Genre Short Story. Page - 26

I certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday's 'Musée,' the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the cobbler s change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed. I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera sonum.

I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You thought of the poor cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the di

actice in ourneighborhood."

"I know you did, sir," I replied. "But what was a poor travelingportrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenessesfirst in one place and then in another, to do? Our bread dependedon his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him tolet them have a rest."

"Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerbycan get by portrait-painting?" asked the doctor.

"None," I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought ofhis bill for medical attendance.

"Will you pardon me?" he said, coloring and looking a littleuneasy, "or, rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interestI feel in you, if I ask whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortableincome by the practice of his profession? Don't," he went onanxiously, before I could reply--"pray don't think I make thisinquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!"

I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive forasking the question, and so answered it at once plainly and

"That he desired to conceal his handwriting."

"But why? What can it matter to him that his landlady shouldhave a word of his writing? Still, it may be as you say. Then,again, why such laconic messages?"

"I cannot imagine."

"It opens a pleasing field for intelligent speculation. The wordsare written with a broad-pointed, violet-tinted pencil of a notunusual pattern. You will observe that the paper is torn away atthe side here after the printing was done, so that the 's' of'soap' is partly gone. Suggestive, Watson, is it not?"

"Of caution?"

"Exactly. There was evidently some mark, some thumbprint,something which might give a clue to the person's identity. Now.Mrs. Warren, you say that the man was of middle size, dark, andbearded. What age would he be?"

"Youngish, sir--not over thirty."

"Well, can you give me no further indications?"

"He spoke good English, sir, and yet I thought he was a foreignerby his accent."

"And he was well dressed?"

"Very smartly dressed,

iews. For one thing, he was really close to the actual phenomena--visible and tangible--that he speculated so grotesquely about; and for another thing, he was amazingly willing to leave his conclusions in a tenative state like a true man of science. He had no personal preferences to advance, and was always guided by what he took to be solid evidence. Of course I began by considering him mistaken, but gave him credit for being intelligently mistaken; and at no time did I emulate some of his friends in attributing his ideas, and his fear of the lonely green hills, to insanity. I could see that there was a great deal to the man, and knew that what he reported must surely come from strange circumstance deserving investigation, however little it might have to do with the fantastic causes he assigned. Later on I received from him certain material proofs which placed the matter on a somewhat different and bewilderingly bizarre basis.

I cannot do better than transcribe in full, so far as is possible, the long

sort or another. They rarely maintain his interest for long."

He looked at the wall clock. "Your friends should have been here by now, shouldn't they?"

III

The swaying had come to a halt and it was dark. The Explorer was not comfortable in the alien air. It felt as thick as soup and he had to breathe shallowly. Even so--

He reached out in a sudden need for company. The Merchant was warm to the touch. His breathing was rough, he moved in an occasional spasm, and was obviously asleep. The Explorer hesitated and decided not to wake him. It would serve no real purpose.

There would be no rescue, of course. That was the penalty paid for the high profits which unrestrained competition could lead to. The Merchant who opened a new planet could have a ten year monopoly of its trade, which he might hug to himself or, more likely, rent out to all comers at a stiff price. It followed that planets were searched for in secrecy and, preferably, away from the usual trade routes. In a case s

d its offices. As the morning aged and the shadows grew shorter and thicker, so, generally, did the individuals who composed this morning procession. Eight o'clock was frequently young and slender and brisk, Eight-thirty less so, Nine still less, and rear-guard Ten o'clock was preponderantly neither young nor slender, and more often sluggish than brisk.

Into this rear guard, though physically he belonged to no later period than eight-thirty, a blue roadster carried Hubert Landow. His broad shoulders were blue-coated, his blond hair gray-capped, and he was alone in the roadster. With a glance around to make sure Millar's dark young man was not in sight, Alec Rush turned his coupe in the blue car's wake.

They rode swiftly into the city, down into its financial centre, where Hubert Landow deserted his roadster before a Redwood Street stockbroker's office. The morning had become noon before Landow was in the street again, turning his roadster northward.

When shadowed and shadower came to rest

ed" or some language to that effect. Henderson, the first mate, now took the matter up, being justly indignant, as well as the whole ship's crew, at a speech evincing so base a degree of heartless atrocity. He spoke plainly, seeing himself upheld by the men, told the captain he considered him a fit subject for the gallows, and that he would disobey his orders if he were hanged for it the moment he set his foot on shore. He strode aft, jostling Block (who turned pale and made no answer) on one side, and seizing the helm, gave the word, in a firm voice, Hard-a-lee! The men flew to their posts, and the ship went cleverly about. All this had occupied nearly five minutes, and it was supposed to be hardly within the bounds of possibility that any individual could be saved- allowing any to have been on board the boat. Yet, as the reader has seen, both Augustus and myself were rescued; and our deliverance seemed to have been brought about by two of those almost inconceivable pieces of good fortune which are attribute

The Devil in the Belfry
Lionizing
X-ing a Paragrab
Metzengerstein
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.
How to Write a Blackwood article
A Predicament
Mystification
Diddling
The Angel of the Odd
Mellonia Tauta
The Duc de l'Omlette
The Oblong Box
Loss of Breath
The Man That Was Used Up
The Business Man
The Landscape Garden
Maelzel's Chess-Player
The Power of Words
The Colloquy of Monas and Una
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
Shadow.--A Parable

stle in the air, especially if the magician had anything to do with it! I would much sooner come and help you to build real houses."

The traveller in the dusty brown cloak still shook his head.

"Little ladies in gold and silver gowns can only build castles in the air," he said.

"Do the people who live in your houses never build castles in the air?" asked the Princess.

"I never thought of asking them," answered the great builder. "I have been too much occupied in building their real houses."

"Then let us go and ask them now," said the Princess; and she came down from her castle in the air, and stepped once more on to the dusty road, and held out her little white hand to the traveller. Her castle in the air vanished like a puff of smoke the moment she stepped out of it.

"What would be the use of that?" asked the traveller, smiling. He took the little white hand, however, for no one could have refused that much to such a very charming Princess.

"Why," said the Pri

en: for this generosity in the heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of the worshippers of Baal."

"'That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the Pentateuch," said Buzi-Ben-Levi, "but that is only toward the people of Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved wanting to their own interests? Methinks it is no great stretch of generosity to allow us lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in lieu thereof thirty silver shekels per head !"

"Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi," replied Abel-Phittim, "that the Roman Pompey, who is now impiously besieging the city of the Most High, has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus purchased for the altar, to the sustenance of the body, rather than of the spirit."

"Now, by the five corners of my beard!" shouted the Pharisee, who belonged to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints whose manner of _dashing _and lacerating the feet against the pavement was long a thorn