. For all that service yet was I not pleased to be called "yochel." But, in the meantime, I saw not how, at the moment, I could begin to cuff and clout one that was helping my horse and stuff out of a bog-hole. Yet I resolved somehow to be even with him, for, though a peaceable man, I never could abide the calling of ill names. "Whither gang ye?" said he. "To the Muckle Hoose o' Myrtoun," said I, "and gang you wi' me, my man; and gie me a hand doon wi' the stuff, for I hae nae stomach for mair warsling in bog-holes. And wha kens but that auld thrawn Turk, Sir William, may happen on us?" "Ken ye Sir William Maxwell?" said the man. "Na," said I. "I never so muckle as set e'en on the auld wretch. But I had sax hard days' wark cutting doon bushes, and makin' a road for his daftlike carriage wi' wheels, for him to ride in to Mochrum Kirk." "Saw ye him never there?" said the man, as I strapped the packages on again. "Na," said I, "my faither is a Cameronian, and gangs to nae Kirk hereaboots." "He has gi'en his son a bonny upbringing, then!" quoth the man. Now this made me mainly angry, for I cannot bide that folk should meddle with my folk. Though as far as I am concerned myself I am a peaceable man. "Hear ye," said I, "I ken no wha ye are that speers so mony questions. Ye may be the de'il himsel', or ye may be the enemy o' Mochrum, the blackavised Commodore frae Glasserton. But, I can warrant ye that ye'll no mell and claw unyeuked with Robin o' Airyolan. Hear ye that, my man, and keep a civil tongue within your ill-lookin' cheek, gin ye want to gang hame in the morning wi' an uncracked croun!" The man said no more, and by his gait I judged him to be some serving man. For, as far as the light served me, he was not so well put on as myself. Yet there was a kind of neatness about the creature that showed him to be no out-door man either. However, he accompanied me willingly enough till we came to the Muckle House of Myrtoun. For I think that he was feared of his head at my words. And indeed it would not have taken the kittling of a flea to have garred me draw a staff over his crown. For there is nothing that angers a Galloway man more than an ignorant, Lipsetting town's body, putting in his gab when he desires to live peaceable. So, when we came to the back entrance, I said to him: "Hear ye to this. Ye are to make no noise, my mannie, but gie me a lift doon wi' thae barrels cannily. For that dour old tod, the laird, is to ken naething aboot this. Only Miss Peggy and Maister William, they ken. 'Deed, it was young William himsel' that sent me on this errand." So with that the mannie gave a kind of laugh, and helped me down with the ankers far better than I could have expected. We rolled them into a shed at the back of the stables, and covered them up snug with some straw and some old heather thatching. "Ay, my lad," says I to him, "for a' your douce speech and fair words I can see that ye hae been at this job afore!" "Well, it is true," he said, "that I hae rolled a barrel or two in my time." Then, in the waft of an eye I knew who he was. I set him down for Muckle Jock, the Excise officer, that had never gone to the Glasserton at all, but had been lurking there in the moss, waiting to deceive honest men. I knew that I needed to be wary with him, for he was, as I had heard, a sturdy carl, and had won the last throw at the Stoneykirk wrestling. But all the men of the Fellside have an excellent opinion of themselves, and I thought I was good for any man of the size of this one. So said I to him: "Noo, chiel, ye ken we are no' juist carryin' barrels o' spring water at this time o' nicht to pleasure King George. Hearken ye: we are in danger of being laid by the heels in the jail of Wigton gin the black lawyer corbies get us. Noo, there's a Preventive man that is crawling and spying ower by on the heights o' Physgill. Ye maun e'en come wi' me an' help to keep him oot o' hairm's way. For it wad not be for his guid that he should gang doon to the port this nicht!" The man that I took to be the ganger hummed and hawed a while, till I had enough of his talk and unstable ways. "No back-and-forrit ways wi' Robin," said I. "Will ye come and help to catch the King's officer, or will ye not?" "No' a foot will I go," says he. "I have been a King's officer, myself!" Whereupon I laid a pistol to his ear, for I was in some heat. "Gin you war King Geordie himsel', aye, or Cumberland either, ye shall come wi' me and help to catch the gauger," said I. For I bethought me that it would be a bonny ploy, and one long to be talked about in these parts, thus to lay by the heels the Exciseman and make him tramp to Glasserton to kidnap himself. The man with the bandy legs was taking a while to consider, so I said to him: "She is a guid pistol and new primed!" "I'll come wi' ye!" said he. So I set him first on the road, and left my horse in the stables of Myrtoun. It was the gloam of the morning when we got to the turn of the path by which, if he were to come at all, the new gauger would ride from Glasserton. And lo! as if we had set a tryst, there he was coming over the heathery braes at a brisk trot. So I covered him with my pistol, and took his horse by the reins, thinking no more of the other man I had taken for the gauger before. "Dismount, my lad," I said. "Ye dinna ken me, but I ken you. Come here, my brisk landlouper, and help to haud him!" I saw the stranger who had come with me sneaking off, but with my other pistol I brought him to a stand. So together we got the gauger into a little thicket or planting. And here, willing or unwilling, we kept him all day, till we were sure that the stuff would all be run, and the long trains of honest smugglers on good horses far on their way to the towns of the north. Then very conscientiously I counted out the half of the tale of golden guineas Master William had given me, and put them into the pocket of the ganger's coat. "Gin ye are a good, still-tongued kind of cattle, there is more of that kind of yellow oats where these came from," said I. "But lie ye here snug as a paitrick for an hour yet by the clock, lest even yet ye should come to harm!" So there we left him, not very sorely angered, for all he had posed as so efficient and zealous a King's officer. "Now," said I to the man that had helped me, "I promised ye half o' Maister William's guineas, that he bade me keep, for I allow that it micht hae been a different job but for your help. And here they are. Ye shall never say that Robin of Airyolan roguit ony man—even a feckless toon's birkie wi' bandy legs!" The man laughed and took the siller, saying, "Thank'ee!" with an arrogant air as if he handled bags of them every day. But, nevertheless, he took them, and I parted from him, wishing him well, which was more than he did to me. But I know how to use civility upon occasion. When I reached home I told my father, and described the man I had met. But he could make no guess at him. Nor had I any myself till the next rent day, when my father, having a lame leg where the colt had kicked him, sent me down to pay the owing. The factor I knew well, but I had my money in hand and little I cared for him. But what was my astonishment to find, sitting at the table with him, the very same man who had helped me to lay the Exciseman by the heels. But now, I thought, there was a strangely different air about him. And what astonished me more, it was this man, and not the factor, who spoke first to me. "Aye, young Robin of Airyolan, and are you here? Ye are a chiel with birr and smeddum! There are the bones of a man in ye! Hae ye settled with the gauger for shackling him by the hill of Physgill?" Now, as I have said, I thole snash from no man, and I gave him the word back sharply. "Hae ye settled wi' him yoursel', sir? For it was you that tied the tow rope!" My adversary laughed, and looked not at all ill-pleased. He pointed to the five gold Georges on the tables. "Hark ye, Robin of Airyolan, these are the five guineas ye gied to me like an honest man. I'll forgie ye for layin' the pistol to my lug, for after all ye are some credit to the land that fed ye. Gin ye promise to wed a decent lass, I'll e'en gie ye a farm o' your ain. And as sure as my name is Sir William Maxwell, ye shall sit your lifetime rent free, for the de'il's errand that ye took me on the nicht of the brandy-running at the Clone." I could have sunken through the floor when I heard that it was Sir William himself—whom, because he had so recently returned from foreign parts after a sojourn of many years, I had never before seen. Then both the factor and the laird laughed heartily at my discomfiture. "Ken ye o' ony lass that wad tak' up wi' ye, Robin?" said Sir William. "Half a dozen o' them, my lord," said I. "Lassies are neither ill to seek nor hard to find when Robin of Airyolan gangs a-cortin'!" "Losh preserve us!" cried the laird, slapping his thigh, "but I mysel' never sallied forth to woo a lass so blithely confident!" I said nothing, but dusted my knee-breeks. For the laird was no very good-looking man, being gray as a badger. "An' mind ye maun see to it that the bairns are a' loons, and as staunch and stark as yoursel'!" said the factor. "A man can but do his best," answered I, very modestly as I thought. For I never can tell why it is that the folk will always say that I have a good opinion of myself. But neither, on the other hand, can I tell why I should not.

THE MACHINE THAT FLOATS By Joe Gibson - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/49693/pg49693-images.html

 

MYSTERY SHIP NEAR SACRAMENTO

BLACK SPACESHIP SEEN

MARTIANS PREFER CALIFORNIA!

TWO CARS LEAVE H'WAY AS ROCKET SWOOPS

BLACK ROCKET SHIP; 'NOT OURS,' SAY AIR FORCE

Marion Eggelby sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she ever willingly talked about—her offspring and their varied perfections and accomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a receptive mood; the younger generation of Eggelby, depicted in the glowing improbable colours of parent impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm. Mrs. Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm enough for two. “You would like Eric,” she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully. Clovis had intimated very unmistakably that he was unlikely to care extravagantly for either Amy or Willie. “Yes, I feel sure you would like Eric. Every one takes to him at once. You know, he always reminds me of that famous picture of the youthful David—I forget who it’s by, but it’s very well known.” “That would be sufficient to set me against him, if I saw much of him,” said Clovis. “Just imagine at auction bridge, for instance, when one was trying to concentrate one’s mind on what one’s partner’s original declaration had been, and to remember what suits one’s opponents had originally discarded, what it would be like to have some one persistently reminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simply maddening. If Eric did that I should detest him.” “Eric doesn’t play bridge,” said Mrs. Eggelby with dignity. “Doesn’t he?” asked Clovis; “why not?” “None of my children have been brought up to play card games,” said Mrs. Eggelby; “draughts and halma and those sorts of games I encourage. Eric is considered quite a wonderful draughts-player.” “You are strewing dreadful risks in the path of your family,” said Clovis; “a friend of mine who is a prison chaplain told me that among the worst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned to death or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a single bridge-player. On the other hand, he knew at least two expert draughts-players among them.” “I really don’t see what my boys have got to do with the criminal classes,” said Mrs. Eggelby resentfully. “They have been most carefully brought up, I can assure you that.” “That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out,” said Clovis. “Now, my mother never bothered about bringing me up. She just saw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals and was taught the difference between right and wrong; there is some difference, you know, but I’ve forgotten what it is.” “Forgotten the difference between right and wrong!” exclaimed Mrs. Eggelby. “Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of other subjects at the same time, and one can’t remember everything, can one? I used to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and the ordinary kind, and whether the wry-neck arrives at our shores earlier than the cuckoo, or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes in growing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things once, but I bet you’ve forgotten them.” “Those things are not important,” said Mrs. Eggelby, “but—” “The fact that we’ve both forgotten them proves that they are important,” said Clovis; “you must have noticed that it’s always the important things that one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick in one’s memory. There’s my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I can never forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October. It’s a matter of utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whether she was born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, or unnecessary—I’ve heaps of other cousins to go on with. On the other hand, when I’m staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember the important circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviable reputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and that uncertainty rules Sport and Finance out of the conversation at once. One can never mention travel, either, because her second husband had to live permanently abroad.” “Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles,” said Mrs. Eggelby stiffly. “No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in a circle,” said Clovis; “her view of life seems to be a non-stop run with an inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get some one else to pay for the petrol so much the better. I don’t mind confessing to you that she has taught me more than any other woman I can think of.” “What kind of knowledge?” demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jury might collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box. “Well, among other things, she’s introduced me to at least four different ways of cooking lobster,” said Clovis gratefully. “That, of course, wouldn’t appeal to you; people who abstain from the pleasures of the card-table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of the dining-table. I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment get atrophied from disuse.” “An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster,” said Mrs. Eggelby. “I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she’d often been ill before eating the lobster. Aren’t you concealing the fact that she’d had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria, and other things that aunts do have, long before she ate the lobster? Aunts that have never known a day’s illness are very rare; in fact, I don’t personally know of any. Of course if she ate it as a child of two weeks old it might have been her first illness—and her last. But if that was the case I think you should have said so.” “I must be going,” said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughly sterilised of even perfunctory regret. Clovis rose with an air of graceful reluctance. “I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric,” he said; “I quite look forward to meeting him some day.” “Good-bye,” said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark which she made at the back of her throat was— “I’ll take care that you never shall!”

CULLY By JACK EGAN - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26751/pg26751-images.html

 By all the laws of nature, he should have been dead. But if he were alive ... then there was something he had to find.

 

Cully considered his world. It was small; it was conceivable; it was incomplete.

Where is it?

“Ronnie is a great trial to me,” said Mrs. Attray plaintively. “Only eighteen years old last February and already a confirmed gambler. I am sure I don’t know where he inherits it from; his father never touched cards, and you know how little I play—a game of bridge on Wednesday afternoons in the winter, for three-pence a hundred, and even that I shouldn’t do if it wasn’t that Edith always wants a fourth and would be certain to ask that detestable Jenkinham woman if she couldn’t get me. I would much rather sit and talk any day than play bridge; cards are such a waste of time, I think. But as to Ronnie, bridge and baccarat and poker-patience are positively all that he thinks about. Of course I’ve done my best to stop it; I’ve asked the Norridrums not to let him play cards when he’s over there, but you might as well ask the Atlantic Ocean to keep quiet for a crossing as expect them to bother about a mother’s natural anxieties.” “Why do you let him go there?” asked Eleanor Saxelby. “My dear,” said Mrs. Attray, “I don’t want to offend them. After all, they are my landlords and I have to look to them for anything I want done about the place; they were very accommodating about the new roof for the orchid house. And they lend me one of their cars when mine is out of order; you know how often it gets out of order.” “I don’t know how often,” said Eleanor, “but it must happen very frequently. Whenever I want you to take me anywhere in your car I am always told that there is something wrong with it, or else that the chauffeur has got neuralgia and you don’t like to ask him to go out.” “He suffers quite a lot from neuralgia,” said Mrs. Attray hastily. “Anyhow,” she continued, “you can understand that I don’t want to offend the Norridrums. Their household is the most rackety one in the county, and I believe no one ever knows to an hour or two when any particular meal will appear on the table or what it will consist of when it does appear.” Eleanor Saxelby shuddered. She liked her meals to be of regular occurrence and assured proportions. “Still,” pursued Mrs. Attray, “whatever their own home life may be, as landlords and neighbours they are considerate and obliging, so I don’t want to quarrel with them. Besides, if Ronnie didn’t play cards there he’d be playing somewhere else.” “Not if you were firm with him,” said Eleanor “I believe in being firm.” “Firm? I am firm,” exclaimed Mrs. Attray; “I am more than firm—I am farseeing. I’ve done everything I can think of to prevent Ronnie from playing for money. I’ve stopped his allowance for the rest of the year, so he can’t even gamble on credit, and I’ve subscribed a lump sum to the church offertory in his name instead of giving him instalments of small silver to put in the bag on Sundays. I wouldn’t even let him have the money to tip the hunt servants with, but sent it by postal order. He was furiously sulky about it, but I reminded him of what happened to the ten shillings that I gave him for the Young Men’s Endeavour League ‘Self-Denial Week.’” “What did happen to it?” asked Eleanor. “Well, Ronnie did some preliminary endeavouring with it, on his own account, in connection with the Grand National. If it had come off, as he expressed it, he would have given the League twenty-five shillings and netted a comfortable commission for himself; as it was, that ten shillings was one of the things the League had to deny itself. Since then I’ve been careful not to let him have a penny piece in his hands.” “He’ll get round that in some way,” said Eleanor with quiet conviction; “he’ll sell things.” “My dear, he’s done all that is to be done in that direction already. He’s got rid of his wrist-watch and his hunting flask and both his cigarette cases, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s wearing imitation-gold sleeve links instead of those his Aunt Rhoda gave him on his seventeenth birthday. He can’t sell his clothes, of course, except his winter overcoat, and I’ve locked that up in the camphor cupboard on the pretext of preserving it from moth. I really don’t see what else he can raise money on. I consider that I’ve been both firm and farseeing.” “Has he been at the Norridrums lately?” asked Eleanor. “He was there yesterday afternoon and stayed to dinner,” said Mrs. Attray. “I don’t quite know when he came home, but I fancy it was late.” “Then depend on it he was gambling,” said Eleanor, with the assured air of one who has few ideas and makes the most of them. “Late hours in the country always mean gambling.” “He can’t gamble if he has no money and no chance of getting any,” argued Mrs. Attray; “even if one plays for small stakes one must have a decent prospect of paying one’s losses.” “He may have sold some of the Amherst pheasant chicks,” suggested Eleanor; “they would fetch about ten or twelve shillings each, I daresay.” “Ronnie wouldn’t do such a thing,” said Mrs. Attray; “and anyhow I went and counted them this morning and they’re all there. No,” she continued, with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a sense of painstaking and merited achievement, “I fancy that Ronnie had to content himself with the rôle of onlooker last night, as far as the card-table was concerned.” “Is that clock right?” asked Eleanor, whose eyes had been straying restlessly towards the mantel-piece for some little time; “lunch is usually so punctual in your establishment.” “Three minutes past the half-hour,” exclaimed Mrs. Attray; “cook must be preparing something unusually sumptuous in your honour. I am not in the secret; I’ve been out all the morning, you know.” Eleanor smiled forgivingly. A special effort by Mrs. Attray’s cook was worth waiting a few minutes for. As a matter of fact, the luncheon fare, when it made its tardy appearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which the justly-treasured cook had built up for herself. The soup alone would have sufficed to cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, and it was not redeemed by anything that followed. Eleanor said little, but when she spoke there was a hint of tears in her voice that was far more eloquent than outspoken denunciation would have been, and even the insouciant Ronald showed traces of depression when he tasted the rognons Saltikoff. “Not quite the best luncheon I’ve enjoyed in your house,” said Eleanor at last, when her final hope had flickered out with the savoury. “My dear, it’s the worst meal I’ve sat down to for years,” said her hostess; “that last dish tasted principally of red pepper and wet toast. I’m awfully sorry. Is anything the matter in the kitchen, Pellin?” she asked of the attendant maid. “Well, ma’am, the new cook hadn’t hardly time to see to things properly, coming in so sudden—” commenced Pellin by way of explanation. “The new cook!” screamed Mrs. Attray. “Colonel Norridrum’s cook, ma’am,” said Pellin. “What on earth do you mean? What is Colonel Norridrum’s cook doing in my kitchen—and where is my cook?” “Perhaps I can explain better than Pellin can,” said Ronald hurriedly; “the fact is, I was dining at the Norridrums’ yesterday, and they were wishing they had a swell cook like yours, just for to-day and to-morrow, while they’ve got some gourmet staying with them: their own cook is no earthly good—well, you’ve seen what she turns out when she’s at all flurried. So I thought it would be rather sporting to play them at baccarat for the loan of our cook against a money stake, and I lost, that’s all. I have had rotten luck at baccarat all this year.” The remainder of his explanation, of how he had assured the cooks that the temporary transfer had his mother’s sanction, and had smuggled the one out and the other in during the maternal absence, was drowned in the outcry of scandalised upbraiding. “If I had sold the woman into slavery there couldn’t have been a bigger fuss about it,” he confided afterwards to Bertie Norridrum, “and Eleanor Saxelby raged and ramped the louder of the two. I tell you what, I’ll bet you two of the Amherst pheasants to five shillings that she refuses to have me as a partner at the croquet tournament. We’re drawn together, you know.” This time he won his bet.