The Wrong Box Read online

  CHAPTER XI. The Maestro Jimson

  Mr Edward Hugh Bloomfield having announced his intention to stay in theneighbourhood of Maidenhead, what more probable than that the MaestroJimson should turn his mind toward Padwick? Near this pleasant riversidevillage he remembered to have observed an ancient, weedy houseboat lyingmoored beside a tuft of willows. It had stirred in him, in his carelesshours, as he pulled down the river under a more familiar name, a certainsense of the romantic; and when the nice contrivance of his story wasalready complete in his mind, he had come near pulling it all downagain, like an ungrateful clock, in order to introduce a chapter inwhich Richard Skill (who was always being decoyed somewhere) shouldbe decoyed on board that lonely hulk by Lord Bellew and the Americandesperado Gin Sling. It was fortunate he had not done so, he reflected,since the hulk was now required for very different purposes.

  Jimson, a man of inconspicuous costume, but insinuating manners,had little difficulty in finding the hireling who had charge of thehouseboat, and still less in persuading him to resign his care. The rentwas almost nominal, the entry immediate, the key was exchanged against asuitable advance in money, and Jimson returned to town by the afternoontrain to see about dispatching his piano.

  'I will be down tomorrow,' he had said reassuringly. 'My opera is waitedfor with such impatience, you know.'

  And, sure enough, about the hour of noon on the following day, Jimsonmight have been observed ascending the riverside road that goes fromPadwick to Great Haverham, carrying in one hand a basket of provisions,and under the other arm a leather case containing (it is to beconjectured) the score of Orange Pekoe. It was October weather; thestone-grey sky was full of larks, the leaden mirror of the Thamesbrightened with autumnal foliage, and the fallen leaves of the chestnutschirped under the composer's footing. There is no time of the yearin England more courageous; and Jimson, though he was not without histroubles, whistled as he went.

  A little above Padwick the river lies very solitary. On the oppositeshore the trees of a private park enclose the view, the chimneys of themansion just pricking forth above their clusters; on the near side thepath is bordered by willows. Close among these lay the houseboat, athing so soiled by the tears of the overhanging willows, so grown uponwith parasites, so decayed, so battered, so neglected, such a haunt ofrats, so advertised a storehouse of rheumatic agonies, that the heartof an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, by way of flyingdrawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment forJimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on thisunwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in theabhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain;the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water. Itcould not be called a cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed inbeloved toil; how much less for a young gentleman haunted by alarms andawaiting the arrival of a corpse!

  He sat down, cleared away a piece of the table, and attacked the coldluncheon in his basket. In case of any subsequent inquiry into the fateof Jimson, It was desirable he should be little seen: in other words,that he should spend the day entirely in the house. To this end, andfurther to corroborate his fable, he had brought in the leather case notonly writing materials, but a ream of large-size music paper, such as heconsidered suitable for an ambitious character like Jimson's. 'And nowto work,' said he, when he had satisfied his appetite. 'We must leavetraces of the wretched man's activity.' And he wrote in bold characters:

  ORANGE PEKOE. Op. 17. J. B. JIMSON. Vocal and p. f. score.

  'I suppose they never do begin like this,' reflected Gideon; 'but thenit's quite out of the question for me to tackle a full score, andJimson was so unconventional. A dedication would be found convincing, Ibelieve. "Dedicated to" (let me see) "to William Ewart Gladstone, by hisobedient servant the composer." And now some music: I had better avoidthe overture; it seems to present difficulties. Let's give an air forthe tenor: key--O, something modern!--seven sharps.' And he made abusinesslike signature across the staves, and then paused and browsedfor a while on the handle of his pen. Melody, with no better inspirationthan a sheet of paper, is not usually found to spring unbidden in themind of the amateur; nor is the key of seven sharps a place of muchrepose to the untried. He cast away that sheet. 'It will help to buildup the character of Jimson,' Gideon remarked, and again waited onthe muse, in various keys and on divers sheets of paper, but all withresults so inconsiderable that he stood aghast. 'It's very odd,' thoughthe. 'I seem to have less fancy than I thought, or this is an off-daywith me; yet Jimson must leave something.' And again he bent himself tothe task.

  Presently the penetrating chill of the houseboat began to attack thevery seat of life. He desisted from his unremunerative trial, and, tothe audible annoyance of the rats, walked briskly up and down the cabin.Still he was cold. 'This is all nonsense,' said he. 'I don't care aboutthe risk, but I will not catch a catarrh. I must get out of this den.'

  He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his embarkation, lookedfor the first time up the river. He started. Only a few hundred yardsabove another houseboat lay moored among the willows. It was veryspick-and-span, an elegant canoe hung at the stern, the windows wereconcealed by snowy curtains, a flag floated from a staff. The moreGideon looked at it, the more there mingled with his disgust a senseof impotent surprise. It was very like his uncle's houseboat; it wasexceedingly like--it was identical. But for two circumstances, hecould have sworn it was the same. The first, that his uncle had gone toMaidenhead, might be explained away by that flightiness of purpose whichis so common a trait among the more than usually manly. The second,however, was conclusive: it was not in the least like Mr Bloomfield todisplay a banner on his floating residence; and if he ever did, itwould certainly be dyed in hues of emblematical propriety. Now theSquirradical, like the vast majority of the more manly, had drawnknowledge at the wells of Cambridge--he was wooden spoon in the year1850; and the flag upon the houseboat streamed on the afternoon air withthe colours of that seat of Toryism, that cradle of Puseyism, thathome of the inexact and the effete Oxford. Still it was strangely like,thought Gideon.

  And as he thus looked and thought, the door opened, and a young ladystepped forth on deck. The barrister dropped and fled into his cabin--itwas Julia Hazeltine! Through the window he watched her draw in thecanoe, get on board of it, cast off, and come dropping downstream in hisdirection.

  'Well, all is up now,' said he, and he fell on a seat.

  'Good-afternoon, miss,' said a voice on the water. Gideon knew it forthe voice of his landlord.

  'Good-afternoon,' replied Julia, 'but I don't know who you are; do I? Oyes, I do though. You are the nice man that gave us leave to sketch fromthe old houseboat.'

  Gideon's heart leaped with fear.

  'That's it,' returned the man. 'And what I wanted to say was as youcouldn't do it any more. You see I've let it.'

  'Let it!' cried Julia.

  'Let it for a month,' said the man. 'Seems strange, don't it? Can't seewhat the party wants with it?'

  'It seems very romantic of him, I think,' said Julia, 'What sort of aperson is he?'

  Julia in her canoe, the landlord in his wherry, were close alongside,and holding on by the gunwale of the houseboat; so that not a word waslost on Gideon.

  'He's a music-man,' said the landlord, 'or at least that's what he toldme, miss; come down here to write an op'ra.'

  'Really!' cried Julia, 'I never heard of anything so delightful! Why, weshall be able to slip down at night and hear him improvise! What is hisname?'

  'Jimson,' said the man.

  'Jimson?' repeated Julia, and interrogated her memory in vain. Butindeed our rising school of English music boasts so many professors thatwe rarely hear of one till he is made a baronet. 'Are you sure you haveit right?'

  'Made him spell it to me,' replied the landlord. 'J-I-M-S-O-N--Jimson;and his op'ra's called--some kind of tea.'

  'SOME KIND OF TEA!' cried the girl. 'What a very singular name
for anopera! What can it be about?' And Gideon heard her pretty laughter flowabroad. 'We must try to get acquainted with this Mr Jimson; I feel surehe must be nice.'

  'Well, miss, I'm afraid I must be going on. I've got to be at Haverham,you see.'

  'O, don't let me keep you, you kind man!' said Julia. 'Good afternoon.'

  'Good afternoon to you, miss.'

  Gideon sat in the cabin a prey to the most harrowing thoughts. Here hewas anchored to a rotting houseboat, soon to be anchored to it stillmore emphatically by the presence of the corpse, and here was thecountry buzzing about him, and young ladies already proposing pleasureparties to surround his house at night. Well, that meant the gallows;and much he cared for that. What troubled him now was Julia'sindescribable levity. That girl would scrape acquaintance with anybody;she had no reserve, none of the enamel of the lady. She was familiarwith a brute like his landlord; she took an immediate interest (whichshe lacked even the delicacy to conceal) in a creature like Jimson! Hecould conceive her asking Jimson to have tea with her! And it was for agirl like this that a man like Gideon--Down, manly heart!

  He was interrupted by a sound that sent him whipping behind the door ina trice. Miss Hazeltine had stepped on board the houseboat. Her sketchwas promising; judging from the stillness, she supposed Jimson not yetcome; and she had decided to seize occasion and complete the workof art. Down she sat therefore in the bow, produced her block andwater-colours, and was soon singing over (what used to be called) theladylike accomplishment. Now and then indeed her song was interrupted,as she searched in her memory for some of the odious little receiptsby means of which the game is practised--or used to be practised in thebrave days of old; they say the world, and those ornaments of the world,young ladies, are become more sophisticated now; but Julia had probablystudied under Pitman, and she stood firm in the old ways.

  Gideon, meanwhile, stood behind the door, afraid to move, afraid tobreathe, afraid to think of what must follow, racked by confinement andborne to the ground with tedium. This particular phase, he felt withgratitude, could not last for ever; whatever impended (even the gallows,he bitterly and perhaps erroneously reflected) could not fail to bea relief. To calculate cubes occurred to him as an ingenious and evenprofitable refuge from distressing thoughts, and he threw his manhoodinto that dreary exercise.

  Thus, then, were these two young persons occupied--Gideon attacking theperfect number with resolution; Julia vigorously stippling incongruouscolours on her block, when Providence dispatched into these waters asteam-launch asthmatically panting up the Thames. All along the banksthe water swelled and fell, and the reeds rustled. The houseboat itself,that ancient stationary creature, became suddenly imbued with life, androlled briskly at her moorings, like a sea-going ship when she beginsto smell the harbour bar. The wash had nearly died away, and the quickpanting of the launch sounded already faint and far off, when Gideon wasstartled by a cry from Julia. Peering through the window, he beheldher staring disconsolately downstream at the fast-vanishing canoe.The barrister (whatever were his faults) displayed on this occasion apromptitude worthy of his hero, Robert Skill; with one effort of hismind he foresaw what was about to follow; with one movement of his bodyhe dropped to the floor and crawled under the table.

  Julia, on her part, was not yet alive to her position. She saw she hadlost the canoe, and she looked forward with something less than avidityto her next interview with Mr Bloomfield; but she had no idea that shewas imprisoned, for she knew of the plank bridge.

  She made the circuit of the house, and found the door open and thebridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, that Jimson must have come;plain, too, that he must be on board. He must be a very shy man tohave suffered this invasion of his residence, and made no sign; and hercourage rose higher at the thought. He must come now, she must force himfrom his privacy, for the plank was too heavy for her single strength;so she tapped upon the open door. Then she tapped again.

  'Mr Jimson,' she cried, 'Mr Jimson! here, come!--you must come, youknow, sooner or later, for I can't get off without you. O, don't be soexceedingly silly! O, please, come!'

  Still there was no reply.

  'If he is here he must be mad,' she thought, with a little fear. And thenext moment she remembered he had probably gone aboard like herself ina boat. In that case she might as well see the houseboat, and she pushedopen the door and stepped in. Under the table, where he lay smotheredwith dust, Gideon's heart stood still.

  There were the remains of Jimson's lunch. 'He likes rather nice thingsto eat,' she thought. 'O, I am sure he is quite a delightful man. Iwonder if he is as good-looking as Mr Forsyth. Mrs Jimson--I don'tbelieve it sounds as nice as Mrs Forsyth; but then "Gideon" is so reallyodious! And here is some of his music too; this is delightful. OrangePekoe--O, that's what he meant by some kind of tea.' And she trilledwith laughter. 'Adagio molto espressivo, sempre legato,' she readnext. (For the literary part of a composer's business Gideon was wellequipped.) 'How very strange to have all these directions, andonly three or four notes! O, here's another with some more. Andantepatetico.' And she began to glance over the music. 'O dear me,' shethought, 'he must be terribly modern! It all seems discords to me. Let'stry the air. It is very strange, it seems familiar.' She began to singit, and suddenly broke off with laughter. 'Why, it's "Tommy make roomfor your Uncle!"' she cried aloud, so that the soul of Gideon was filledwith bitterness. 'Andante patetico, indeed! The man must be a mereimpostor.'

  And just at this moment there came a confused, scuffling sound fromunderneath the table; a strange note, like that of a barn-door fowl,ushered in a most explosive sneeze; the head of the sufferer was atthe same time brought smartly in contact with the boards above; and thesneeze was followed by a hollow groan.

  Julia fled to the door, and there, with the salutary instinct of thebrave, turned and faced the danger. There was no pursuit. The soundscontinued; below the table a crouching figure was indistinctly to beseen jostled by the throes of a sneezing-fit; and that was all.

  'Surely,' thought Julia, 'this is most unusual behaviour. He cannot be aman of the world!'

  Meanwhile the dust of years had been disturbed by the young barrister'sconvulsions; and the sneezing-fit was succeeded by a passionate accessof coughing.

  Julia began to feel a certain interest. 'I am afraid you are reallyquite ill,' she said, drawing a little nearer. 'Please don't let me putyou out, and do not stay under that table, Mr Jimson. Indeed it cannotbe good for you.'

  Mr Jimson only answered by a distressing cough; and the next momentthe girl was on her knees, and their faces had almost knocked togetherunder the table.

  'O, my gracious goodness!' exclaimed Miss Hazeltine, and sprang to herfeet. 'Mr Forsyth gone mad!'

  'I am not mad,' said the gentleman ruefully, extricating himself fromhis position. 'Dearest. Miss Hazeltine, I vow to you upon my knees I amnot mad!'

  'You are not!' she cried, panting.

  'I know,' he said, 'that to a superficial eye my conduct may appearunconventional.'

  'If you are not mad, it was no conduct at all,' cried the girl, witha flash of colour, 'and showed you did not care one penny for myfeelings!'

  'This is the very devil and all. I know--I admit that,' cried Gideon,with a great effort of manly candour.

  'It was abominable conduct!' said Julia, with energy.

  'I know it must have shaken your esteem,' said the barrister. 'But,dearest Miss Hazeltine, I beg of you to hear me out; my behaviour,strange as it may seem, is not unsusceptible of explanation; and Ipositively cannot and will not consent to continue to try to existwithout--without the esteem of one whom I admire--the moment is illchosen, I am well aware of that; but I repeat the expression--one whom Iadmire.'

  A touch of amusement appeared on Miss Hazeltine's face. 'Very well,'said she, 'come out of this dreadfully cold place, and let us sit downon deck.' The barrister dolefully followed her. 'Now,' said she, makingherself comfortable against the end of the house, 'go on. I will hearyou out.' And then, seeing him s
tand before her with so much obviousdisrelish to the task, she was suddenly overcome with laughter. Julia'slaugh was a thing to ravish lovers; she rolled her mirthful descant withthe freedom and the melody of a blackbird's song upon the river, andrepeated by the echoes of the farther bank. It seemed a thing in its ownplace and a sound native to the open air. There was only one creaturewho heard it without joy, and that was her unfortunate admirer.

  'Miss Hazeltine,' he said, in a voice that tottered with annoyance, 'Ispeak as your sincere well-wisher, but this can only be called levity.'

  Julia made great eyes at him.

  'I can't withdraw the word,' he said: 'already the freedom with which Iheard you hobnobbing with a boatman gave me exquisite pain. Then therewas a want of reserve about Jimson--'

  'But Jimson appears to be yourself,' objected Julia.

  'I am far from denying that,' cried the barrister, 'but you did notknow it at the time. What could Jimson be to you? Who was Jimson? MissHazeltine, it cut me to the heart.'

  'Really this seems to me to be very silly,' returned Julia, with severedecision. 'You have behaved in the most extraordinary manner; youpretend you are able to explain your conduct, and instead of doing soyou begin to attack me.'

  'I am well aware of that,' replied Gideon. 'I--I will make a cleanbreast of it. When you know all the circumstances you will be able toexcuse me.

  And sitting down beside her on the deck, he poured forth his miserablehistory.

  'O, Mr Forsyth,' she cried, when he had done, 'I am--so--sorry! wishI hadn't laughed at you--only you know you really were so exceedinglyfunny. But I wish I hadn't, and I wouldn't either if I had only known.'And she gave him her hand.

  Gideon kept it in his own. 'You do not think the worse of me for this?'he asked tenderly.

  'Because you have been so silly and got into such dreadful trouble? youpoor boy, no!' cried Julia; and, in the warmth of the moment, reachedhim her other hand; 'you may count on me,' she added.

  'Really?' said Gideon.

  'Really and really!' replied the girl.

  'I do then, and I will,' cried the young man. 'I admit the moment is notwell chosen; but I have no friends--to speak of.'

  'No more have I,' said Julia. 'But don't you think it's perhaps time yougave me back my hands?'

  'La ci darem la mano,' said the barrister, 'the merest moment more! Ihave so few friends,' he added.

  'I thought it was considered such a bad account of a young man to haveno friends,' observed Julia.

  'O, but I have crowds of FRIENDS!' cried Gideon. 'That's not what Imean. I feel the moment is ill chosen; but O, Julia, if you could onlysee yourself!'

  'Mr Forsyth--'

  'Don't call me by that beastly name!' cried the youth. 'Call me Gideon!'

  'O, never that,' from Julia. 'Besides, we have known each other such ashort time.'

  'Not at all!' protested Gideon. 'We met at Bournemouth ever so long ago.I never forgot you since. Say you never forgot me. Say you never forgotme, and call me Gideon!'

  'Isn't this rather--a want of reserve about Jimson?' enquired the girl.

  'O, I know I am an ass,' cried the barrister, 'and I don't care ahalfpenny! I know I'm an ass, and you may laugh at me to your heart'sdelight.' And as Julia's lips opened with a smile, he once more droppedinto music. 'There's the Land of Cherry Isle!' he sang, courting herwith his eyes.

  'It's like an opera,' said Julia, rather faintly.

  'What should it be?' said Gideon. 'Am I not Jimson? It would be strangeif I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and Imean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny ofmy own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and yet I mean to win you,Julia. Look at me, if you can, and tell me no!'

  She looked at him; and whatever her eyes may have told him, it is to besupposed he took a pleasure in the message, for he read it a long while.

  'And Uncle Ned will give us some money to go on upon in the meanwhile,'he said at last.

  'Well, I call that cool!' said a cheerful voice at his elbow.

  Gideon and Julia sprang apart with wonderful alacrity; the latterannoyed to observe that although they had never moved since they satdown, they were now quite close together; both presenting faces of avery heightened colour to the eyes of Mr Edward Hugh Bloomfield. Thatgentleman, coming up the river in his boat, had captured the truantcanoe, and divining what had happened, had thought to steal a march uponMiss Hazeltine at her sketch. He had unexpectedly brought down two birdswith one stone; and as he looked upon the pair of flushed and breathlessculprits, the pleasant human instinct of the matchmaker softened hisheart.

  'Well, I call that cool,' he repeated; 'you seem to count very securelyupon Uncle Ned. But look here, Gid, I thought I had told you to keepaway?'

  'To keep away from Maidenhead,' replied Gid. 'But how should I expect tofind you here?'

  'There is something in that,' Mr Bloomfield admitted. 'You see I thoughtit better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those rascals,the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them offthe scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not all,Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you playing the fool atPadwick.'

  'Please, Mr Bloomfield, you must not be hard on Mr Forsyth,' said Julia.'Poor boy, he is in dreadful straits.'

  'What's this, Gid?' enquired the uncle. 'Have you been fighting? or isit a bill?'

  These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the two misfortunesincident to gentlemen; and indeed both were culled from his own career.He had once put his name (as a matter of form) on a friend's paper; ithad cost him a cool thousand; and the friend had gone about with thefear of death upon him ever since, and never turned a corner withoutscouting in front of him for Mr Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As forfighting, the Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, when(in the character of president of a Radical club) he had cleared outthe hall of his opponents, things had gone even further. Mr Holtum,the Conservative candidate, who lay so long on the bed of sickness, wasprepared to swear to Mr Bloomfield. 'I will swear to it in any court--itwas the hand of that brute that struck me down,' he was reported to havesaid; and when he was thought to be sinking, it was known that he hadmade an ante-mortem statement in that sense. It was a cheerful day forthe Squirradical when Holtum was restored to his brewery.

  'It's much worse than that,' said Gideon; 'a combination ofcircumstances really providentially unjust--a--in fact, a syndicate ofmurderers seem to have perceived my latent ability to rid them of thetraces of their crime. It's a legal study after all, you see!' And withthese words, Gideon, for the second time that day, began to describe theadventures of the Broadwood Grand.

  'I must write to The Times,' cried Mr Bloomfield.

  'Do you want to get me disbarred?' asked Gideon.

  'Disbarred! Come, it can't be as bad as that,' said his uncle. 'It'sa good, honest, Liberal Government that's in, and they would certainlymove at my request. Thank God, the days of Tory jobbery are at an end.'

  'It wouldn't do, Uncle Ned,' said Gideon.

  'But you're not mad enough,' cried Mr Bloomfield, 'to persist in tryingto dispose of it yourself?'

  'There is no other path open to me,' said Gideon.

  'It's not common sense, and I will not hear of it,' cried Mr Bloomfield.'I command you, positively, Gid, to desist from this criminalinterference.'

  'Very well, then, I hand it over to you,' said Gideon, 'and you can dowhat you like with the dead body.'

  'God forbid!' ejaculated the president of the Radical Club, 'I'll havenothing to do with it.'

  'Then you must allow me to do the best I can,' returned his nephew.'Believe me, I have a distinct talent for this sort of difficulty.'

  'We might forward it to that pest-house, the Conservative Club,'observed Mr Bloomfield. 'It might damage them in the eyes of theirconstituents; and it could be profitably worked up in the localjournal.'

  'If you see any political capital in the thing,' said
Gideon, 'you mayhave it for me.'

  'No, no, Gid--no, no, I thought you might. I will have no hand in thething. On reflection, it's highly undesirable that either I or MissHazeltine should linger here. We might be observed,' said thepresident, looking up and down the river; 'and in my public positionthe consequences would be painful for the party. And, at any rate, it'sdinner-time.'

  'What?' cried Gideon, plunging for his watch. 'And so it is! Greatheaven, the piano should have been here hours ago!'

  Mr Bloomfield was clambering back into his boat; but at these words hepaused.

  'I saw it arrive myself at the station; I hired a carrier man; he had around to make, but he was to be here by four at the latest,' cried thebarrister. 'No doubt the piano is open, and the body found.'

  'You must fly at once,' cried Mr Bloomfield, 'it's the only manly step.'

  'But suppose it's all right?' wailed Gideon. 'Suppose the piano comes,and I am not here to receive it? I shall have hanged myself by mycowardice. No, Uncle Ned, enquiries must be made in Padwick; I darenot go, of course; but you may--you could hang about the police office,don't you see?'

  'No, Gid--no, my dear nephew,' said Mr Bloomfield, with the voice of oneon the rack. 'I regard you with the most sacred affection; and I thankGod I am an Englishman--and all that. But not--not the police, Gid.'

  'Then you desert me?' said Gideon. 'Say it plainly.'

  'Far from it! far from it!' protested Mr Bloomfield. 'I only proposecaution. Common sense, Gid, should always be an Englishman's guide.'

  'Will you let me speak?' said Julia. 'I think Gideon had better leavethis dreadful houseboat, and wait among the willows over there. If thepiano comes, then he could step out and take it in; and if the policecome, he could slip into our houseboat, and there needn't be anymore Jimson at all. He could go to bed, and we could burn his clothes(couldn't we?) in the steam-launch; and then really it seems as if itwould be all right. Mr Bloomfield is so respectable, you know, and sucha leading character, it would be quite impossible even to fancy that hecould be mixed up with it.'

  'This young lady has strong common sense,' said the Squirradical.

  'O, I don't think I'm at all a fool,' said Julia, with conviction.

  'But what if neither of them come?' asked Gideon; 'what shall I dothen?'

  'Why then,' said she, 'you had better go down to the village after dark;and I can go with you, and then I am sure you could never be suspected;and even if you were, I could tell them it was altogether a mistake.'

  'I will not permit that--I will not suffer Miss Hazeltine to go,' criedMr Bloomfield.

  'Why?' asked Julia.

  Mr Bloomfield had not the least desire to tell her why, for it wassimply a craven fear of being drawn himself into the imbroglio; but withthe usual tactics of a man who is ashamed of himself, he took the highhand. 'God forbid, my dear Miss Hazeltine, that I should dictate to alady on the question of propriety--' he began.

  'O, is that all?' interrupted Julia. 'Then we must go all three.'

  'Caught!' thought the Squirradical.