METROPOLITAN

A New Serial

by the author of
"Terwilliger" "Grit" and "The Man
Who Knew Nothing on Earth"

PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDY BY J. P. HALEY

Tristram Tupper

The author of "Terwilliger" needs no recommendation to a regular Metropolitan readers. His "Terwilliger" (now going in the movies), "Grit" and "The Man Who Knew Nothing on Earth"—all published in the Metropolitan—pleased you as we know from the many kind letters you wrote us. Even our friendly competitors have ungrudgingly hailed these stories as a new note in current magazine fiction. We are glad to tell you that in the pages of the magazine which discovered Mr. Tupper will appear his first novel.

The House of the
Five Swords

In his most ambitious literary effort we promise you Tristram Tupper at his best, a charming whimsical story that will carry you from the first chapter to the last and make you glad you are alive!

Watch for the opening chapters of "The House of the Five Swords" in the December Metropolitan.

METROPOLITAN
FOR DECEMBER—OUT NOV. 15th

Contents for November 1921

VOL. LIV

NO. 4

SPECIAL ARTICLE

My American Diary (II) Clare Sheridan 20

SERIAL NOVEL

The Beautiful and Damned (Part III)
F. Scott Fitzgerald 31

Illustrations by Leslie L. Benson

SHORT STORIES

Keeban Edwin Balmer 7

Illustrations by Dalton Stevens

Lowered Lights with Music
Kenneth Payson Kempton 15

Illustrations by Edgar Wittmack

A Passion in the Park Lucia Chamberlain 11

Illustrations by Arthur William Brown

MacRonan R. S. Kirk 23

Illustrations by Arthur Fuller

Fredericka Inez Haynes Irwin 28

Illustrations by Ralph P. Coleman

The Water Bottle Maurice Leblanc 35

Illustrations by Robert W. Stewart

I'll Leave It to You Noel Coward 38

Illustrations by Clarence Underwood

METROPOLITAN FEATURES

A Practical Reduction of Armaments
H. J. Whigham 18

(An Editorial)

The Valor of Ignorance
(Financial Article)
Franklin Escher 64

Art Supplement in Rotarygravure
Cover Design
Lou Mayer

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Entered as second-class matter Jan. 11, 1913, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under
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## Metropolitan

"No wonder," I said to her. "Nobody ever looked backward fifteen hundred years into your eyes before. Wait till some man does that. You aint felt no creeps yet!"

She put the hound's leg down and turned to answer me; but this, it seemed, was not the proper arrangement. That mighty timber lifted out and up, and searched for it's former resting place on Shiela's shoulder, while the head lowered toward her hand with an arching of the powerful neck that would have rivalled the grace of an African barb. Attention: that's what MacRonan wanted. So Shiela took his head between her hands and pulled it down against her side, crooked an arm and forearm about it, and thrust her fingers into the defensive armor of hard hair that covered his neck. This, he would have us understand, was the proper way for a girl to talk to a red-headed man. As long as Shiela's finger-tips wandered about through the dense coat, so long it was granted that she might talk to me uninterruptedly; but let her hand forget its motion for a moment, and a nuzzling of that head beneath her arm would almost lift her from the floor. It took about a minute of this kind of love-making to bring the question I was waiting to hear.

"I wonder," said Shiela, looking up at me wistfully, her cheek against the great dog's neck, "would anybody sell a thing like this."

"You wonder what the wolfhound breeder buys, One-half so precious as the goods he sells?"

A very pleasant voice said that, making its own

MacRonan's tail motion from gentle and contented swaying to a wild lashing back and forth that threatened to knock down the wire screens at each end of his stall, proclaimed as Master of Slieve Cuilinn's hounds, a kindly gentleman of mild and thoughtful countenance and average physique, who drawled out Omar softly, instead of addressing us in crisp military phrases. His smile was very genuine, however, and a wide-flashing, elegantly satisfactory performance; and the eyes behind those hornframed windows were capable, I felt sure, of that metallic glister in the pale grey of them which is the only warning certain men give out before they let you have it.

He waited till an answering smile from Shiela gave him leave to speak again.

"There's only one thing possible to buy that's more precious than the goods we sell. That's the welfare of our breed. Mac, here is perhaps the grandest sire in the country, but if I could be convinced, and that shouldn't be impossible," (he wasn't looking *my* direction as he talked), "that I could help Irish wolfhounds by selling him, I'd have to let him go. But I'd much rather sell a puppy, of course."

"A puppy!" Shiela said, and hugged herself.

"The wolfdog is a rare breed," he went on. "You notice Mac is the only one here. There are perhaps three dozen genuine Irish wolfhounds this side the Atlantic. No more. So wolfdog meat," a pleasant smile of apology went with his delicate way of naming price, "is worth perhaps ten dollars a pound. If you decide you'd like to own a hound, why don't you visit my kennels and see the pups."

extended me a pasteboard, "has certainly strengthened a tradition that clings to the breed. It is said that even to this day an Irish wolfhound will show deference to a descendant of the ancient Irish kings."

Do you think that black-haired scamp would look at me? It wasn't fair; for the glance I turned on her was charged to sparking with "I-told-you-so," and she should have been sport enough to meet it. I really think she avoided it so that I wouldn't see her color fade again. Yseult of Connacht or Shiela Malloy; what did names matter; or time or place, if the spirit of an Irish princess lived in that flat-curved body of hers. But I thought I'd better button my lip, and let MacRonan do the talking. I'd been called monkey often enough for one day. Besides, after all, there was nothing supernatural in any man's conclusion that we were Irish. For one thing, I had my hat off. I looked for traces of presumptuousness about this gray-eyed man; but his smile was too frank and enraging; and his next question was so obviously a compliment that there was no taking offense at him.

"You're Irish surely?" he said. "I'm allowed the liberty of a guess—you and your sister."

I laughed as I returned the courtesy of a card. "American," I replied, "since hyphens have gone out of fashion. The word that used to go in front of the hyphen is easy enough—so long as the lady doesn't wear a mask," here the hard edge of a French heel bit into my instep, "but are you sure of 'sister'? Most guesses are for a more interesting relationship."

The way those hounds went past! Aideen ahead
—a streak of slate against the snow

pleasant alterations to Omar. We turned and saw a very pleasant face—a horn-rimmed-spectacled face, smiling and scholarly, topping spare, wiry shoulders. Not exactly the face of Finn MacCool. Sketch for yourself this leader of Cormac MacArt's wild Fenian militia; this master of the royal war-kennel of three hundred terrible wolfdogs, every last one of them able to run down a wolf and kill him single-handed—a thing no other living creature on the earth can do. Finn—Gaelic for 'fair.' Tall and blonde then; red-haired and blue-eyed; broad chested, quick muscled, straight mouthed; with level brows that met above the deep recess where the short nose started. But the change of

MacRonan's at his worst on the bench, too. If you could see him course a rabbit! I sometimes think he could take the kill away from a greyhound!

He slapped the hound affectionately on the ribs, and took possession of the heavy paw; but the wolfdog lifted his leg off of his master's forearm at once, and laid it back, gently, along side Shiela's throat.

"I've never seen the like," said the grey-eyed man, "but this lady," he found his pocket book and

"There's little similarity in your looks, that's true," said Mr. Robert Barton of Slieve Cuilinn kennels, "but you must remember that I've been fortunate enough to get a smile from both of you. And no such pair of grins ever came from different parents."

This Mr. Robert Barton had a head on him. If ever you should want to win the good graces of Shiela Malloy, just tell her that she looks like her mother, God rest her, when she smiles.

"I've heard, of course," this man was a hound himself for following up an advantage, "that in rare instances, a man and his wife have loved each other so well that with time they have started to

Metropolitan

65

Mac Ronan

(Continued from page 63)

along the lake, climbing up steeply, two miles or so beyond us, hair-pinned around the northern end of Moskwean, and then came back along its western side, still climbing sharply, the two legs of the hair-pin not five hundred yards apart.

We started running, but we hadn't gone a hundred yards from the car when I caught hold of Barton's arm and dragged him to a stop.

I pointed silently.

From behind a clump of trees that lined the lake side of the road, meandering across the water from us, a long town-car came, laboring at the long, hard grade; and as we looked, it bucked brutally once or twice, and stopped.

It dropped behind some brush and held our breath. A huddled figure in the chauffeur's seat rose up. Lowth: I would know that marvelous body at five thousand yards. He scrutinized his engine. We heard distinctly when the hood came down with a truculent slam. Then he went out of sight behind the closed section of the car. A door went 'chunk.' And Lowth was striding up the mountain road with a limp bundle draped across his shoulder.

"Aideen!"

The eager eyes glared out along the line of Barton's pointing finger. Lowth disappeared back of a line of trees. Sight-hound, we've done our part for you!

"I go to you Irish wolfdog!"

Barton's voice, I guess. Quiet and low like Barton's. But hard, hard, hard!

The long road stretched ahead two miles or more, and made its turn, and came back parallel to itself across the narrow path. The dog was like the silver serpent sleeping beneath the steep cliffs on either side.

"Watch her," said Barton. She was his dog. He knew her. But she had backed clear across the road before I saw what Barton wanted me to watch. One great leap carried her across the road. Another took her to the cliff edge.

I gazed down into the deep ravine of Moskwean and saw a thing so beautiful that I have neither the hope nor the desire to match it in this world. The wind had died. The lake was mirror-quiet. Up from the very bottom of the lake; up from the depths, mysterious, unplunged depths of Moskwean, a mighty dog, with dragon eyes and death-fang mouth came rushing. It was Bran, the mightiest dog the world has ever known, plunging to Aideen's aid. That was Loch Teernach Bran below me, not Lake Moskwean.

SHADOWY Bran and flesh and blood
Aideen met, and the marvelous re-
flection vanished in a twenty-foot
glass of spray. A moment of anxiety,
and then Aideen's wild face came
bursts to the surface and her long
legs and broad paws started to drive
her through the icy lake. Then we
turned our faces out toward the hair-
pin turn and ran.

She must have swum that quarter
mile, and scaled the almost perpendi-
cular cliff in unbelievable time, for it
was just as we were rounding the
sharp turn at the end of the lake that
we heard the shots. One. Two.
Three. Four. Five. Then a long,
heart sickening interval. She might
be at his throat. He might be cau-
tiously running, five feet he did
not match the work. Then,—six! Ai-
deen,—Aideen,—Aideen!

But even six had not quite done it. For when we went gasping past her a few minutes later, she was still crawling. The dog was under her; one back leg dragging out behind her; her long tail red from trailing limply in the broad blood-path that marked her progress up that snowy slope.

We could not stop. But she would

not have had us stop. She raised her
hand as we came up; but there was
no call for help in the brown-black
eyes. As yet no death film dulle
dled them. Instead I caught the flas
hing of that cruel dragon fire, even as
weakness brought the proud, wild
head down into the snow again. He'd
pay! I swore by the heathen gods
my ancient people swore by that he'd
pay!

Another minute's straining effort, and I saw Barton turn to the right and vanish in the trees. I swung in to follow Barton, and then I suddenly stopped, and held my bursting lungs to quietness a second.

Across the lake the cliffs that
sprang from Moskwean's bright
mirror soared up above the road as
many hundred feet as they dropped
downward from the road to the
water. The day was still and wind-
less. The cliff a perfect sounding
board. A faint sweet sound repeated,
and brought my lands to gasping ac-
tion again, and set up in my heart
a pounding that was not wholly the re-
sult of matching Barton's killing pace
on those five miles of icy road. There
was no mistaking it. The faint clear,
clink, clink, clink, came through the
trees that hid the road over there
where the little couple stood helpless.
My eyes were on the highway where
it emerged from behind the fringe of
growth, to run for a quarter mile
along the bald cliff face.

I knew it. I dog-chain.

Bran was a dog-chain. One hour till the gas struggle afoot upon that icy mountain grade. Like a fool, I stood and watched that road across the lake.

There!

It was flashed out in the open. The easy indolence was gone out of his stride; the lurching roll flattened to desperate effort. Two hours and more had passed since his steel lease had snapped, and the wire fence had gone down before him. Here was a dog!

Some intuition must have told him to
get on go by the empty car, for now
his lion colored body was leaping
along the silver background of the
icected cliff, toward the turn in the
road. Music flowed out of that road
that mighty running; such stately grace
was in it, such indescribable beauty,
such irresistible and majestic rhythm,
and dreadful strength. Grace and
beauty and rhythm and strength such
as Chopin wrote into his terrible war-
polonaise. As I watched MacRon charging
to thunder to our aid, the chords of
that thundering music surging
through me, the whole road back of
him seemed suddenly to fill with leap-
ing forms. The fearful battle-pack
of King Cormac MacArt seemed to be
springing along that icy cliff. Three
hundred sets of lion jaws a-slaver;
three hundred pairs of deep dark
eyes flashing dragon-fire; three hundred
deep throats snarling their frightful
challenge!

MACRONAN plunged out of my
sight into the trees, and the
ghost-pack that had filled the quarter
mile of open road behind him vanished.
Dreams, young Malloy! Dreams, you
fool! And a good half minute of
more precious than any you've ever
lived, gone,—wasted! And yet I think
my body flung itself up the stone path
to Shielia's help with a fresh strength
that maybe even Barton could not
have matched.

He was bruising his shoulders
against the stout oak door when I
got to him. Just once I tried it with him.
There was no more yield to it than to
the thick stone walls in which it
made a portal.

able, were unprotected. The rough
stones of the chimney made ideal foot-
ing. A couple kicks; a huddled leap;
and I was sprawling on a leopard rug
and the litter of the table I had
landed on. Lowth stood by a couch
on which my sister lay, and flipped
into place the cylinder of a long,
black service pistol as I rose.

"If you had only waited until I
finished this reloading," he said, "I
would have opened the door for you."

I heard the thump of Barton drop-
ing to the floor behind me.

"I never saw such wonderful
vitality," said Lowth. "I had to use
every chamber of the gun,—and I
shoot very well."

Barton took one step past me.

"Malloy will find out just how well
I shoot if you move again," said
Lowth, quietly, without a trace of
malice in his voice.

Barton went stiff.

"If you're so sure of that," said
Barton, "why don't you go and get
him?"

I reached out a stealthy hand and
tried to push Barton ahead; but he
must have been expecting that, for let
be braced. He turned to me and
shook his head.

"I can't," he said. "He has us."
I racked my brain for a reason
why he didn't shoot us both without
the sense of danger, and could only think
of one. Perhaps he really hadn't
found the time or the ammunition to
reload on that gun.

"That damned revolver isn't load-
ed, Barton,—go and get him!""

And I stood rooted.

"You see?" said Barton.

And yet one thing I couldn't see:
Why he should hold his fire. I knew
the fire on the couch beside him the
thing he had been wanting all his black
life: a woman he couldn't win. Women had yielded
to his wealth, the strength and
beauty of him, to his honeyed tongue,
to his brilliant brain. But here was
one that the combination of his
powers over women could not move.
Only one thing would make her his;
the pure brute strength of him. She
lay where he had flung her; breathing
heavily; her senseless figure twisted
out of helpless, beautiful lines that few
bodies would have had the suppleness
to assume. The pale warm color of
her shone through her thin night
dress. A rope of blue-black hair hung
down from her throat and trailed
out on the floor. One white foot hung
lively, — profiling against the dark
upholstery of the couch curves at in-
step and at arch such as might be
justified for.

Tomorrow she would be a tiger-cat.
strong in body; wild in spirit. Mag-
nificence of the operation. She would
fight with brain and muscle, teeth
and nails. He had sought for
a woman like that all his black life.

"We might as well be comfortable,
don't you think?" said Lowth politely.
He picked up a match box holder
from the floor and stepped toward
the fire place. Great logs and kind-
ling were in place. Lowth flung a
burning match into the carpet of pine
needles that covered the hearth.

It was all a play for time. A
minute or two in which to solve this
difficultly of then, the empty gun. He
could have killed us both bare-han-
ded; but the thing must be more
quickly done than that, for Shielia's
breathing was taking on a quick,
spasmodic quality that showed she
was conscious presently; and he
would not have the fighting spirit of
his broken by sight of the horror of a
death fight between men armed with
the dreadful arms of the weaponless.

It was all a play for time. I knew
it. Yet, if I leaped, that gun would
swing on Barton,—and maybe— So
we stood, poor devils that we were;
not as much brats in our two heads
as in his one,—outwitted.

Then came a quiet, cruel smile over

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4

METROPOLITAN

VOL. LIV

NO. 6

Contents for January 1922

SHORT STORIES

<table><tbody><tr><td>The Poachers</td><td>Rafael Sabatini</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Arthur Fuller</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Mad Americans</td><td>Stephen Vincent Benét</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Wallace Morgan</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Over a Dead Man's Chest</td><td>Edward Streeter</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Frank Street</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Constance</td><td>Inez Haynes Irwin</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Ralph Pallen Coleman</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Beyond the Horizon</td><td>Armstrong Livingston</td><td>31</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by James E. Allen</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Under the Dome</td><td>Oliver Peck Newman</td><td>33</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Nancy Fay</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The Tell-Tale Film</td><td>Maurice Leblanc</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Robert W. Stewart</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

SERIAL NOVELS

<table><tbody><tr><td>The House of the Five Swords (Part II)</td><td>Tristram Tupper</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Arthur I. Kellar</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The Beautiful and Damned (Part IV)</td><td>Scott Fitzgerald</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Illustrations by Leslie L. Benson</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

SPECIAL FEATURES

<table><tbody><tr><td>After Settling the Pacific<br>(An Editorial)</td><td>H. J. Whigham</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>My American Diary<br>(Further Experiences in Mexico)</td><td>Clare Sheridan</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>Two or Twenty-Year Bonds—which?<br>(Financial Article)</td><td>Franklin Escher</td><td>64</td></tr><tr><td>Art Supplement in Rotarygravure<br>Cover Design</td><td>Lou Mayer</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

H. J. WHIGHAM, President

JOSEPH F. HAGGERTY, Secretary and Treasurer

CARL HOVEY, Managing Editor

Entered as second-class matter Jan. 11, 1913, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of Mar. 3, 1870

Price 25c. per Copy; $3.00 per Year. All rights reserved. Foreign Subscriptions 85c. a Year Additional. London Offices, 6 Henreetta St., Covent Garden.

When you find a subscription blank enclosed in your magazine. It means that your subscription has expired with that number. To avoid a break in your subscription your renewal should be sent at once.

["Metropolitan", "January 1922", "# “THE LONG TRAIL” by KERMIT ROOSEVELT", "(Courtesy N. Y. Tribune)", "—his new book about his\nfather—the book every mother\n—every father—every boy and\ngirl—should read", "\"The Long Trail\" is the one book this year you must read, for all your friends will be talking about it.", "And if there is a boy in your home, or if you know one, you owe it to the blessed rights of all boys over all grown ups to put your copy of \"The Long Trail\" in his hands after you have read it.", "It may come back a little thumb marked but the Recording Angel will rub out a black mark against your heavenly record for every young, eager thumb mark on your copy of \"The Long Trail.\"", "No copies of the *autographed* edition of \"The Long Trail\" will be sold anyone, anywhere.", "The publication plans are aimed to put the complete and limited autographed edition into the hands of old friends and admirers of Colonel Roosevelt.", "## KERMIT ROOSEVELT will tell you —", "how Theodore Roosevelt told ghost stories to his children on Long Island outings and impersonated the ghost", "how he earned the cooperation of his boys", "the Colonel philosophizing on his porch at Sagamore", "why he was not a crack shot, but of his other qualities that made him a successful hunter", "the legend of the \"I stories\" in the\nRoosevelt family", "Theodore Roosevelt's fondness for canned tomatoes on his hunting trips the hunting trip he enjoyed most and why why he championed the naturalists and gave them recognition", "the books he chose for reading on his\nexpeditionary trips", "why he didn't like French poetry", "his favorite hunting companion of early days", "how he hailed the first lion he bagged", "the disillusionments of African trophies in Oyster Bay\nsettings", "how he paid for his fun as he expressed it", "how he broke conventions to enjoy an American breakfast on his Amazon trip", "the reasons for the terrible hardships he underwent in the River of Doubt expedition", "the sufferings of the Colonel crazed with fever in the Amazon jungles", "the almost complete annihilation of the\nRoosevelt party", "what Kermit Roosevelt thought when he learned of the death of his father while stationed in a little town in Germany", "## FREE with Your Magazine Subscription", "\"The Long Trail\" is an intimate, vivid, affectionate picture of Roosevelt the man, from the outings on the north shore of Long Island where Kermit Roosevelt as a child shivered at his father's ghost stories to the fever touched jungles of the Amazon, when grown to manhood he looked at death with his father.", "To the lure and the thrill of the great outdoors is added the charm of a loving appreciation of a father who was a good chum.", "Owing to the limited number and great value of these volumes, each bearing the autograph of Kermit Roosevelt, the plan is to place them in the hands of admirers and friends of Theodore Roosevelt rather than to restrict the distributing of the books to the usual field of valuable autographed editions.", "Theodore Roosevelt's intimate friendship with Dr. Shaw, Editor of the Review of Reviews, and his active editorial connection with the Metropolitan, attracted", "many of his\nfriends and ad-\nmirers to these two\nmagazines, so that\nprobably among their\nreaders may be found", "more old friends of the Colonel", "than in any other associated group of\nAmericans.", "For this reason you, among others, have now the opportunity of securing an autographed copy of \"The Long Trail\" FREE with a year's subscription each to the Review of Reviews and the Metropolitan.", "### \"THE LONG TRAIL\"", "The book measures 514x734 inches. It is tastily bound in brown mottled art board with cloth back. The book is printed from new plates, in large easy-to-read type, and on fine wove paper, purchased before the war. There are four full-page illustrations from pictures drawn by Theodore Roosevelt, and unpublished photographs taken by Kermit Roosevelt on expeditions with his father. Each book is in a handsome box, making it worthy of a place of honor on your library table; or it would make an ideal gift package. While the limited edition lasts—free with your magazine subscription.", "**FREE** Send the coupon—TODAY—with only 25c. You will receive, postpaid, delivered to your own home, the first copy each of the Review of Reviews and the Metropolitan, and they will keep on coming each month for one full year—(or your present subscription extended).", "And in addition you will receive—ENTIRELY FREE OF CHARGE—one of the limited number of copies of \"The Long Trail\" autographed by Kermit Roosevelt.", "MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY", "REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO. 39 Irving Place, New York", "Met. 1-22", "Please send me, postpaid, a copy of \"The Long Trail,\" handsomely bound, and autographed by the author—Kermit Roosevelt. At the same time enter my subscription to the Review of Reviews and the Metropolitan Magazine for one full year each.", "(If you are already a subscriber to either magazine, your subscription may be extended or the subscription entered for a friend.)", "I enclose 25c. and agree to send you 75c. a month for 9 months, which covers the regular subscription price of the two magazines, and keep the autographed copy of \"The Long Trail\" FREE.", "Name ....................

32

Metropolitan

January 1922

direction, so he found the going pretty wearisome work. He was practically exhausted when he reached his destination, and, without quite realizing it, the long days, with only a mule for company, had begun to chafe his spirit.

"It was all new to me," he told us. "You see, I'm a sociable man, and I'd never been so much alone in all my life before. During those two solid weeks of hiking I never laid my eyes on a fellow creature—and precious few animals. It made me nervous . . ."

He reached his goal just at nightfall of a particularly trying day. One of those maddening days when nothing can go right. He had made coffee in the morning and upset the pot in taking it from the fire; he had neither the time nor the patience to make more, so he breakfasted on bacon and cold beans and hit the trail. It was the first really hot day of the year, and by noontime his head was splitting; in the afternoon he slipped on a moss-covered stone and bruised his shin so severely that each subsequent step was an agony. He had trouble with the mule, which selected this last stage of the journey to be especially mulish.

"And that night the poor critter died. I never knew why." He paused for a few moments of reflection. "Gosh, how I used to hate that unfortunate animal—and how I grew to miss him after he was dead!"

He had chosen a site for his camp on the fringe of the forest, just where the woods ended and the bare mountains began. A tumbling brook came leaping down from them, and he pitched his tent about a dozen yards from its edge so that he would always have plenty of water at hand.

"I was too busy to pay much attention to the scenery the next day," continued Sears. "I remember I spent the time doctoring my leg, gathering a big store of dry wood, and generally getting things ship-shape, for I meant to use that camp as a base for all future operations. The mule's death had sort of anchored me there, anyhow."

In the morning he took his pick and his pan and started up the brook, washing a bit of gravel now and then, and occasionally chipping a rock or two when he found a place that looked hopeful. He failed to strike color with his pick, but the pan showed traces that encouraged him to persevere; he hardly raised his eyes until nearly sundown, when the waning light told him it was high time to be getting back to camp. Then he straight-

the doomed soul wanders for all eternity, with never another soul to speak to. That's what Hell is, gentlemen; I've had a taste of it, and I know!"

Still, mining prospectors don't expect their lines to lie in earthly paradises. Sears shook off his despondent mood as best he could and buckled down to work in real earnest.

At the end of a week he had determined that washing the stream would never pay, and, since he had discovered a rock formation that appeared promising, he decided to sink a shaft to the depth of a few yards at least. In the event of his locating anything good, he knew people who would provide the capital for a regular plant.

Thereupon he set himself to the deadliest, dreariest, most monotonous task known to man. Day after day he left his camp early in the morning, stumbled along the rocky margin of the brook for half a mile or more until he reached the scene of his labors, toiled all day beneath a blistering sun making holes in the flint-like rock for the dynamite, and at twilight dragged his weary limbs back to camp. Often he was too tired to get a meal, and then he would throw himself on his blankets with a handful of dry biscuits and awaken in the morning to the knowledge that he had fallen asleep while eating them.

At the end of three weeks he was in a miserable plight. His body was a mass of bruises; his hands were swollen and lacerated; his finger-nails were torn to the quick. He broiled all day beneath the merciless sun, and shivered all night in spite of his blankets. He arrived eventually at that pitiable state of being too tired to sleep, and thus insomnia added its peculiar horror to the long list of his sufferings.

"But the worst thing of all was the loneliness!" Sears' voice was hardly more than a whisper for the moment. "There wasn't a wild animal to prowl around the tent at night, nor a bird to sing at dawn. He was the only creature that moved in all that hell of desolation. Then I happened to recall an expression I had once heard: 'Alone with God.' That put the idea of prayer into my head, and one evening at dusk I got right down on my knees and prayed—not for strength, or patience, or gold, but just for company. I asked that something, or somebody, be sent in time to keep me from going crazy . . ."

He was so confident that his petition would be heard and granted, so sure that the answer would

something had stirred in the darkness! He leaned forward, his pulses throbbing, and peered intently through the fading light. Then, abruptly, his vigil was rewarded.

A narrow, pointed head, about the size of a kit's ten's and not unlike it, appeared above the log. Two sharp ears closed up from it, and two bright eyes fixed their unblinking gaze upon the strange being that sat by the fire. Sears knew it to be a marten.

There was a small sack of biscuits within his reach, and he very cautiously extended his arm until his fingers closed upon one of them, the bright eyes of the animal following the movement with sharp interest. He tossed the biscuit about a yard beyond the log, and of course the marten disappeared like a flash with the lifting of his arm. Sears waited motionless, scarcely daring to breathe, for ten minutes that seemed like hours. It was rapidly growing dark and the shadows along the edge of the brook were steadily growing deeper, but before night shut down he was able to distinguish a darker shadow that stole silently toward the white scrap of biscuit. There followed the soft crunching of little teeth, and the man thought he had never heard a more beautiful sound in his life.

That was the beginning of a better time. He knocked off half an hour from his day's work, so that he would finish his dinner with a comfortable interval before dark, and patiently undertook the conquest of his new friend's innate timidity. In this he was successful, to a measurable extent. At the end of a week the marten left its shelter behind the log and came boldly forth into the open; at the end of two it ventured so close to him that he could count its whiskers—and did. It was the play of a child with a toy; but the child was a grown man, and the toy had preserved his sanity.

"I didn't forget to thank God for answering my prayer," said Sears.

But the full measure of that answer was yet to come. He returned to his camp one evening to find a stranger in possession; an amiable and considerate person, apparently, for he had already filled the kettle and hung it above the fire, which he had built in readiness for the owner's homecoming.

He turned out to be a hunter, at present engaged in laying a line of traps through the woods. In about a week he would return over the same route,

ened up and took a survey of his surroundings.

"I was feeling mighty low in my mind, anyway, seeing that I had the gold-mining fever pretty bad and hadn't found any real medicine for it, but when I got a good look at that country it just about finished me off. Nothing in sight but rocks—plain, gray, ugly rocks, with never a spear of green stuff to ease the eye or cheer the spirit. Talk about desolation! Or dreariness! It came to me as I stood there that Hell was not the sulphurous, flaming, exciting pit I'd been taught to expect; nothing like it. I knew, then, and I haven't changed my opinion since, that Hell is a cold, bleak place composed of endless rocks and cañons through which

> It was the play of a child with a toy; but the child was a grown man, and the toy had preserved his sanity

be quick in coming, that he cooked an elaborate meal and ate it with the best appetite he had enjoyed for a fortnight. When he had finished, he settled himself with his back to a stump, filled his pipe, and lighted it.

He was facing the brook as he sat there, and in a few minutes he thought he detected a slight movement among the shadows behind a big log that lay parallel with the edge of the stream. Surely,

gathering the fruits of his toil and preparing the pelts for market; meanwhile, he had stumbled upon Sears' camp and knew he would be welcome to a night's shelter.

"Of course you are," declared Sears heartily.

He was childishly grateful for the man's company. It was such a relief to have someone to talk to that he could hardly eat his meal, and when they were finished and had their pipes going he was for the moment the happiest man in the state. He was on the point of saying as much when an explanation from the trapper startled him into sudden concern.

"My golly!" whispered (Continued on page 43)

38

## Metropolitan

January 1922

broken off the tips of the branches on the way through the forest. Rose Andrée has managed to break off some to the right of this opening, in the hope that she would be discovered as on the first occasion."

"Yes," said Hortense, "it's a proof that she has been here; but the proof is three weeks old. Since that time . . ."

"Since that time, she is either dead and buried under a heap of leaves or else alive in some hole even lonelier than this."

"If so, where is he?"

Rénine pricked up his ears. Repeated blows of the axe were sounding from some distance, no doubt coming from a part of the forest that was being cleared.

"He?" said Rénine, "I wonder whether he may not have continued to behave under the influence of the film and whether the man of the woods in *The Happy Princess* has not quite naturally resumed his calling. For how is the man to live, to obtain his food, without attracting attention? He will have found a job."

"We can't make sure of that."

"We might, by questioning the woodcutters whom we can hear."

The car took them by a forest-road to another cross-roads where they entered on foot a track which was deeply rutted by wagon-wheels. The sound of axes ceased. After walking for a quarter of an hour, they met a dozen men who, having finished work for the day, were returning to the villages, near by.

"Will this path take us to Routot?" asked Rénine, in order to open a conversation with them.

"No, you're turning your backs on it," said one of the men, gruffly.

And he went on, accompanied by his mates.

Hortense and Rénine stood rooted to the spot. They had recognized the butler. His cheeks and chin were shaved, but his upper lip was covered by a black moustache, evidently dyed. The eyebrows no longer met and were reduced to normal dimensions.

THUS, in less than twenty hours, acting on the vague hints supplied by the bearing of a filmactor, Serge Rénine had touched the very heart of the tragedy by means of purely psychological arguments.

"Rose Andrée is alive," he said. Otherwise Dalbrèque would have left the country. The poor thing must be imprisoned and bound up; and he takes her some food at night."

"We will save her, won't we?"

"Certainly, by keeping a watch on him and, if necessary, but in the last resort, compelling him by force to give up his secret."

They followed the woodcutter at a distance and, on the pretext that the car needed overhauling, engaged rooms in the principal inn at Routot.

Attached to the inn was a small cafe from which they were separated by the entrance to the yard and above which were two rooms, reached by a wooden outer staircase, at one side. Dalbrèque occupied one of these rooms and Rénine took the other for his chauffeur.

Next morning he learnt from Adolphe that Dalbrèque, on the previous evening, after all the lights were out, had carried down a bicycle from his room and mounted it and had not returned until shortly before sunrise.

The bicycle tracks led Rénine to the uninhabited Château des Landes, five miles from the village. They disappeared in a rocky path which ran beside the park down to the Seine, opposite the Jumièges peninsula.

Next night, he took up his position there. At eleven o'clock, Dalbrèque climbed a bank, scrambled over a wire fence, hid his bicycle under the branches and moved away

It seemed impossible to follow him in the pitchy darkness, on a mossy soil that muffled the sound of footsteps. Rénine did not make the attempt; but, at daybreak, he came with his chauffeur and hunted through the park all the morning. Though the park, which covered the side of a hill and was bounded below by the river, was not very large, he found no clue which gave him any reason to suppose that Rose Andrée was imprisoned there

He therefore went back to the village, with the firm intention of taking action that evening and employing force:

"This state of things cannot go on," he said to Hortense. "I must rescue Rose Andrée at all costs and save her from that rufian's clutches. He must be made to speak. He must. Otherwise there's a danger that we may be too late."

That day was Sunday; and Dalbrèque did not go to work. He did not leave his room except for lunch and went upstairs again immediately afterwards. But at three o'clock Rénine and Hortense, who were keeping a watch on him from the inn, saw him come down the wooden staircase, with his bicycle on his shoulder. Leaning it against the bottom step, he inflated the tires and fastened to the handle-bar a rather bulky object wrapped in a newspaper.

"By Jove!" muttered Rénine.

"What's the matter?"

In front of the cafe was a small terrace bordered on the right and left by spindle-trees planted in boxes, which were connected by a paling. Behind the shrubs, sitting on a bank but stooping forward so that they could see Dalbrèque through the branches, were four men.

"Police! said Rénine. "What bad luck! If those fellows take a hand, they will spoil everything."

"Why? On the contrary. I should have thought . . ."

"Yes, they will. They will put Dalbrèque out of the way . . . and then? Will that give us Rose Andrée?"

Dalbrèque had finished his prevarications. Just as he was mounting his bicycle, the detectives rose

in a body, ready to make a dash for him. But Dalbrèque, though quite unconscious of their presence, changed his mind and went back to his room as though he had forgotten something.

"Now's the time!" said Rénine. "I'm going to risk it. But it's a difficult situation and I've no great hopes."

He went out into the yard and, at a moment when the detectives were not looking, ran up the staircase, as was only natural if he wished to give an order to his chauffeur. But he had no sooner reached the rustic balcony at the back of the house, which gave admission to the two bedrooms than he stopped. Dalbrèque's door was open. Rénine walked in.

Dalbrèque stepped back, at once assuming the defensive:

"What do you want? Who said you could . . .?"

"Silence!" whispered Rénine, with an imperious gesture. "It's all up with you!"

"What are you talking about?" growled the man, angrily.

"Lean out of your window. There are four men below on the watch for you to leave, four detectives."

Dalbrèque leant over the terrace and muttered an oath:

"On the watch for me?" he said, turning round.

"What do I care?"

"They have a warrant."

He folded his arms:

"Shut up your piegle! A warrant! What's that to me?"

"Listen," said Rénine, "and let us waste no time. It's urgent. Your name's Dalbrèque, or, at least, that's the name under which you acted in *The Happy Princess* and under which the police are looking for you as being the murderer of Bourguet the jeweller, the man who stole a motor-car and forty thousand francs from the World's Cinema Company and the man who abducted a woman at Le Havre. All this is known and proved and here's the upshot. Four men down stairs. Myself here, my chauffeur in the next room. You're done for. Do you want me to save you?"

Dalbrèque gave his adversary a long look:

"Who are you?"

"A Friend of Rose Andrée's," said Rénine.

The other started and, to some extent dropping his mask, retorted:

"What are your conditions?"

"Rose Andrée, whom you have abducted and tormented, is dying in some hole or corner. Where is she?"

A strange thing occurred and impressed Rénine. Dalbrèque's face, usually so common, was lit up by a smile that made it almost attractive. But this was only a flashing vision: the man immediately resumed his hard and impassive expression.

"And suppose I refuse to speak?" he said.

"So much the worse for you. It means your arrest."

"I dare say; but it means the death of Rose Andrée. Who will release her?"

"You. You will speak now, or in an hour, or two hours hence at latest. You will never have the heart to keep silent and let her die."

Dalbrèque shrugged his shoulders. Then, raising his hand, he said:

"I swear on my life that, if they arrest me, not a word will leave my lips."

"What then?"

"Then save me. We will meet this evening at the entrance to the Parc des Landes and say what we have to say."

"Why not at once?"

"I have spoken."

"Will you be there?"

"I shall be there."

Rénine reflected. There was something in all this that he failed to grasp. In any case, the frightful danger that threatened Rose Andrée dominated the whole situation; and Rénine was not the man to despise this threat and to persist out of vanity in a perilous course. Rose Andrée's life came before everything.

He struck several blows on the wall of the next bedroom and called his chauffeur.

"Adolphe, is the car ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Start her and pull her up in front of the terrace outside the café, right against the boxes so as to block the exit. As for you," he continued, addressing Dalbrèque, "you're to jump on your machine and, instead of making off along the road, cross the yard. At

(Continued on page 44)

Dalbrèque is alleged to have committed a murder which created a great stir last year, the murder of Bourguet, the jeweller

42

Metropolitan

January 1922

party, followed by her two friends. For several
moments the conversation becomes entirely frag-
mentary. (Gloria calls Anthony aside.)

Gloria—Please, don't drink much, Anthony.

Anthony—Why?

Gloria—Because you're so simple when you're
drunk.

Anthony—Good Lord! What's the matter now?

Gloria—(after a pause during which her level eyes gaze coolly into his) Several things. In the first place, why do you insist on paying for everything. Both those men have more money than you!

Anthony—Why, Gloria! They're my guests!

Gloria—When we have to keep selling bonds to
even pay our bills it's time to cut down on
excess generosities. Moreover, I wouldn't be

Bring the bowl that you boast—"

(Paramore joins in with a deprecating smile.)

Maury—Fill the cup, Frederick. You know everything's subordinated to nature's purposes with us, and her purpose with you is to make you a rip-roaring tippler.

Paramore—If a fellow can drink like a gentle-
man—

Maury—What is a gentleman, anyway?

Anthony—A man who never has pins under his
coat lapel.

Gloria—A man who never uses the word gentle-
man.

Maury—Nonsense! A man's social rank is determined by the amount of bread he eats in a sandwich.

Gloria—He's a man who can do nothing, gracefully.

Dick—He's a man who prefers the first edition of a book to the last edition of a newspaper.

Rachael—A man who never gives an impersonation of a dope-flend.

Maury—An American man who can fool an English butler into thinking he's one. A man who's unconsciously unconscious of servants.

Muriel—A man who comes from a good family and went to Yale or Harvard or Princeton and has money and dances well, and all that.

Maury—At last—the perfect
definition! Cardinal New-

course not. (Rachael smiles at him inscrutably.)

Maury—(Holding up his glass) Here's to the defeat of democracy and the fall of Christianity.

Muriel—Now, really! (She flashes a mock-
reproachful glance at Maury and then drinks.)

They all drink, with varying degrees of difficulty.)

Muriel—Clear the floor!

(It seems inevitable that this process is to be gone through, so Anthony and Gloria join in the great moving of tables, piling of chairs, rolling of carpets and breaching of lamps. When the furniture has been stacked in ugly masses at the sides there appears a space about eight feet square.)

Rachael—Let's have a folk-dance.

Maury—I wonder if there are any. Does anybody actually believe that the delicate products of 'years at the ballet-bar are actually practiced by horny-handed peasants who pick up wheat?'

Muriel—Oh, let's have music!

Maury—And Tana!

(Amid some confusion due to the fact that Tana has retired for the night, preparations are made for the performance. The pajama'd oriental, flute in hand, is wrapped in a comforter and placed in a chair atop one of the tables, where he makes a ludicrous and grotesque spectacle.)

Muriel will dance with Rodaln Barnes, Anthony with Rachael. Gloria insists upon dancing alone. Paramore is perceptibly drunk and so enraptured with the notion that he increases the effect by simulating funny-paper staggers and even venturing on an occasional hiccough.)

Paramore—(to Gloria) Want to dance with me?

Gloria—No, sir! Want to do the swan dance. Can you do it?

Paramore—Sure. Do them all.

Gloria—All right. You start from that side of the room and I'll start from this.

Muriel—Let's go!

(Then Bedlam creeps screaming out of the bottles! Tana plunges into the recondite mazes of the Train Song, the plaintive "tootle toothead" blending its melancholy cadence with the "Poor But-ter-fly (tinkatink), by the blossoms wait-ing-" of the phonograph. Muriel is too weak with laughter to do more than cling desperately to Barnes who, dancing with

quite so at-
tentive to
Rachael
Barnes. Her hus-
band doesn't like
it any more than
I do!

Anthony — Why,
Gloria —

Gloria — (mimicking him sharply)

“Why, Gloria!”

But that's happened a little too often this summer, with every pretty woman you meet. It's grown to be a sort of habit and I'm not going to stand it! If you can play around, I can, too. (Then, as an afterthought)

By the way, this Fred person isn't a
second Joe Hull, is he?

Anthony—Heavens, no! He probably came
up to get me to wheedle some money out
of grandfather for his flock.

(Gloria leaves a very depressed Anthony and returns to her guests.)

"What am I
supposed to do?
chase you all over the
country? Live on your
money"

(By nine o'clock these can be divided into two classes—those who have been drinking consistently and those who have taken little or nothing. In the second group are the Barnes, Muriel and Frederick E. Paramore.)

Gloria—(weaving unsteadily among the company like an exhilarated angel) If anyone's hungry there's some French pastry on the dining room table.

Maury—Can't tolerate those Victorian designs it comes in.

Muriel—(violently amused) I'll say you're tight, Maury. (Her bosom is still a pavement that she offers to the hoofs of many passing stallions, hoping that their iron shoes may strike even a spark of romance in the darkness . . .

Messrs. Barnes and Paramore have been engaged in conversation upon some wholesome subject, a subject so wholesome that Mr. Barnes has been trying for several moments to creep into the more tainted air around the central lounge.)

Maury—Fred, I imagined you were very broadminded.

Paramore—I am. In fact I pride myself on being broad-minded.

Maury—Well, such a broad-minded man should consider the raised plane of sensation and the stimulated optimism contained in this cocktail.

Paramore—(taking the drink—rather defiantly) Thanks. I'll try—one.

Maury—One? Outrageous! Here we have a class of 1910 reunion and you refuse to be even a little tickled. Come on!

"Here's a health to King Charles!

man's is now a back number.

Paramore—I think we should look on the question more broadly. Was it Abraham Lincoln who said that a gentleman is one who never inflicts pain?

Maury—It's attributed, I believe, to General Ludendorff.

Paramore—Surely you're joking.

Maury—Have another drink.

Maury—I oughtn't. (Lowering his voice for Maury's ear alone) What if I were to tell you that this is the third drink I've ever taken in my life.

(Dick starts the phonograph, which provokes Muriel to rise and sway from side to side, her elbows against her ribs, her forearms perpendicular to her body and out like fins.)

Muriel—Oh, let's take up the rugs and dance:

(This suggestion is ill-received by Anthony and Gloria, who, however, falsely proclaim themselves delighted.)

Muriel—Come on, you lazy-bones. Get up and move the furniture back.

Dick—Wait till I finish my drink.

Maury—(Intent on his purpose toward Paramore) I'll tell you what. Let's each fill one glass, drink it off—and then we'll dance.

(A wave of protest which breaks against the rock of Maury's insistence.)

Muriel—My head is simply going 'round now.

Rachael—(In an undertone to Anthony) Did Gloria tell you to stay away from me?

Anthony—(Confused) Why certainly not. Of

the ominous rigidity
of any army officer,
tramps without hu-
mor around the
room. Anthony is
trying to hear

Rachael's whisper—without attracting Gloria's attention . . .

But the grotesque, the unbelievable, the historic incident is about to occur; one of those incidents in which life seems set upon the passionate imitation of the lowest form of art. Paramore has been trying to emulate Gloria and as the connection reaches its height he begins to spin 'round and 'round, more and more dizzyingly— he staggers, recovers, staggers again and then falls in the direction of the hall, almost into the arms of Old Adam Patch, whose approach has been rendered inaudible by the pandemonium of the room.

Adam Patch is very white. He leans upon a stick. The man with him is Edward Shuttleworth and it is he who seizes Paramore by the shoulder and deflects the course of his fall away from the venerable philanthropist.

The time required for quiet to descend upon the room like a monstrous pull may be estimated at two minutes, though for a short period after that the phonograph gags and the notes of the Japanese Train Song dribble from the end of Tana's flute. Of the nine people, only Barnes, Paramore and Tana are unaware of the latecomer's identity. Of

(Continued on page 52)

## Metropolitan

But a door opened at the back of the room and an old peasant woman entered with a tray laden with bread, butter and milk:

"Here, Rose, my pretty one, I've brought you your supper. Milk fresh from the cow . . . And, putting down the tray, she continued:

"Aren't you afraid, Rose, of the chill of the night air? Perhaps you're expecting your sweetheart?"

my dear old Catherine."

"What next!" said the old woman, laughing. "Only this morning there were footprints under the window that didn't look at all proper!"

"A burglar's footprints perhaps, Catherine."

"Well, I don't say as they weren't, Rose dear, especially as in your calling you have a lot of people around you whom it's well to be careful of. For instance, your friend Dalbrébre, eh? Nice goings on his are!"

"AIDS!" said Hortense and Rénine would have much liked to know what Rose Andrée thought of the revelations, but she had turned her back to them and was sitting at her supper; and the window was now closed, so that they could neither reply nor see the expression of her features.

They waited for a moment. Hortense was listening with an anxious face. But Rénine began to laugh:

"Very funny, really funny! And such an unexpected ending! And you who were hunting for her in some cave or damp cellar, a horrible tomb where the poor thing was dying of hunger. It's a fact, she knew the terrors of that first night of captivity; and that, at least, was the night, she was flung, half-dead, into the cave! Only, there you are: the next morning she was alive! One night was enough to tame the little rogue and to make her a beautiful, handsome, and therefore, in her eyes! For see the difference. On the films or in novels, the Happy Princesses resist or commit suicide. But in real life . . . oh, woman, woman!"

"Yes," said Hortense, "but the man she loves is almost certainly dead."

"And a good thing too! It would be the best solution. What would be the outcome of this criminal love for a thief and murderer?"

A few minutes passed. Then, amid the peaceful silence of the waning day, mingled with the first shadows of the twilight, they again heard the grating of the window, which was cautiously opened. Rose Andrée leant over the garden and waited, with her eyes turned to the well, as though she saw something there.

Presently, Rénine shook the ivy branches.

"Ah!" she said. "This time I know you're there! Yes, the ivy's moving. Georges, Georges, darling, why do you keep me waiting? Catherine has got me, and I am alone! From the window, which was

"Georges!" "Georges!" Her every movement, the thrill of her voice, her whole being expressed desire and love. Hortense, deeply touched, could not help saying:

"How the poor thing loves him! If she but knew . . ."

"Ah!" cried the girl. "You've spoken. You're there, and you want me to come to you, don't you? Here I am, Georges!"

She climbed over the window-ledge and began to run, while Rénine went round the well and advanced to meet her.

She stopped short in front of him and stood choking at the sight of this man and woman whom she did not know and who were stepping out of the very shadow from which her beloved appeared to her each night.

Rénine bowed, gave his name and introduced his companion:

"Madame Hortense Daniel, a pupil and friend of your mother's."

Still motionless with stupendence, her features drawn, she stammered: "You know who I am? . . . And you were there just now? . . . You heard what I was saying? . . ."

Rénine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:

"You are Rose Andrée, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other evening; and circumstances led us to set out in search of you . . . to Le Havre, where you were abducted at the day when you were to have left for America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned."

She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh:

"What is all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here. Abducted? Imprisoned? What non-sense!"

"Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off some branches to the right of the cave."

"How absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy."

"There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just now."

"Yes, my lover," she said, proudly. "Have I not the right to receive whom I like?"

"You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to you every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbrébre. He killed Bourguet the jeweller."

The accusation made her start with indignation and she exclaimed:

"It's a lie! An infamous fabrication of the newspapers for Georges was in Paris on the night of the murder. He can prove it."

"He stole a motor car and forty thousand francs in notes."

She retorted vehemently:

"The motor-car we had back by his friends and the notes will be restored. He never touched them. My leaving for America had made him lose his head."

"Very well. I am quite willing to believe everything that you say. But the police may show less faith in these statements and less indulgence."

She became suddenly uneasy and faltered:

"The police . . . There's nothing to fear from them . . . They won't know."

"Where to find him? I succeeded, at all events. He's working as a woodcutter, in the forest of Brotonne."

"Yes, but . . . you . . . that was an accident . . . whereas the police . . ."

THE words left her lips with the greatest difficulty. Her voice was trembling. And suddenly she rushed at Rénine, stammering:

"He is arrested? . . . I am sure of it! . . . And you have come to tell me . . . Arrested! Wounded! Dead perhaps? . . . Oh, please, please! . . ."

She had no strength left. All her pride, all the certainty of her great love gave way to an immense despair and she sobbed out:

"No, he's not dead, is he? No, I feel that he's not dead. Oh, sir, how unjust it all is! He's the gentlest man, the best that ever lived. He has changed my whole life. Everything is different since I began to love him. And he'll knelt down and was distantly stretching out her shapely arms covered with bangles which clashed with a metallic sound: . . ."

An impulse of sympathy made Hortense put her arms around the girl's neck and say, warmly:

"Yes, come. He is not dead, I am sure, only wounded; and Prince Rénine will save him. You will, won't you, Rénine? . . . Come. Make up a story for your servant: say that you're going somewhere by train and

"You have the talents of a bloodhound—find him!"

WITH that sentence she set her son upon the trail of the man she had sworn to love! Like a hound he pursues his father—the father whom he had never seen—the husband who turned snarling blood-hounds loose upon his bride—across seas, into mining camps—while you follow with breathless interest to as odd a climax as ever ended a mystery tale. Who wrote this amazing medley of suspense and fun? Who else could have written it but that most amazing author, Mark Twain, himself.

As far back as you can remember you have heard of Mark Twain as a story-teller. You have doubtless read many of his imperishable works. But did you know that this great story-teller had written his conception of how a story should be told? This he has done, in his most charming and fascinating manner, and you may have it

## FREE—How to Tell a Story

Merely clip the coupon and we shall send you the free booklet below, which contains Mark Twain's delightful and instructive essay, "How to Tell a Story." The booklet also contains a complete reprint of one of the funniest stories the great humorist ever wrote—the story that first brought him wide recognition and formed the cornerstone of his immortal fame. We have included in this same little book interesting and valuable information about the

Author's National Edition

of the works of

## MARK TWAIN

This is the only complete edition of Mark Twain's writings. Originally published by Harper & Brothers, it was taken over by P. F. Collier & Son Company upon the merging of the subscription book business of the two publishing houses.

Here in the complete works of Mark Twain, you join "Huck" Finn and Tom Sawyer in their boyish pranks—you live the quaint life of steamboat days and the Far West—you see foreign lands and people through the eye of the master humorist—you thrill to every wholesome human emotion with Mark Twain's stories at hand.

Mark Twain's versatile mind gave to the world a perfectly balanced library of humor, adventure, philosophy, and inspiration.

You should at least know something about this famous author's works.

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generation feeling a sense of personal
debt to any man of a past one.”

"MAY I come to call, Miss Barrington?" Greenough asked later as he corrected her to the fliver. He stepped on the running-board.

"Certainly," Constance replied graciously. And then as he stepped to the ground: "But not until you've read the life of Susan B. Anthony," she flung viciously over her shoulder.

MRS. BARRINGTON, at perpetual
fascinated watch over her life's
dearest treasure, observed that Con-
stance was distraint at dinner that
night. Like all mothers, she gained
her not inconsiderable knowledge of
her daughter's daily life. "Good for
indirect methods. This was, more-
over, inevitable in her case, as Con-
stance was singularly uncommuni-
cative. Tonight Mrs. Barrington haz-
arded direct inquiry.

"Tired, Connie?" she asked.

"No—not exactly."

"Did Mrs. Lawrence have any-
thing special to say?" Mrs. Barrin-
ton probed further.

"No. She and Miss Elliman had to go over to the Johns soon after I came. They weren't there when I decorated the table."

"Did it look pretty?"

Constance—now that there was no
danger of talk on personalities—
roused herself. She arranged it as if
charming. She arranged a long avenue
of the chandelier buttons in flat masses
and the gladioli in high hedges be-
hind them, and then I placed a pro-
cession of little Japanese figures
along the avenue—winding in and
out in thedarlinggest way. She was
not, of course, nothing of any
social consequence, Mrs. Barrington
decided, especially as in answer to her
questions about the Belaize Country
Club, Constance continued to deliver
full detail. Yet a kind of unease per-
sisted, and often, often back when she
had the least to say. On the other hand,
she often thought the hardest when she
had the most to say.

"You answer it, Connie," she said
finally when the telephone bell put
temporary stop to their talk. She
took up a magazine. The conversa-
tion on the wire, however, cut her off
from her story at the end of the first
sentence. She listened with intent
ears and eager eyes.
"Oh, good evening," Mrs. Law-
rence, she heard Constance say.
"Oh, did you like it? I'm so glad. I
thought it looked rather sweet my-
self." That meant nothing, of course
—only Mrs. Lawrence's thanks. But
instantly must have come something
different over the wire; for Constance
said, "Oh, thank you! I should be
delighted. It's kind of you to ask me
me! . . . That sounds charming.
Yes, I know them all . . . Thursday
and aneck . . . at eight.
You thank you."

Inwardly Mrs. Barrington blazed
with curiosity. She did not know
whether to break into the moment of
preoccupation into which, still sitting
at the telephone, Constance imme-
diately fell; and she did not know
whether to be proud or infuriated at
the nonchalance with which Con-
stance, finally breaking it herself,
announced:

"Mrs. Lawrence has invited me to
a dinner-party at her house next
week."

TO an observer there might have
been question over the daughter's
attitude; he could have entertained no
doubt as to the mother's feeling in the
matter. "I am so sorry," said Constance
imme-
diately to triumph shore out of every
angle of Mrs. Barrington. Then
apparently a chilling consideration
struck her. "Who else is going?" she
demanded with a little catch in her
breath.

"Fredericka Garnett." Constance
answered with indifference, "and of
course, Mr. Duff, Patty Dade and Dr.
Raeburn, Miss Elliman and Dabney
Elliman, Max Cady—and of course

Miss Nash and—now who was
the twelfth? Oh yes, Mr. Greenough.

It was not what, for an instant,
Mrs. Barrington had feared—a din-
er for the Little Finger Point girls
who had been, at various village fes-
tivities, of assistance to Mrs. Law-
rence; these were the most fashion-
able names in the community. Mrs.
Barrington dropped her lids over the
flare in her eyes. "I've said for a
long time," she meditated aloud,
"that you needed a new evening-
gown and now you're going to have
it—of the kind I've wanted for you
ever since you've grown up—ivory
satin and lace. And you're going to
wear with it Aunt Sharley's set of
black enamel and pearl."

"I really don't want a new gown,
mother," Constance unaccountably
said, "My blue will do quite well
enough. Please don't get me an-
other!" she ended in an imploring
tone.

THE next morning, Mrs. Winch
again called. Mrs. Winch did not
appear every day; but she was almost
certain to run in the Barringtons
if Constance had had any recent so-
sial relations with Belaize or the fash-
ionable regions of the Four Finger
Point community. This morning,
however, she did not seem so much a
Mrs. Winch inquisitive as a Mrs.
Winch loquacious who confronted
them. She did not as usual bristle
with unexpressed questions. Indeed
the preliminaries of greeting had
scarcely passed when the excitement
of suppressed information began to
quiver in her face. Constance, gazing
dreamingly off over a peacock ocean,
seemed to have forgotten her pres-
ence. Mrs. Barrington gave her her
head; listened with comment to a
false start or two.

"I was visiting Mrs. Darrell over
at the other end of the Point yester-
day," came finally out of her pre-
ambles, "and I heard the greatest
mess of gossip about Mrs. Darrell. You
see, Mrs. Darrell's second maid,
Celia, is cousin to one of Mrs. Law-
rence's maids—Maggie, I think her
name is. Celia tells Mrs. Darrell
everything that Maggie tells her.
And Mrs. Darrell told me not that
I ever believe servants' gossip or en-
courage it. But Mrs. Darrell said
Celia got started on this story and
she didn't want to hurt her feel-
ings by stopping her, so she let
her go on." Mrs. Winch paused,
breathless.

"Yes," Mrs. Barrington agreed, "if
once they get started talking—or you
listening—it is difficult to put an end
to it."

"Nash." It was Constance who
supplied the name.

"Yes—Mrs. Nash! Well, Maggie
says they'll sit for hours over the
dinner-table—when they're alone, of
course—while Mrs. Lawrence tells
her about the people she snubbed.
And Mrs. Nash laughing at every-
thing fit just to kill. Maggie says Mrs.
Lawrence just delights in sitting on
people who try to get in with her.
That Mrs. Cochrane at the end of
our Point—not the pretty Mrs. Coch-
rane, the silly one—the one that's
just built, that new half-timbered
house."

"Yes, I know," Mrs. Barrington
said a little impatiently.
"Well, Mrs. Lawrence appointed
her chairman of one of the pageant
committees. She worked day and
night, and Mrs. Lawrence soft-soaked
her just as long as she needed her.
Mrs. Cochrane was sure, of course,
high with her; so when the pageant
was over Mrs. Cochrane invited her
to dinner. Mrs. Lawrence accepted
and Mrs. Cochrane made up a big
party; got up the most elegant din-
er; and just five minutes before
eight o'clock Mrs. Cochrane was
her up and said she did not feel well
enough to go. 'Sick,' she said;
'In a cat's eye!' Callers came that
evening, and they played fox and

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