Volume 1841
Georges Dodds'
The Ape-Man: his Kith and Kin
A collection of texts which prepared the advent of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Presents
http://www.erbzine.com/mag18/lavender.htm

Author(s)

Link to Tarzan of the Apes

• Personal research

Edition(s) used

• John Davidson. 1895. Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender, which Lasted One Night and One Day: With a History of the Pursuit of Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm by Mrs. Scamler and Maud Emblem . London: Ward & Downey, Ltd.

Text from Interlibrary Loan

Modifications to the text

• Chapter titles placed in Table of Contents
• Some end of sentence "," replaced by "."
• A few obvious typographical errors corrected (e.g., 'Thought' for 'Thouhgt' in title of Chap. 12)

Though our eyes turn ever waveward,
       Where our sun is well-nigh set;
Through our century totters graveward,
       We may laugh a little yet.

Oh! our age-end style perplexes
       All our elders' time has tamed;
On our sleeves we wear our sexes,
       Our diseases, unashamed.

Have we lost the mood romantic
       That was once our right by birth?
Lo! The greenest girl is frantic
       With the woe of all the earth!

But we know a British rumour,
       And we think it whispers well:
"We would ventilate our humour
       In the very jaws of Hell."

Though our thoughts turn ever Doomwards,
       Though our sun is well-nigh set,
Though our Century totters tombwards,
       We may laugh a little yet.

It was the evening of a June day, and the restaurant, although not crowded, was close and hot. The speaker and his companion sat side by side at a table opposite the door, in order to encounter whatever air might be going. They were at the back of the room, which was so long and narrow that the view of the Strand by the open door had the strangeness of a scene observed through an archway.

"Why come here?" repeated the middle- aged man. "A hot, stuffy, little hole."

"But clean," said the young man. "You will soon know the reason. Waiter, cold roast for two, and two pints of bitter."

The middle-aged man grew pale, and uttered a half-articulate "What?"

"Yes, it has come to this," said the other, laying two half-crowns on the table.

The middle-aged man stared at the coins; a helpless smile overspread his broad, good-humoured face; he bowed his head and muttered, "Cold roast!"

"With cabinet-pudding to follow," added his companion.

"Cabinet-pudding!" exclaimed the middle-aged man, starting to his feet, and sitting down immediately in mingled protest, chagrin and resignation.

"Two roast beefs, one and eightpence; two breads, twopence; two beers, eightpence; two puddings, eightpence; three and twopence in all," said the younger man calmly.

"Leaving one and tenpence," groaned the other. "And I've got accustomed to benedictine and a partaga after dinner."

"Benedictine, ninepence each; leaves fourpence. We must have twopenny cigars." "Never!" cried the middle-aged man. "We shall have ninepenny cigars and twos of whisky."

"It's all the same to me," said the other.

"Comrade," continued the younger man, "you seem put out. I like our impecuniosity."

"You're young, and like anything new. It's change you want. I'm middle-aged, and there's nothing staler to me than change. Constant comfort and little luxuries as regular as the clock are fresher than change."

The other made no reply, and they were soon discussing the cold roast with very good appetites. Through the open door they watched the cabs and 'buses and the crowd of walkers, like objects in a peep-show. They were in good physical condition; the rapid passage of the everchanging throng across their narrow field of vision was pleasing to their eyes, and the hum and tramp and muffled roar soothed them like a lullaby. The falsely-blamed cabinet-pudding was cordially forgiven, and the last drop of beer had a vinous flavour.

"Where shall we smoke?" said the elder of the two, setting down his pewter pot with a faint sigh.

"In a public-house," replied the other. "We can't get twos of whisky anywhere else."

The middle-aged man acquiesced in silence.

"Ha!" he whispered suddenly, clutching his companion's arm; "you've given the waiter fourpence. We can't have ninepenny cigars now."

"Neither we can. What's to be done?"

"I'm afraid we must have threes of whisky, and be content with sixpenny cigars." "Then we can stay where we are."

"And now," said the middle-aged man, when their cigars were lit, "what do you propose to do?"

"I propose that we dedicate ourselves to chance."

"Have you no friends in London?"

"None. Have you?"

"None. But how shall we dedicate ourselves to chance?"

"We have practically done so by spending our last penny; but let us accept our fate with thorough goodwill, and look upon our destitution as the very highest compliment Providence could have paid us. It shall now appear of what stuff we are made."

"Yes," said the middle-aged man slowly.

"I said Providence," continued the younger man, "but I really mean Evolution. Some years ago I thought of coming to London without a penny, and seeing what would happen, but the idea gradually dropped into the background. Now I find myself exactly in the predicament into which I once thought of volunteering."

"Ah!" interrupted the middle-aged man, "I, too, have sometimes found myself in circumstances which I had imagined years before."

"Of course," said the other. "I therefore understand, since it has come about without my will, that it is lawful for me to make the experiment."

"To dedicate yourself to chance?"

"That was my phrase; but you mustn't misapprehend me. I am gradually leading up to a revelation which it is now time for me to make. Chance is only the operation of undetected laws, or the elasticity of laws already known. Do not suppose that in this dedication I am doing anything extravagant. I recognise the facts of the case, and shall proceed with a perfect reliance on Evolution."

"And you wish me to accompany you -- relying on Evolution?"

"I shall be very glad if you will."

"How old are you?" asked the middle-aged man.

"Twenty-five. And you?"

"Forty. We got on beautifully while we had money. Are our ages suitable for roughing it together?"

"Ah! Have you any strong convictions? Are you what is called religiously inclined?"

"Not specially; but I can understand how people go over to the Church of Rome, for example."

"Then you will be able to understand me," said the young man. "I am of a religious temperament, and Evolution is my religion. What others mean by Evolution I don't know; I have never read anything about it, although 1 have looked through a good many books in my time. But one day three years ago, as I was passing along the main street of our town to play in a county match, I heard one man say to another, very earnestly, -- 'Evolution is more than a theory; it is a religion.' The remark arrested me. I brooded over it all afternoon; I couldn't score for thinking of it. I knew, of course, and attached a kind of meaning to such phrases as 'the missing link' and 'the survival of the fittest,' and I succeeded in thinking out for myself a sort of dogma of Evolution."

"You may be said to have 'got Evolution' in this sudden way, just as people talk about 'getting religion.'"

"Precisely. I was converted. Sometimes I can dogmatise about Evolution, and sometimes I can't; but since my conversion I have lived an evolutionary life -- consciously, that is. We cannot help being Evolutionists, just as we cannot help being human; but we may rebel against and sneer at Evolution in the same way as degraded or powerful intellects mock at humanity; or, through ignorance, we may thwart the intention of Evolution with regard to ourselves. Now, for three years, I have subordinated my will to the evolutionary will, with the result that I have been perfectly happy. Happy, indeed, seems to me too weak a word to describe the serenity of my mind, and the delight which I feel in every member of my body. I am thoroug[h]ly convinced that I am quite fit, and that I shall survive -- why, there is no saying how long I may survive, if, as I shrewdly suspect, I am the fittest."

"The fittest?"

"Yes; not among the fittest only, but the very fittest human male at present breathing."

A smile betrayed the middle-aged man's amusement; but as his companion was speaking ingenuously, he quickly resumed his gravity.

"What makes you think that you are the fittest?" asked the middle-aged man.

"It is not quite easy to tell; but the feeling of superiority to other people which is constant with me, and of equality with everything -- with the universe, in fact -- leads me to cherish this high opinion of myself. The equal of the universe: I am, as it were, one side of an equation, of which the universe is the other."

"I see."

"Yes. Now I have two immediate objects in view. The first is to devote myself to the evolutionary life more thoroughly than I have yet done -- to think, speak, do nothing but what is evolutionary. Hitherto I have been little more than a passive Evolutionist. Henceforth I shall be the active agent, the apostle of Evolution. I shall give Evolution ample opportunity to vindicate my fitness, and that as publicly as possible in order to convert others."

"How will you give Evolution ample opportunity to vindicate your fitness?" asked the middle-aged man.

"You shall see that to-night. My second object is to find the fittest woman, and mate with her. This is a more complicated matter than you may think. It may seem to you a very simple thing to give the world proof of my supreme fitness, and then advertise in The Times for the fittest woman. It is really a simple plan, and might be very successful. We could make a lottery of it, each applicant paying five pounds, and the whole sum subscribed becoming the dowery of the chosen one. If five hundred thousand women applied, which is not an over-estimate I think, that would give a portion of two and a half millions -- not too much for the fittest woman, especially as it would all be spent in the promulgation of Evolution. But, as I said, there is a difficulty -- of which I may tell you hereafter."

"Have you nothing left to pawn?" asked the middle-aged man very ruefully, having paid little attention to his companion's last speech.

"Nothing."

"Well, I think you might have been more careful with the money."

"My friend, you are too irritable. Let us review the situation. A week ago -- is it a week ago?"

"Yes; a day more in fact."

"Eight days ago you and I met each other in the smoking-room of the Great British Railway Hotel. There was nobody in the room but ourselves, and we got into conversation. Without telling each other plainly -- we tried rather to hide it from each other, and so betrayed the fact that we had both, to put it shortly, run away; you at forty, I at twenty-five. It was plain also that we had both run away precipitately, for we had practically no luggage. Neither of us, of course, had travelled by the Great British Railway. You had arrived at Waterloo, I at Liverpool Street, and each had selected the Great British Hotel for a hiding place as being both out of the way, and near at hand. That evening we went out together, and you had your pocket picked. You asked me for the loan of a few pounds, which I promptly refused, for I had already made up my mind to become destitute as soon as possible, and had also thought of you as a companion in the experiment. Indeed, if you consider it, I had no choice in the matter. Evolution, by driving you away from your friends with but a scanty supply of money, and bringing you to the Great British Hotel, threw you at my head as it were. I had forty pounds. We have smoked and drunk and eaten them with much pleasure and profit in eight days; also our watches, chains, rings and studs, and now, with our bodies in capital tune, and our minds quite free -- mine, at least, almost quite free from care, we may, confident in the power of Evolution to protect the fit, go forth into the streets to-night, homeless and penniless."

"Why not start in the morning instead? Let us have one more comfortable sleep in the hotel, one more good breakfast, and then, hey for broken victuals and a bed in Leicester Square."

"Spoken like a man! But, my friend, you misunderstand the matter entirely. We are not going to live on broken victuals, and sleep under bridges. But first of all make up your mind that we cannot return to the hotel. Our deposit there is exhausted, and they wouldn't take us in without another payment in advance, for you recollect we have no luggage. Besides, they begin to suspect us. We both came to the hotel on the same day, and both gave the name of 'J. Smith' Strangers to each other at first, we suddenly struck up a great intimacy. You see, they are bound to be suspicious, and perhaps would not readmit us even with a fresh deposit. We can't go back to the hotel."

"We can at least return for the under- clothing and night-shirts we bought."

"And what should we do with them?"

"Take them with us of course."

"Under our arms? Do you think Evolution would help men who went about with brown paper parcels?"

"We could leave them in the left luggage office."

"You forget; we haven't twopence to pay for the ticket."

The middle-aged man groaned.

"There's nothing but beggary and bridges for it then," he said.

"Again you mistake. If I am, as I have every right to suspect, the fittest human being at present breathing, nothing will be allowed to betide me likely to interfere with my superb condition; and you, as the companion provided for me, will share in my good fortune. Plenty of the best food and drink, comfortable beds, clothes, and changes of linen when we need them will be provided for us, or there is no truth in Evolution."

"But can't you get some money? Can't you write your friends for money?"

"Can't you?"

"No; not yet, at least," replied the elder of the two. "My whole life has been dislocated, and I can't make up my mind to anything."

"I sympathise with you from my heart," said his companion. "I have noticed that you often fall silent, while a sombre look steals into your face. You suffer much; I can see it; and I admire the pluck with which you sustain your grief."

"At my age," replied the other pathetically, "eating and drinking are of great consequence. Although I have always lived well enough, I have never had such exquisite fare and such variety as during the past week; it was that that kept me from brooding. But now that we are destitute I am afraid I shall give way."

"Banish the fear. Sadness and repining are most unevolutionary. If you are fit, you will be cheerful, no matter what happens. Come, my friend, put a better face on it. Let us go out into the Strand."

"I'll be as cheerful as I can."

"Well resolved. You shall be my first disciple. We go forth to-night to conquer the world for Evolution."

The destitute pair walked in the direction of Charing Cross -- the younger, in undisturbed serenity; the elder, resigned and I somewhat awestruck by the absolute mood of his companion. As they passed along the street nothing could be detected in their appearance differing from that of other well-dressed men. Tall, dark, with well- marked, regular features, and a small moustache -- one looked like a young man about town; while the other, who was plump, clean-shaven, and with a ruddy complexion, might have passed for a well-to-do merchant. The contrast between their commonplace look and their extraordinary mission struck the younger man, and he remarked on it to his companion.

"Yes," was the reply; "we certainly don't look like apostles, and I'm very sure I don't feel like one."

"The feeling will come; it requires to be evolved," rejoined the other. "And now, since we are fairly started, it becomes us to have names. I suppose that neither of us is really called 'J. Smith,' and as we have apparently reason to conceal our true names we must choose others. What do you say? Can you suggest names?"

"Since it is a mission we are on," replied the middle-aged man, "should we not call ourselves saint something or other. All the great missionaries were saints."

"There is a deal in what you say." rejoined the younger man. "But you must remember the saints you refer to were not canonised in their lifetime; besides Evolution can hardly be expected to borrow a title from Roman Catholicism. You are, however, on the right tack; our names must be symbolic of our mission. It seems to me that we must in some way indicate that we are the men of the future, yet taking along with us all that is sane from the past. How would it do were I to call myself Lord of the Future?"

"It wouldn't do," said his companion.

"I daresay not; it is indeed too naked a revelation. We must get a velvet glove for the hand of iron. I have it! I shall call myself Earl de l'Avenir."

"Earl de Lavender?" queried the middle- aged man. What has that to do with it?" "De Lavender!" cried the other. "Your mistake is the fiat of Evolution; I accept the name. Have we not 'Birdcage Walk' from bocage, and 'sparrowgrass' from asparagus? Why not then Lavender from l'avenir? Thanks, friend; the more I consider it the more symbolic it appears. As l'avenir is wrapped up and concealed in my new name of Lavender, so the future is wrapped up in me. Then the English meaning of the word! The sweet herb housewives use in linen-presses. I shall be the sweetener of the age. See you; I have not mistaken my mission; everything points out my destiny. Earl Lavender! I am to be called Earl Lavender."

"Why Earl?"

"Because it is the finest of titles, and signifies that we shall carry with us into the future all that was highest and noblest in the past. And now for your name. Have you thought of one?"

"Must I call myself after a plant too?"

"It is not by any means necessary; but why do you ask?"

"Because I should like to be called Plantagenet."

"Plantagenet ? But it is antique, and has no prophecy in it that I can see."

"Can't you work a prophecy out of it?"

"Wisely said; we must evolve a prophetic meaning; to that end it was suggested to you. And I have it at once. Plantagenet -- planta genista -- I remember from the school history, is the plant broom. You are, therefore, to be called Broom, and to indicate the part you are to play in our mission, you shall use the epithet new -- Mr New Broom. Ha!"

"But why am I to be called only mister, while you take the title of earl?"

"Because you are to be my henchman. I can't say I like mister though. You may call yourself New Broom, Esq., or Sir New Broom; the henchman of an earl may very well be a knight."

"I see," said the middle-aged man slowly.

"But don't you think that New Broom, like Lord of the Future, betrays its meaning too nakedly?"

"Right again," replied he, who will henceforth be called Earl Lavender.

"And again Evolution comes promptly to my aid. You shall be called Mr Brumm."

"Why not Lord Brumm?"

"The henchman of an earl could hardly be a peer. But no matter. Lord Brumm you shall be; to reject any suggestion whatever, might be to go in the very teeth of Evolution." It was in this way that Lord Brumm -- to give the middle-aged man his easily acquired title -- not being a person of much resource, fell quietly into the extravagant humour of his companion.

"I will not disguise from you, good Brougham," he said at length, leaning against a lamp- post, "that I am waiting for an indication."

"An indication of what?"

"Of our next proceeding."

"Possibly I can supply the indication."

"Why should you doubt it? An indication may come from anybody and anything. Evolution knows not the insignificant."

"Well, then, my lord," rejoined Brumm, "I and my stomach are strongly of opinion that they have had only half a dinner, which seems to me to indicate that we ought to go somewhere and eat something. Whatever else may be fit or unfit about me, I have always had, and have now, a very fit appetite. The cold roast and cabinet- pudding were only a whet."

"That is the indication; there can be no doubt of it," said Earl Lavender; "especially as it involves our first practical assay in the evolutionary life; and, to confess the truth, I am myself still very hungry. We must decide," continued Earl Lavender, as they turned again into the Strand, "which restaurant we shall honour."

"The best in the Strand, I say."

"Say rather the best restaurant for our purpose, and that I imagine will be found in Fleet Street. I understand there are restaurants in Fleet Street frequented by journalists. It behoves us, then, to make our first public demonstration of the evolutionary life in one of these old-fashioned eating-houses, the resort of editors, leader-writers and newsmongers, and the haunt of the ghosts of the literary men of the eighteenth century. I do not mean that we are to angle for a report of our proceedings in tomorrow's paper, but our conduct and our words cannot fail to have a lasting effect on the pressmen who shall behold and hear them, and who, influenced by our sayings and doings, shall, in their writings, directly or indirectly, disseminate our doctrine. Now, as you are better acquainted with London than I am, can you lead the way to such a restaurant?"

"I can," said Brumm, stepping out briskly. "I can take you to an eating-house where you will get the best steak in England."

"What is it called?"

"It is the old 'Cap-and-Bells' in Deadman's Alley, that opens on the left a little before you come to Ludgate Hill"

"Admirable! I have never been there; but I have often heard of it as a house much used by journalists."

Earl Lavender and his henchman walked as rapidly as the crowded state of the streets would permit, and soon arrived at Deadman's Alley. They at once entered the room on the ground floor of the 'Cap-and-Bells,' where Brumm ordered two steaks, and two pints of the old ale for which the inn was famous. He was in a considerable fright immediately after he had done so, remembering that as he had given the order he was directly responsible for the payment; but Earl Lavender, noticing his anxiety and understanding its cause, comforted him.

"Fear not, good Brumm," he said; "Evolution will protect its own."

The cheerful confidence of Earl Lavender's words, and the engaging candour and serenity which marked his whole expression reassured Brumm in a way incomprehensible to himself, and he began to prattle, as grown men whose minds are not quite infinite sometimes will. He praised the time- worn tables and boxes, the fresh sawdust on the floor, the big buxom fireplace, and the picture of Goldsmith which hung in a recess. He remarked on the ponderous figure and grave expression of the head waiter, and derived much satisfaction from the agility and alert looks of his assistant. The old ale he found a thought too sweet, but with such body and such a rich nut-brown hue! He whispered to Earl Lavender to note how sleek and solid two old gentlemen were who had just finished their steaks, and were waiting placidly for the stewed cheese. He got quite excited over their splendid condition.

"That's what English feeding can do," he said. "I'll be bound these old fellows have dined here every day of their lives for the last twenty years. It was chops and steaks and beef steak puddings that matured these smooth, pink cheeks and heaving shoulders. Their hair's white, and they are over sixty both of them; but they've never known indigestion. They'll go on dining here for another twenty years, and eat a steak without the least suspicion that it will be their last the very day they die. Such men stop simply; they can't be said to die. I wonder now if they're journalists. They don't look like journalists; they're not worried enough. No, they must be bank cashiers, or tailors and clothiers with old established shops, or perhaps chemists and druggists."

How long Lord Brumm would have gone on in this strain it is impossible to say. Just when he had made up his mind that the two old gentlemen were chemists and druggists, because they were so neat and clean and medicinal-looking, the ponderous head waiter brought in the steaks, with dimpled, mealy potatoes bursting from their jackets, and great hunks of household bread with a burnt crust half an inch deep. Earl Lavender, who had listened smilingly to his henchman's unexpected eloquence, admitted that the old fellows were passably fit in body; but as for their minds he was quite certain they hadn't any left.

"You will find, Brumm," said Earl Lavender, "that one of two things must be sacrificed by every man who lives to be over sixty -- the mind, or the liver. I'll guarantee that these old boys, however philosophical or poetical they may have been in their young days, could no more secrete thought now than a statue of Cybele could suckle the Foundling Hospital; but for the due distillation of a healthy supply of bile I doubt not it would be difficult to beat them. Bile or thought, good Brumm, at your grand climacteric you must dispense for good with the one or the other."

"God send it to be thought then! But I fear very much that it will be my liver that will fail me, because I have had already some fits of indigestion. But don't tell me of such things just now. Here is the finest steak in England, and I am as hungry as if I hadn't eaten to- day."

Hardly had they begun to their second dinner, when a tall young gentleman, looking very fresh and pleasant, sauntered into the room, and sat down at the same table with Earl Lavender and his henchman. This young gentleman had a round face, a short nose, large grey eyes, a low, broad brow over which his brown hair fell gracefully, and a mouth which seemed always about to burst into joyful speech. His frock- coat was fashionably cut, his scarf was of a very special pattern, and he had a mauve flower in his buttonhole. Lord Brumm smiled to him as soon as he sat down, and intimated tentatively his opinion of the weather. The eloquent mouthed young gentleman, speaking with something of a drawl, but in very musical tones, thought on the whole that the weather was pretty much of the kind Lord Brumm had hinted at. He then ordered a steak, but the steaks were done.

"How's that?" asked the young gentleman.

"It's half-past eight, sir," replied the ponderous waiter in a ridiculously small voice, but with an accent and an air which said as plain as words that he was master of his subject; and that steaks, as a rule, were 'off' by eight o'clock, and sometimes as soon as half-past seven; and that he, the ponderous waiter, wondered very much at the eloquent-mouthed young gentleman expecting steaks at that time of night in the 'Cap-and-Bells;' and that, as for Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm, considering when they came in, they might think themselves very lucky in having found steaks still 'on.'

The young gentleman accepted the implied reproof, and resigning himself to the inevitable, ordered a chop and kidneys, with a tankard of stout-and-bitter.

"Don't you like the old ale?" asked Lord Brumm.

"As I find it too heavy," replied the young gentleman, "even with a steak, you can hardly expect me to drink it with a chop. But," he added, with a bright smile, as if suddenly recollecting himself, "if it will be of any service to you I shall countermand my order. Probably it offends you that anyone should drink anything but old ale?"

"By no means -- not at all," said Lord Brumm, astonished and flurried by the excessive courtesy of the young gentleman.

"Indeed I think I shall have a drop of stout in my tankard."

"You mustn't -- you mustn't," said the young gentleman. "Stout is worse than thunder for old ale."

"Do you tell me so?" cried Lord Brumm, very much impressed by the elegance and easy air of superiority which characterised the young gentleman.

"Are you going upstairs?" drawled the new-comer.

"Upstairs?" echoed Lord Brumm.

"Yes. The Guild of Prosemen."

"What is the Guild of Prosemen?"

Oh!" said the young gentleman, "I thought I had seen you at a former meeting."

"Of the Guild of Prosemen!" exclaimed Lord Brumm. "Do I look like a Proseman?"

"My dear sir!" cried the young gentleman, deprecating the personal remark, "I thought you had once accompanied a member of the Guild. Members bring their friends sometimes."

"No; I have never been," said Lord Brumm.

"Would you like to attend a meeting?"

"I should like it very much," said Lord Brumm.

"Then come with me to-night."

"We shall be delighted," said Earl Lavender, bowing and smiling to the young gentleman, who returned his salute very graciously.

"My friend here;" continued Earl Lavender, "is Lord Brumm, and I am the Earl of Lavender. How shall we address you?"

"I am called Hubert Ware," said the young gentleman, dwelling with fondness on each syllable of his name, and not in the least disconcerted by the titles of his chance acquaintances.

"The Guild of Prosemen," said Earl Lavender, "consists of a set of literary men, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Hubert Ware; "they may be called literary men."

"Many of them possibly engaged on daily and weekly papers?"

"All of them, more or less."

"This is very fortunate," said Earl Lavender. "Or rather I should say, this is exactly as I expected. You must know, Mr Ware, that Lord Brumm and I have started to-night upon a great mission. It is our purpose to convert the world to Evolution, not so much by word of mouth as by living the evolutionary life. Knowing 'The Cap-and- Bells' by repute, we came here trusting to find an assembly of journalists who should be deeply impressed by witnessing our first deeds as active Evolutionists; for we intend to offer in our persons a demonstration of the survival of the fittest."

The young gentleman, half of whose creed was coolness and self-possession, overcome in spite of himself by the extraordinary nature of the announcement he had just heard, opened his round eyes very wide, while his eloquent lips parted in a puzzled smile.

"The faith of my friend and first disciple," continued Earl Lavender, "is yet feeble, and I expect, when he found this room almost empty, he began to doubt the power of Evolution; indeed, I myself was somewhat perplexed by the absence of journalists. Now, however, the most unbelieving must be convinced, because not only are there journalists here, but a special conclave has been provided to be the first recipients of my message. And this assembly must not be set down to chance; it is here awaiting me by the direct operation of an undiscovered evolutionary law."

Hubert Ware, having speedily regained his self- possession, and having formed his own opinion as to the state of Earl Lavender's mind, declared that he had not the least doubt of the truth of what he had just heard.

"I am very glad to find you so receptive," said Earl Lavender. "It augurs well for the success of my mission that the first two men to whom I explain it are at once persuaded of its truth. How will it be received by the Guild of Prosemen, do you think?" "It will have, I should say, rather a dubious reception from them. They are, individually, charming fellows; but in the lump, and as a body corporate, they are not charming."

"Are you a Proseman?"

"I believe I am generally regarded as belonging to the Guild."

"Then you are soiling your own nest."

Hubert Ware raised his eyebrows at the directness of the charge; but he took it in good part and replied with even more than his usual courtesy of manner that he himself, although in the Guild, was not of it, and that he attended the meetings only occasionally on the chance of seeing another Proseman, in whose company he found considerable pleasure, and who, like himself, was a black sheep in the fold.

"This friend of mine," he continued, "is a strange man, who lives somewhere in the northern wilds of London, supporting himself nobody exactly knows how, and appearing at certain intervals in Fleet Street and Piccadilly. He is a Scotchman, and a very special blend of the shrewdness, simplicity and fervour which characterise his race. He possesses the gift, unusual even in an Englishman, of recognising merit in others, and expresses his admiration sincerely, and without flattery, expecting no return. He admires some things in me, and it is really to see me that he comes to the meetings of the Guild of Prosemen. I expect to find him upstairs to-night."

"And the other members?" said Earl Lavender, much pleased with the frank egotism of Hubert Ware.

"There are one or two besides my friend and me who hardly ever attend the meetings. I don't know them intimately, but I gather from that fact that they must have many superior qualities, in their own opinions at any rate. As for the others, why, you will see them when we go upstairs."

When Hubert Ware had discussed his chop and kidneys, Earl Lavender said, -- "Gentlemen," including with a glance and a wave of his hand the waiters and the two sleek old fellows who were finishing the toddy with which they had washed down the stewed cheese, "gentlemen, you have tonight assisted at the making of history. What you have seen appears to be an event which occurs a hundred times a day in the 'Cap-and- Bells' -- two men eating steaks and drinking old ale. Yet there can be no doubt that from this simple act a new epoch dates. Believing firmly in our own fitness and in the power of Evolution, Lord Brumm and myself entered here and gave our order without a penny in our pockets. We had scarcely begun upon the steaks when Evolution manifested itself in the person of Mr Hubert Ware, providing in him a means of defraying the cost of our refreshment. Other penniless people have dared to dine in restaurants, but we are the first to challenge Evolution in that way to a direct justification of the law of the survival of the fittest. Gentlemen, you may congratulate yourselves on seeing, and on having lived to see, the first day of the year one of the Evolutionary Era."

No sooner had Earl Lavender concluded his astonishing address than the two old gentlemen simultaneously shouted, "Waiter!" When the ponderous waiter, confused rather than impressed by what he had heard, attended to the call, both the old gentlemen again simultaneously said, in a whisper overheard by Earl Lavender, "That man's mad;" and one of them added, "Tell his keeper to take him away; he's not safe."

"Gentlemen," said Earl Lavender, with perfect complacence, "it becomes you to make a charge of madness against me. I told my friend Lord Brumm a little ago that you have no minds, and I am convinced of it. As you are possibly unaware of the fact, I may as well explain to you how you have arrived at this not altogether unenviable condition. In your youth, I judge from the contour of your heads that you thought and imagined as much as the average young man; but since the strongest convictions you ever entertained were that money makes the mare to go, and that cakes and ale are good, you gradually ceased to think until your minds stopped working altogether, and as your brains grew atrophied your livers increased in power. Now, I suppose, you have digestive apparatuses unmatched in proficiency, while your heads, instead of blossoming like an evergreen in a bowpot, have changed into cinerary urns, containing the ashes of your thought and fancy, and rudely carved with half-intelligible hieroglyphics concerning religion and morality, and copy-book mottoes for the conduct of life. You are perfect types; I recognise that, and would not have you other than you are. I merely wish to let you know that I understand you thoroughly, and to give you the means when you come to die of consoling yourselves with the reflection that you were understood and pardoned by at least one fellow-creature. Most men I have been told die miserable because they think everybody has misunderstood them. Rejoice, therefore, for that lot cannot now be yours." "Waiter," cried the two old fellows as soon as Earl Lavender had concluded, "the bill."

They paid the score in silence, seized their hats and umbrellas, and rose, in a body as it were, to overwhelm Earl Lavender. Having crossed the room to the table at which he sat, they opened their mouths and closed them with a parched sound, while Earl Lavender smiled encouragingly.

"Sir!" they at last managed to ejaculate, looking towards each other for support.

"How --" continued one of them; but, finding himself unaccompanied, he stopped as if he had been shot.

"I know what you would say," said Earl Lavender blandly. "You are astonished at the accurate knowledge of your characters which I, an utter stranger, have shown; but you must know that to one who is in all probability the fittest human being at present breathing, such a display of intuition is a mere bagatelle."

"Sir!" thundered the two old fellows with starting eyes, the foam flying from their mouths, and their umbrellas beating the ground like the tails of enraged animals. "Sir!" Then, in a burst of pathos, reproach, anger and pride, helping themselves on to the points of their toes with their umbrellas, and appealing to the ceiling with their hats, they exclaimed together, "We are twins! We --"

Either they felt that the statement of their relationship was in itself sufficient to overwhelm Earl Lavender, or that they were not about to say the same thing, or else they had nothing further to add, for they came down on their heels with a jerk, and their mouths closed tightly on the word 'we.'

"Ah!" said Earl Lavender; "I understand you more fully now. When in a double birth both children live, it is almost invariably the case that they grow up next door to idiots. Twins always rank low in the scale of fitness; I am amazed that you have survived so long; it is only to be accounted for by the total decay of intellect."

"Sir!" again thundered the two old fellows, outraged beyond endurance, raising the sawdust as they smote the floor with their umbrellas, and looking to everybody for sympathy and finding none -- even the waiters were laughing. "Sir, you --"

But they could get no further. Crimson with inarticulate indignation, they stuck on their hats with a helpless flourish, tucked their umbrellas under their arms, and strutted to the door. There they shook the sawdust from their feet, and left the 'Cap-and-Bells' with their minds made up never to return.

The bar of the 'Cap-and-Bells' was opposite the door of the dining-room, and the barmaid, on hearing the loud and angry voices of the aged twins, had summoned the proprietor. He emerged from his office just as the two old fellows were leaving in wrath, and recognising them for regular customers, he asked the waiter what was the matter.

"Well, sir," said the ponderous waiter, opening his ponderous jaws and emitting his ludicrously thin voice, which he accompanied with a sheepish smile, "I dunno who was to blame."

"Blame! What do you mean by blame?" asked the proprietor.

"Ain't there somebody to blame?" said the ponderous waiter, still smiling coyly, and appealing to his agile assistant.

"I shouldn't say as how there was anybody to blame, sir," said the second waiter, who spoke with great rapidity, and with a meek but effusive manner, as if he were apologising for the world at large. This 'ere gent allowed as 'e was a sort a conjury-ledgeryman, up in tellin' fort'nes, and getting' other people to pay for him. An' the twins makes out in a manner sauty-waussy -- which 'as always puzzled me as bein' more proper to potatoes except it be a pig's whisper, as Pat says -- that 'e's mad; which 'e, 'earin', gives 'em a sample of 'is conkology, an' tells 'em wot 'e thinks of 'em, which wasn't much, an' quite right too; but them twins couldn't stand bein' told as 'ow their livers was overgrow'd and their 'eads was dustbins, so they ups an' says, 'Sir!' they says, a-stampin' with their mushes, an' fearin' no foe, 'Sir!' They says it four times, an' this gent 'e always rubs in the pickle, till at last they gives it 'im 'ot, an' tells 'im plump an' plain as 'ow they was twins, they was, an' no more bones about it. 'So much the worse for you,' says this gent, a-surprisin' of us all, an' the coolest I ever see. 'But I wouldn't change you, not me,' says 'e. 'Twins an' idiots you was born, an' twins an' idiots you will be, s'elp me bob!' 'e says. Then they hollers 'Sir!' again, and grows very red in the face, an' tries to use bad langwidge, but it won't come; so they busts up, an' you saw 'em go, sir."

Mine host looked from the assistant waiter to Earl Lavender, and from Earl Lavender to the assistant waiter.

"I confess," he said, "the matter is not quite clear to me."

"No," said Earl Lavender; "this amusing young man has considerable inventive and dramatic gifts, but clearness is not his forte. I like him, though. You're very entertaining," he cried to the assistant waiter, nodding to him, and contemplating him with much interest. The assistant waiter, all unconscious of his merit, blushed and hid behind the broad figure of his chief. "It can be stated very simply," continued Earl Lavender, addressing the proprietor of the 'Cap-and-Bells.' "Those two charming John Bulls who have just gone received with some scorn an important announcement which I made, and as I intend to insist upon the most courteous toleration from all who are unable to give credence to my message, I felt called upon to rebuke them. It was hardly a rebuke either. I merely pointed out to them that they were no longer able to perform the function of thinking beings, rather to show them by what means they might excuse themselves than by way of reprimand. And now," turning to Hubert Ware, "I think we ought to visit the Guild of Prosemen."

The proprietor of the 'Cap-and-Bells,' quite in the dark, with a dry "good evening, gentlemen," returned to his office; and as soon as he had gone, Hubert Ware paid for the three dinners, having enjoyed himself so much that he felt quite willing to pay for thirty. Then this pleasant young gentleman led the way to the upper room in which the Guild of Prosemen held their sessions.

"Gentlemen," he began; but Hubert Ware interrupted him, and gravely introduced him to the Guild of Prosemen as his friend the Earl of Lavender.

"The noble Earl," he said, "has a most important communication to make, for which I crave your best attention."

"Gentlemen," resumed Earl Lavender, bowing to the astounded Prosemen, "I expected -- you must allow me to say, I expected to find a more intelligent audience. By 'more intelligent,' I mean a more open-minded audience, an audience less occupied with their own affairs. I heard you were journalists, and had pictured you to myself as a species apart, a sensitised, spiritualised order of beings whose minds would be, as it were, deflected and agitated, not only by the faintest rumours of mere news, but by the approach of even the most insignificant change in the intellectual magnetism of the world. Instead of this I find an assembly so deeply engaged in an attempt to further their own interests as to be almost entirely unimpressed by my entrance. And yet, gentlemen, in me you behold the fittest human being at present breathing, a man evolved for the purpose of changing the mental attitude of the world. To-night I enter upon my mission, and came here, accompanied by my henchman and first disciple, Lord Brumm, to give my first practical demonstration of the working of the law of the survival of the fittest. Mr Hubert Ware, my second disciple, will bear witness to the success of the experiment, for it was he whom Evolution provided to pay for the steaks and ale."

"Yes," said Hubert gravely, "I had that great honour."

"Again I say," continued Earl Lavender, that your appearance and proceedings have been very disappointing, and yet it behoves me to declare my mission to you, for out of the unfit, Evolution may perhaps most conveniently provide testimony to the fitness of the fit -- of the fittest. Know, then, that I wish the dogma of Evolution to permeate your writings. I shall give you a watchword, and you may think out a whole system for yourselves. I understand that is always the way with new systems, the founder has an idea, and makes a few remarks, which his followers work up. My idea you know; I have already made several remarks, and I shall now give you a watchword, 'The fit shall survive, and Earl Lavender is the fittest.' This you may use for a battle cry. It is customary, I understand, on the promulgation of a new system, for the prophet or founder to prescribe rules of conduct. In this matter I propose to give my followers ample liberty, only exacting from journalists and authors constant allusion and reference to me and my mission."

Earl Lavender abruptly ended in a dead silence. The bulk of the Prosemen smiled tolerantly, but none of them seemed disposed to venture on a remark, as the titles of their visitors and Earl Lavender's unembarrassed delivery and vigorous address had somewhat perplexed them.

"Very noble!" whispered Hubert Ware in Earl Lavender's ear.

The Scot, in a tumult of delight, cried across the room, "I wish I had imagined you! Are you real flesh and blood? or did you imagine him, Ware? or is he imagining himself?"

"I am being evolved," said Earl Lavender. "There is no such thing as imagination.

Evolution is all and in all. But what reply have the Guild of Prosemen to make to my appeal?"

As might have been expected, the Scot, full of Bannockburn, as all Scots become as soon as they cross the Border, and not untinctured with the white wine of his country, got upon his feet before anybody else the moment Earl Lavender requested a definite reply.

"My lord," he began, "I will answer you categorically. But first, let me tell you I am peculiarly qualified to give an impartial reply to your animadversions, being well-known for the lukewarmth of my allegiance to the Guild, as a very irregular attendant at their meetings, as one who seldom reads any prose, and as a non-contributor to their book. But my main qualification is that I am a Scotchman. As all Englishmen and Irishmen know well, every Scot is vain, shrewd, pragmatical, supercilious; profuse in his admiration when pleased, and blind to inferiority in the things and people he likes; indifferent to hostile opinion though resenting its expression; demanding more than his fair share of elbow-room; always thrusting himself forward and willing to accept responsibility of any kind. He never forgets Bannockburn; and remembers Homildon Hill, Flodden Field, Pinkie Cleugh, and the many defeats the Scots sustained at the hands of the English as even more marvellous proofs of the greatness of his race than the few victories they obtained over their old hereditary enemies. That a mere handful of people in a narrow strip of land, penned up between the Highlanders on the north and the English Borderers on the south, should have retained a separate existence after so many over- whelming disasters, each sufficient in itself to have brought into lasting subjection a much more extensive and more populous territory, is probably as remarkable a testimony to the fitness of the Scot as he himself thinks it is. In his conceit he regards himself as superior to all other Europeans, the representative, wherever he goes, of the only unconquered country between the Atlantic and the Ural mountains. He knows now that he is a northern Englishman and is proud of it; but he is prouder of the strange history which has specialised him as the hardiest and intensest member of the great family whose heritage is the seas and the continents. He is jealous of his name, and although he prays for the time when man to man the warl' o'er shall brithers be for a' that, he means to retain all his idiosyncrasies as long as he can. Not a pleasant person, the Scot, you think; and I admit that he would indeed be quite insufferable if it were not for two things, the abiding reverence for capacity in any race and any individual which makes Boswell tolerable, and raises him in that respect to the level of Carlyle; and the deep sense of humour which in Carlyle atones for his barbarous self- worship and ruthless spite at humanity, and the lack of which kept Boswell remorseless in his folly. This digression, my lord, I felt called upon to make in order to explain to you how impossible it is, do what he may, and however much it may pain him, for a Scot to hold any other than a mean opinion of all other peoples. But if I follow this question further, I shall only involve myself in digression after digression; and so to the point. Briefly then, and in the first place, you are to understand that we are much more intelligent than we look. Secondly and lastly, we are not disposed to permeate our writings with this new doctrine of Evolution until we know more about it."

The murmurs and exclamations excited by the Scot's uncalled for apologia pro vita sua increased in volume towards its conclusion, and when he resumed his seat clamour filled the room. It was fully a minute before the noise subsided, and then a handsome Irish Proseman, who had been foremost in demanding order, moved that no notice should be taken either of Earl Lavender's address, or of the reply of Rorison, the vain Scotchman.

"Rorison!" said Earl Lavender in an undertone to Hubert Ware. "A very suitable name for so unkempt an individual."

"Yes," said Hubert; "he is rather dusty and heathery."

In appearance Rorison was pretty much the Englishman's typical Scot; short and broad, with high cheek bones, rough red hair and beard, deep-set blue eyes, a nose somewhat in the air, and a big mouth.

"Mr Rorison," said Earl Lavender, resenting the marked appearance and individuality of the man, "as I am the founder of the Evolutionary system --"

"Order, order!" from all the Prosemen.

"I demand to be heard," cried Earl Lavender, rising to his feet, unruffled but firm.

The cries of order continued however; and Hubert Ware, whispering to Earl Lavender that he must bide his time, as it was quite evident that the evolutionary moment had passed, persuaded his new friend to sit down again.

"It seems to me," said a deep-voiced Proseman when quiet was again restored, "that we ought to indicate by a resolution of some kind our displeasure at what has just taken place. Rorison at all events should be censured."

"No," said a tall English Proseman, "let us proceed as if nothing had happened. The episode is past."

"I move," said the handsome Irish Proseman, "that the episode did not take place." This proposal, charmingly Hibernian, having been adopted with laughter and applause, the Prosemen proceeded to the reading of what each considered the best paragraph he had written since their last meeting. But before they began the waiter was summoned to replenish the glasses. As the Prosemen were about to give their orders an idea occurred to Earl Lavender.

"Gentlemen," he said, "we must have champagne to-night. Waiter, a magnum of Mumm." The waiter, who attended to the Prosemen's chamber, had not seen or heard anything of Earl Lavender's conduct in the dining-room, and although somewhat surprised at his order, was about to execute it, when Hubert Ware bade him wait.

"My lord," said Ware aside to Earl Lavender, "is it a circumstance that I have barely five shillings left?"

"Not at all," replied Earl Lavender. "I beg you not to pay any more money for me to-night. Evolution is my banker. All right, waiter."

Here, however, another difficulty arose. It was one of the bye-laws of the Guild of Prosemen that every man should pay his own shot.

"Individually, of course, we are millionaires," said the Proseman with the deep voice. "In our corporate capacity we are paupers, and as we never treat, we make it a rule never to be treated."

"But, gentlemen," said Earl Lavender, "this is a very special occasion. To-night marks the beginning of a new epoch. Besides, there has been some friction. You have proved to be in a less prepared mood for the reception of my doctrine than I anticipated, and have resented my criticism and plain-dealing. Champagne is the best liniment for abrasions of the spirit. Waiter, bring the Mumm." As no further opposition was made, the champagne was brought, and forthwith all the Prosemen who were prepared read or recited their paragraphs in turn-charming paragraphs, eloquent paragraphs, critical, poetical, philosophical paragraphs, all of them interesting, all of them well-written.

The prose being done, Earl Lavender rose at once and addressed the Guild of Prosemen for the second time.

"Very admirable, indeed, gentlemen," he said; "but all this random writing must end. With unerring intuition, as becomes the fittest of created beings, I perceive that the final cause of your existence is to become my disciples. I ask you to set your intended book aside, and to write evolutionary prose celebrating me and --"

At this point the murmurs with which Earl Lavender's attempt at a second speech had been accompanied burst into a shout. Most of the Prosemen stood up and shook their fists, despatching with one voice but quite good- humouredly him and his mission to the nether regions.

Earl Lavender folded his arms and smiled at them. He then petitioned for a further hearing, but as the gesticulation and outcry increased, he touched Lord Brumm on the shoulder, and crying in a voice heard above the din: "In spite of yourselves, you must help me and my cause, for you will have to pay for the champagne," he left the room followed by his quaking henchman.

The waiter who had brought the magnum of Mumm stopped the pair at the door of the inn and asked who was to pay.

"The Guild of Prosemen are defraying the entertainment of their guests," answered Earl Lavender.

"Hansom!" he cried; and bundling the utterly demoralised Brumm into a cab, he bade the driver take them to Piccadilly Circus.

"Two gentlemen, lady," said the ponderous waiter in his ridiculously thin voice. "No; not at this identical moment. But the twins were here."

"Oh! They're not twins," said the young lady, smiling frankly.

The waiter didn't remember another pair of gentlemen, but he referred to his assistant.

"It wouldn't be c'rrect," said that effusive and apologetic young man, "to say as there was two gents 'ere like them two o' yours, lady; but there was three that come near it. Mr Ware, 'as dines 'ere often, 'ad two friends with 'im, but it weren't 'im; 'e ain't neither stout nor dark. But 'is friends was stout and dark, an' 'e 'ad stout and bitter, as 'e always do 'ave. An' they was particular strikin'; an a moustache one of 'em 'ad: a sort o' patter cove 'e were, like them niggers wot talks straight on round the clock, with umberellies as big as 'ole women a- smashin' of the table at the 'alls. 'E did give it them unfort'nit twins. 'E came it over 'em in a style, as you might say, two 'undered words a minute at the school o' short'and. Oh! 'e's a dook, an' 'e's gone, miss. Both gone. 'Ansom."

"Did you hear what direction they gave the driver?" asked the young lady eagerly.

"No, miss. Upstairs may 'ave 'eard. 'E saw 'em off."

"Oh! could you find out for me?"

The agile assistant sprang to the foot of the stairs, and cried up at the pitch of his voice, --

"Hi, there! William!"

"I 'ear you, George," replied William from the bar.

"Oh, you're there, are you?" said George turning round. "Why didn't you say so before, an' not 'ave me shoutin' up one chimney an' down another. Where did them two blokes go as made the twins sit up?"

"Dunno."

"'E dunno, miss; 'e didn't 'ear," explained the agile assistant, rushing into the dining-room. You see, these sort o' hintertainin' coves, when they leaves one place an' takes an 'ansom to another, don't let the street know where they're goin. There's coppers an' lamp- posts about, an' there ain't no need to be familiar."

The young lady looked as if the waiter's last remark expressed her own sentiments at that particular instant. She only said, however, --

"I am too tired to do any more to- night," and selecting a comfortable corner right below the picture of Goldsmith, she sank down on the worn seat and leant her arms on the table. "Waiter," she said, could I have something to eat here?"

"Well, I don't know, miss," said the waiter rubbing his ponderous chin, and ready on the emergence of the least difficulty to refer to his assistant; something light, now?"

"I think I'm hungry enough to eat a chop," said the young lady.

"Chops are off, ma'am," replied the waiter promptly, removing his hand from his chin, and sticking it in his side.

He liked to talk of things he knew about.

"Well then, a steak?" suggested the young lady.

"Steaks off since seven-thirty," said the waiter, with increased confidence, rejoiced at the turn the conversation had taken.

"What can you give me, then?"

"Tripe, ma'am; tripe and onions."

"Tripe," said the young lady thoughtfully. "I never ate tripe, but I've often heard of it. I suppose people do eat it, waiter? There's no mystery about it?"

"Oh, no, ma'am; no mystery about tripe."

"Is it good?"

"Good!" exclaimed the head waiter, enchanted to find himself still master of the subject, and quite excited with the brilliancy of his own replies. "I ain't an authority, you know, on tripe in general, but the tripe we serve here twice a week, ma'am, is as good as the steaks, and they're the best in London."

"Oh," said the young lady, "please bring me some then, and a glass of claret."

The assistant conveyed the young lady's order to the proper quarter, and the head waiter retired to his stance near the door. His musings there were speedily disturbed by a tap on the shoulder, and, looking round, to his unbounded amazement he found himself confronted by another lady -- a matronly-looking person clad in black silk with black feathers in her bonnet. She had touched the waiter with her gold eye-glasses very gingerly, as if that optical instrument had also been a magical one, with the power when forcibly applied of turning waiters into stone; and when she had attracted the attention of the ponderous head at the 'Cap-and-Bells' she settled her pince-nez on the bridge of her comely nose, with a loving care which showed that she knew perfectly well how their gold rims and dazzling pebbles would light up her shrewd, merry face.

"Oh, Mr Waiter!" she said, "has Mr Gurdon of Nettleby-Kingscroft been here?"

"Mr who?" queried the head waiter more shrilly than usual, making the matronly lady start and look him all over, wondering apparently if his voice had issued from a watch-pocket or a buttonhole.

"Mr Gurdon of Nettleby-Kingscroft," she repeated.

But the head waiter had already signalled to his assistant, and that young man at once took up his parable.

"Mr Gurdon of Nettleby-Kingscroft, ma'am," he said, exhibiting much excitement, and consequently speaking in a more apologetic style than ever. "A middling-sized gent; fills 'is skin an' 'is clothes well; 'eats and drinks 'earty, an' goes about with a tall young straight-tipper who lays it off sizable --"

"Jillikins!" interposed the head waiter. "You don't mean to say she's after these rum coves too?"

"I know'd it," chuckled the assistant. "Double-barrelled breach o' promise case."

"How dare you!" cried the matronly lady.

"How dare you! I demand to know where Mr Gurdon is."

"We can't tell you, ma'am," said the head waiter, again able to speak to the point. "He left here about quarter an hour ago in a hansom, and that's all we know."

"How disappointing!" said the lady with a sigh. "I'm too tired to do any more to-night. Can I have something to eat?"

"Certainly, ma'am. Tripe and onions."

"Oh, I love tripe and onions! Give me some, and a pot of porter."

The matronly lady then looked about her, and regarding the beautiful girl in the corner with a favourable eye, pulled off her gloves and sat down close beside her without more ado.

"I have just heard what you said," remarked the young lady; "and do you know, I think we are searching for the same gentlemen."

"No!" exclaimed the other. "But, of course, nothing could be likelier. Eligible men won't marry now; they simply won't do it, that's all that's about it."

The beautiful girl blushed a fiery-red and made play with her napkin.

"My dear, I mean no offence," said the matronly lady. "But when a woman comes alone to London hunting a man it isn't her father or her brother she's after, nor her husband either. Husbands never run away of themselves. They're driven away, and the wives don't follow them. It's when they're engaged, and the marriage-day is just at hand, that the men cut and run, and the women chase them. Its fang-de-seeaycle that does it, my dear, and education, and reading French. When I was younger, I got a dozen offers every spring until I married the late Mr Scamler. Then, after he died I was caught up in the very apex of education, and my offers dropped off except on one day when I had several hundred, as I'll tell you about -- to one or two in the season, like leaves in the forest, my dear, when autumn, etc., -- Byron, you know. But it wasn't because autumn had blown with me. But, my dear, here am I talking to you as if I'd known you all my life, and you may be, for anything - my dear, here's the tripe! And you're taking tripe too! Now, we must be better acquainted. By-the-bye, do you know Mr Gurdon?"

The young lady did not know Mr Gurdon.

"Well, my dear, he is a very remarkable man," said the relict of the late Mr Scamler. "When Mr Scamler died he left me very comfortable, I must say that. Two hundred a year in the -- what's the per cents.? -- I never know now, but it's not so much as it was, though of course we have the consolation of knowing that it's for the good of the country, and when duty calls and can't be avoided there's no use grumbling -- and five hundred pounds his life was insured for. Having nothing to do, no relations, no children -- except an uncle who died in Australia, poor man, when I was a girl -- I gave myself up to the wave of educational excitement that swept over the land. I bought a cyclop‘dia, and took in the Woman's Educator, and studied everything, my dear -- at first: things I'd never heard of before and don't remember the names of now. But I soon settled down to drawing and French exclusively; and the progress I made was surprising. It was model drawing that I liked best. I hadn't a comb -- or cone, is it? -- yes, cone; so I placed a bandbox in positions that you wouldn't have imagined it possible, and couldn't have known from the drawings that it was a bandbox. There was no difficulty I didn't master. And the same with French. Masculine, feminine -- beau, belle, doo, dela; singular, plural -- cheval, chevox; to be or not to be -- eightur, avoir; and so on -- parlez vous, porky, parsk, and all without a master."

Here Mrs Scamler who had been nibbling a little during her communicative monologue, took a long breath and a sip of porter, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of her supper. With a pleasant smile on her comely face she ate steadily for fully three minutes. Her companion, wondering much, and vastly amused at the talkative widow, was also busy with her knife and fork.

"Well, as I was saying," resumed Mrs Scamler, having taken another sip of porter, "Mr Gurdon, whom you don't know, is a very remarkable man. But I didn't make his acquaintance until I had given up French and model drawing. I couldn't describe to you the effect of my studies on the inhabitants of Nettleby-Kingscroft. The very milkman spoke in awestruck whispers, and made his pony walk when he came within a hundred yards of my door. My popularity and fame were beyond anything -- for a time, only for a time. Just when I was beginning to reap the reward of my arduous labours -- a teapot! I could draw a teapot with ease, and could read short sentences, made up of the words I knew at sight, just like English -- the tide turned against me, and a deputation came, informal, of the chemist's, the schoolmaster's, and the butcher's wife -- wives should it be? -- and invited me pointedly to attend the Dorcas meetings. You could have knocked me down with a feather. But I plucked up heart and told them no, I was going to be an artist and a linguist. There was all the late Mr Scamler's clothes they could have, and I would subscribe a guinea a year, but attend their scandalous meetings I would not, for I'm sure it was better to be studying French and model drawing. But the butcher's wife, a very vulgar woman, said to me, -- 'Mrs Scamler,' she said, 'do you study French, ma'am?' 'I do, indeed,' I said; 'two hours a day.' 'Then, ma'am,' she says, 'we call upon you to give it up.' 'Give it up!' I said. 'Why should I give up what your daughter does?' for I knew her daughter learnt French at school. 'Because, ma'am,' she said, 'it can't be for no good end, and if it were people wouldn't believe it. My daughter learns French at school. But what for? Because it's an accomplishment that all girls have. They take it like the measles and the chickenpox; but do you suppose they go on having it after they're done school? No; and if a grown woman takes the measles, it's bad on her; and if a widow takes to learning French we know what that means. 'It's a very immoral language,' said the school-master's wife, for she hadn't paid the butcher's bill for six months, as I happened to know. 'Shocking,' said the chemist's wife. 'I knew a woman who read French, and she ran away from her husband, and died of consumption. For it's in the language. My husband says its rotten and corrupt, and he ought to know, being a chemist by examination. Mrs Scamler, you need a pill or a draught or something, for I declare you look quite dissolute already.' And me only beginning irregular verbs! But I was so taken aback that I didn't know what to say. So I gave them a glass of sherry and a biscuit, and told them I would think of it. And they pressed my hand very hard at leaving, and sighed, and looked up, and the schoolmaster's wife used her handky. I was in a fine taking, I can tell you, and went to my Woman's Educators, and examined the French language; and, do you know, it seemed to have a wicked look about it. Then I went to my glass, and as sure as anything, I was pale and had black rings under my eyes. Well, the upshot of it was that I came to the conclusion there was no use sacrificing my health and putting all the neighbours against me for the sake of a rotten language. I hid away the Educators there and then, for I meant to stop the model drawing too, as I saw quite well it would only lead to worse disputes when I came to study the nude, and sent out the servant for a Family Herald Supplement, and the peace of mind I had was wonderful."

After another interval, in which Mrs Scamler proved herself to be so capable and resolute a trencher- woman, that she had finished her supper before her companion was half done, the story of Mr Gurdon was continued.

"But you mustn't imagine I went to their Dorcas meetings," said Mrs Scamler, laying her left hand on the table and pointing at nothing with her forefinger. "I said to myself, 'Thus far and no further. You gave up French and model drawing to oblige your neighbours; but, mark me, Mrs Scamler, you keep yourself to yourself, pay your rent and taxes, give twenty pounds a year to the poor, visit a little without becoming too intimate, and you'll be happy and contented.' But I wasn't happy and contented, for I had nothing to do. I didn't need to work for a living, which might have been better for me. A greengrocer's now, or stationery and toys, I could have done; and it might, I say, have been better; but there I was, free and independent, with a vote at school board and county council elections, and so, my dear, I made up my mind to marry again. Oh! I was very cautious. I formed a plan -- you'll never guess the plan I formed."

The young lady was sure she couldn't.

"I advertised in two London papers for a board-and-lodger," said Mrs Scamler radiantly, as if she were the first widow in the world who had ever thought of such a thing. "One was for a bachelor and the other was for a widower. I remember the very words of them, for I gave them much thought, and they occupied me agreeably for two or three days during the time I used to spend on my French and model drawing. The bachelor one was: -- 'Pleasant home for young gentleman; twenty-five to thirty. Short distance from Virginia Water. Widow lady of independent means. Apply Mrs S., Viewfield, Nettleby- Kingscroft, Bucks." I thought, you see, that I might prefer somebody ten years younger than myself for a change. I had married Mr Scamler for a comfortable home, you know, and I saw no reason why I shouldn't, if I chose, please my eye though I broke my heart, as they say. And this was the widower one: -- 'Widower can have a comfortable home in house of widow of independent means. Apply Mrs S. Viewfield, Nettleby-Kingscroft, Bucks. Reading-room, library, chess club, fishing club, etc." Very artful, both of them, weren't they? I put the widower one in a Tory paper and the bachelor one in a Radical, so that they mightn't clash. That very afternoon -- I shall laugh on my death-bed when I think of it -- you would have thought there was a race meeting at Nettleby-Kingscroft. They came on their feet, they came in cabs, they came on horseback, some of them, right on from 2 P.M. till nearly midnight. I had three bottles of port and four of sherry, and a pound cake and a tin of biscuits, but what was that among a crowd of majors, captains, ex-M.P.'s, lawyers, bankers, doctors, parsons, most of them from London, and seven of them borrowed half- crowns. By five o'clock I had beer and bread and cheese set out in every room in the house except my own, and men smoking pipes and cigars and chaffing each other; but they were very solemn to me, and asked me what I meant by such an advertisement, and what were my means any way -- a paltry two hundred a year (they knew it all from the publican) -- I ought to be ashamed of myself, they said, and they wouldn't have me though I was to die the day after; but that was well on in the night when they were all tipsy. At first they were very civil, and told me all about themselves, one after the other, and never said a word about board and lodging, but would I have them, yes or no, as they were in a hurry, and had expectations, and would settle another two hundred, and one of them -- I forgot -- in the afternoon, with a squint and a sausage nose, had a most important engagement in Boulogne that very night, would I get fifty pounds and come away at once; and when I wouldn't he ran off damning and slamming the door. But at last a man with a laughing face and a shabby coat, seeing me like to cry with vexation, says, pulling the Tory and Radical papers out of his pocket, 'Madam, you see these advertisements widow of independent means' -- very emphatical -- "wants both a young gentleman and a widower. Everyone of us has seen both these papers, and we know, madam, that it's a husband you want, bless your simple little heart. And we jump into a train, and we call at the public-house, and find out what you are, and look daggers and run over each other on the road, and half the blacklegs and adventurers in London are come or coming, ma'am.' And I was in such a taking! And the crowd outside! Boys and men; and all the women made errands past my house. So I just shut myself up in my room, and sent my maid for the constable and it took him half an hour to clear out the last of them. In the morning two of them were found asleep in the lane; and the tumblers and glasses they broke, and a mirror, and the carpets and cushions and table covers all dribbled and stained and singed with vestas and cigars like sackcloth and ashes -- it cost me ten pounds besides the wine and beer and bread and cheese. But next morning I did laugh; I laughed for a week, and I always laugh when I think of it."

At this point in her story the laughter which had been flooding Mrs Scamler's voice for some time gurgled out in a most delightful stream, and set her young companion off too; and they laughed together very heartily.

"And do you know it wasn't done," continued Mrs Scamler, when her laughter had subsided. "Men called for two or three days after, but I didn't let them in except one that came all the way from York with his last shilling in his pocket and his last cough in his lungs you would have said.

I put him in the kitchen, and he fell asleep at the fire, and snored and coughed all evening; and when my maid poked him up with the broom he only muttered, 'It was a very pleasant, comfortable home; odd, though, to sleep at the kitchen fire; he would have liked a bedroom to himself.' The poor creature thought I kept a free hospital for inscrutables. I sent him back next day, and a lawyer wrote me for twenty pounds; but I took no notice of it. And the letters I got with every post for a fortnight! Threatening, imploring, cudgelling -- such passionate letters, too! With bits of Shakespeare and Byron, My Lady and My Queen, Some Day, I know not when or how, and Love me Little Love me Long. And they had all made a vow when they were boys to marry a widow of independent means. Half of them gave me just two days to answer. They had a revolver, and would hold it at their temples for forty-eight hours with their elbows on the mantelpiece, doubtless, for nobody could keep the position without some support -- and if no answer came my blood will be on your head. But I had seen the kind of gentleman and it didn't trouble me. Well, my dear, I became a terror to the village. People got out of my way in the street. The butcher's, the chemist's, and the schoolmaster's wife - wives, I mean (and yet they might as well be one woman for their brains are all cut to the same shape, and the butcher and the chemist and the schoolmaster wouldn't much mind, I think) -- held me up as an example of the dreadful effect of the French language, and frightened their children with Mrs Scamler. Everybody eyed me; I saw them; and I believe they would have burned me alive if they could. But to, confess the truth, I rather liked it, and next month I put in an advertisement again -- a horse of quite another colour, although why an advertisement should be called a horse I can't make out, or anything else, not the advertisement but the horse. I remember it quite well, for it took me a whole day to compose it, and it went: - "Single gentleman can have board and lodging in a villa in one of the most delightful parts of England, within easy distance of London. Very moderate to a permanency. Apply S., office of this paper." Three out of the applications pleased me, and the first I wrote to was Mr Gurdon, so I didn't see the other two. I was at the window when he came in at the garden gate, and I though I had never seen such a nice-looking, middle-aged gentleman before, and not very middle-aged either. Not too tall, and not too short -- a fine, fresh, stout, clean-looking, well-set-up man in his prime; and I tell you I thought to myself 'this is the very man for a decent widow to marry.' So I went and lay down on the couch in the drawing-room with a shawl round my shoulders. I didn't want to seem too well and hearty you know, for they say men like women to be just a little delicate -- which, goodness knows, I never was, and can't understand it. And the first words he says after bidding me goodday, quite cheerful like, but slow and emphatical, 'Madam, I am a mahoganist.' Don't you know? Neither did I then. It means a woman-hater."

"Oh! misogynist," said the young lady.

"Yes, misogynist. Misogyner, misogynist. But perhaps it is not an adjective -- if so, incomparable. I always have it wrong. Misogynist, mahoganist -- it got mixed up in my mind with Mahomet -- which I can't make out as he wasn't one -- and a sideboard, very big and gloomy that used to sit in my father's dining-room. But its root's guinea, a woman. Misogynist. I understand it quite well, my dear, although I make a mistake sometimes in pronunciation, having got all my learning without a master. 'Madam,' he says, 'I am a mahoganist.' 'Indeed, sir,' I said, thinking it was his business. 'Would you go into the city every day, then?' 'No, madam,' he said, rather wondering at me, 'I would not go into the city.' Then I guessed it was his religion, and told him there was none of them in the village. 'Oh,' he cries, still wondering at me. Seeing I was wrong again, and not to be beaten, I asked him if he suffered much, and there was a very good doctor in the neighbourhood. Then he burst out laughing, and begged my pardon, and told me that mahoganist meant a woman-hater. I thought to myself 'maybe you do,' but I said nothing, and we made a bargain. But the rules that he laid down were dreadful. He wasn't to see me except once a week, when--"

"Now, then, ladies," said the head waiter shrilly, but with great self-possession, being again master of his subject, five minutes to twelve."

"Goodness gracious me, Mr Waiter," cried Mrs Scamler, "is it that time already? And does Mr Gurdon come here everyday?"

"He never was here before, ma'am," replied the head waiter hesitatingly, and with a half turn towards his assistant.

"No, 'e never was 'ere before," said the assistant. "But 'e may come back again."

"By-the-bye," said the young lady, "you said that these gentlemen went away together, and that they had been dining with somebody."

"Yes, ma'am; with Mr Ware."

"Do you know where Mr Ware lives?"

"No, ma'am; but 'e's -- per'aps 'e's comin' downstairs now. Guild o' Prosemen tonight, an' 'e's a Prosemen, 'e is."

But only four Prosemen had remained till closing time. Mr Ware, they told the assistant waiter, who intercepted them on their way out, had left with Mr Rorison shortly after Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm. The four Prosemen, on learning that two ladies wanted Mr Ware's address, were sorry they didn't know it; they thought it was in the Temple.

"To-morrow or next day," said the effusive and agile, but always apologetic, assistant, returning to the ladies who had risen, and were quite ready to go, "Mr Ware is sure to dine 'ere, ladies, on a steak or a chop. Three or four times a week 'e comes, which don't mean that 'e lives in Islington or Nottin-gill, ma'am, although the twins do live in Pentonville."

"Well, now, Mr Waiter -- Mr Waiter, junior," said Mrs Scamler, touching one of the buttons of the assistant's coat with her magic eye-glasses delicately, so as not to harm him, "when Mr Ware comes, will you tell him that two ladies would like to see him about the gentlemen who dined with him to-day? He won't have forgotten."

"That 'e won't, ma'am; and neither will the twins."

"And here," said Mrs Scamler, taking a somewhat battered, silver-filagree card-case and a gold pencil from a very capacious pocket, "is my address: 'Mrs Scamler, Pilkington's Private Hotel, Guelph Crescent, W.C.' But if the two gentlemen return, you mustn't on any account tell them that we were here," continued Mrs Scamler, when she had written the address. Find out where they're living -- they must be living somewhere. In fact, follow them, and don't lose sight of them until you have sent for us and we have come to take charge of them."

"Impossible, ma'am," said the head waiter, with some asperity. "His duties are here; he ain't a detective."

"If I thought," said Mrs Scamler, with amazing force, "if I thought he was a detective, I would denounce him. Detectives -- my dear, I shall tell you of a detective; it belongs to what I was saying about Mr Gurdon. Then, perhaps, Mr Waiter, since the young man's duties are so onerous," continued Mrs Scamler, winningly, "you could undertake it yourself. Mr Waiter, junior, does all the work, and your position being ornamental, and honourable too -- no doubt of it, sir -- not to say honorary, and quite as onerous when properly understood, you wouldn't, I should think, be greatly missed."

A reply embodying the full strength and weight of the ponderous head's astonishment and indignation would have been beyond the scope of his vocabulary and the pitch of his voice. Happily he was spared the necessity of attempting the impossible by the entrance of the proprietor, who superintended in person the shutting up of the 'Cap-and- Bells.'

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Scamler, perceiving that this was a person in authority, "I have just been asking your waiters, who are very attentive and obliging, and if they should ever want a character I shall be very glad, to do me a favour, but they are not inclined to help me. I have been proposing that the young man -- I should prefer the young man, but the old one would do -- to -- well, you see, it would have to be some way like this. He could have a telegram ready written -- and stamped -- in his pocket. "Scamler, Pilkington's, Guelph Crescent, W.C." -- one, two, three, four, five --" found sixty-three Appleby Street, Pilkington Square, Hampstead, N." -- six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen: sevenpence that would be, and as long an address as he would be likely to have to wire, unless there were three figures, or it was N.W. --but perhaps that's only one, W. or N.W. -- I never knew -- we could make it eightpence. He could give it to a policeman to take to the nearest telegraph office without taking his eye off the door of the house for a single instant, and if they left before we arrived, then he would follow them, and leave word -- he would need several telegrams --"

Here Mrs Scamler's plan became so involved that she was brought to a standstill; and the proprietor, who had kept his countenance wonderfully, asked her, without making the slightest reference to her proposal, and in a very affable manner, if she would walk or take a cab home.

"Oh, yes, certainly, please," said Mrs Scamler, by which she was understood to assent to the latter alternative.

The young lady, who had never before been so amazed at, amused by, and ashamed for a member of her own sex, or of the other for that matter, in the whole twenty years of her life, and who had been quite unable to get a word in edgeways since they rose to go, now held out her hand to Mrs Scamler to say good-night.

"Oh, no, not yet," said the loquacious widow. "We must go together, and I shall drop you at your address. Consider, my dear. We must arrange to see each other to-morrow. I must tell you about Mr Gurdon, and you must tell me about your gentleman, and how we both knew to come to the 'Cap-and-Bells' for them. Why, it's the most wonderful thing in the world! And we must arrange our future proceedings. Good-night, Mr Waiter; good-night, Mr Junior. And Mr Proprietor, it would perhaps be better, when these two gentlemen come, to arrest them. You could easily find some excuse. It would do quite well, wouldn't it, to accuse them of passing false coin? What's your address, my dear?"

"Great British Hotel," said the young lady.

"We want to go," said Mrs Scamler, for by this time they had reached the door of the tavern, and a cab was waiting; "we want to go to Pilkington's, Guelph Crescent, and the Great British Hotel, and you're to go to the nearest first." When they had entered the cab, Mrs Scamler thrust her head out of the window and waved her hand to the proprietor.

"Or the junior could put spoons in their top- coat pockets," she cried. "Or simply --" but the noise of the wheels drowned her last suggestion.

"What is it?" asked Earl Lavender.

"Yes, sir?" queried the cabman hoarsely.

"I want to get out: replied Lord Brumm to the cabman. "We must get out," he declared hotly to Earl Lavender. "And apologise -- apologise to a cabman! Oh, the row there'll be! But if we get out at once and say we've just discovered we've no money, we may get over it."

As he said this Lord Brumm burst open the door in eager haste; but Earl Lavender, pulling him back by the coat- tails, and bidding the driver go on, proceeded to reason with his henchman.

"I am disappointed, good Brumm," he said, "that you should continue to doubt the power of Evolution after what you have seen to-night."

"I don't doubt it," said Brumm, in a harassed way. "I don't doubt it for one moment, when there's a necessity in the case, like food and drink. But we could have walked, you see; and I'll be hanged if I can understand how it concerns Evolution to get us out of a mere scrape."

"Out of all kinds of scrapes, my dear Brumm, Evolution has the power to deliver us. There is no conceivable scrape which is not a link in the great chain in Chance, which is the empirical name for Evolution, and bears the same relation to it that alchemy bears to chemistry, and astrology to astronomy. And the last little scrape of all, death, is simply the charming means Evolution takes to get us out of the great big scrape, life. You will never be happy, my dear friend, until you submit to the Evolutionary will. If it were not so amusing, nothing would be more insufferable than the unanimity and persistency with which all men and kindreds and nations shout up into space, 'What a scrape we're in!' It is the first thing the child says in its inarticulate way with the first breath of air it is able to employ. 'Oh, what a scrape to be sure!' And it is the last thing the man feels on his death-bed. And you will find that all the books and newspapers and music in the world are only expositions and sermons and fugues and variations on the one theme. 'Oh, what a scrape!' Now, it is my mission to change the world's tune. I mean to teach it that scrape, luck, chance, is law, is Evolution, is the soul of the universe; and having brought man's will into accord with the Evolutionary will, in a very short time it will come about that children will laugh with their first breath, as much as to say, 'What a delightful thing it is to come into the world.' And on their death-beds men will cry, 'How refreshing and noble it is to pass away,' while all the books and newspapers and music of the world will cease to be a mere complaint, will cease -- altogether, the books and newspapers, perhaps, and only glad music remain. And this change we are to bring about, good Brumm, by the simple method which we have inaugurated to-night."

Lord Brumm did not catch the whole of this harangue, and what he did hear seemed to him nonsense; but Earl Lavender's assured tone, and the radiant confidence of his expression, quieted his fears once more, much to his own amazement; and when they drew up on the north side of Piccadilly Circus, opposite the entrance to the Cafe Benvenuto, he stepped out of the cab, feeling as little anxiety as Earl Lavender himself about the payment of the fare."

"I think we should go in here: he said in a thoroughly Evolutionary style, which delighted his companion. It's nearly three hours since we ate anything."

"An admirable proposal," assented Earl Lavender.

Having told the cabman to wait, they entered the Grecian saloon of the Cafe Benvenuto and sat down at a table. Lord Brumm felt some trepidation when he found himself in a beautiful white temple in the midst of a small crowd of men and women, mostly in evening dress, and saw, or thought he saw, 'ready money and plenty of it while it lasts' in the cut of their clothes and the expression of their faces. His sudden Evolutionary heat began to cool, and he suggested in an undertone that they should content themselves with a modest snack. But Earl Lavender, having ordered the 'Theatre Supper' at five shillings a head, reproached his henchman for his inconstancy, and assured him that Evolution would help only those who reposed unwavering faith in its power and gave it continual exercise in vindicating their fitness.

"Nothing grieves Evolution more, my dear Brumm," he said, "than half belief. We must not proceed on the assumption that it is easier for Evolution to provide the cost of a dish of macaroni than that of a supper of four courses. Evolution is on its trial, and will display its power cheerfully on our behalf in any matter and to any extent, or I am very much mistaken. Above all, good Brumm, be happy and regardless of expense, for to be worried and economical ill becomes the apostles of that power which wasted countless ages in fashioning indolently one little world."

"Well, well," said Lord Brumm restlessly, "Sufficient unto the day is the Evil-ution thereof. We shall have one good supper though we sleep in prison for it."

"There is no chance of that," said Earl Lavender. "We shall sleep to-night in as good beds as there are in London. But you mustn't pun, Brumm, Puns are produced only in vacant minds. Keep high thoughts and visions of delightful things before you and you won't pun."

"I seldom do," retorted Lord Brumm. "That one slipped out before I noticed. Evolution must have sent it."

"As a punishment then," rejoined Earl Lavender.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Lord Brumm.

"What is it?"

"Pun-ishment, the most ancient pun in the language."

"It is the observer of the pun that makes it, my dear Brumm. Of course, when the word is distorted, as in Evil-ution, the most preoccupied notice it, but in this instance which you try to fasten upon me the crime is yours. There is nothing more contrary to the Evolutionary will than puns. Bloodshed and desolation follow in their wake. Their English heyday, which was in the reign of James I., caused the great civil war; in France they flourished most rankly under Louis XV., and produced the French Revolution. I have considered puns, and apart altogether from their hateful effect, as shown in history, it is certain that they are quite unevolutionary, because I, the fittest of men, am unable to make them. You will consult your own welfare, and that of the nation, Brougham, by refraining in future."

"Not the least agreeable feature of the 'Theatre Supper' at the Cafe Benvenuto," continued Earl Lavender as the waiter brought the first dish, "seems to be the expedition with which it is served."

"Yes," said Lord Brumm; "you see, all these people must have supper before twelve o'clock. Dinners and luncheons in foreign cockney restaurants are often very carelessly served -- with Evolutionary indolence, in fact, but when they are tied to time these moosoos can skip."

"I am delighted to find you applying the Evolutionary idea for yourself, good Brumm, even although your interpretation is mistaken, for I can assure you there is nothing Evolutionary in the tardy service of a dinner. There are times and seasons when Evolution is eager in its haste, and it seems to me that here and now a most signal illustration is provided of its passionate desire to vindicate my fitness."

"What do you mean?" asked Lord Brumm. "Everybody else is being attended to as promptly as you."

"You are wide of the mark, Brumm," replied Earl Lavender. Unless my wits have deserted me entirely, Evolution has brought together on the very first day of the evolutionary epoch the fittest man and the fittest woman. At the second table on my left there sits alone a female figure of matchless grace and majesty. She is veiled, only her chin and mouth being visible; but if I have any intuition at all, her face is the most beautiful ever seen, and she is the sweetest and strongest among the daughters of men. She is veiled as a sign that I must not claim her yet, but we shall see her again, or it may be that she herself will lay claim to me, and that to-night."

"Evolution forbid!" exclaimed Lord Brumm.

"Why?" queried Earl Lavender.

"Because I hate women."

"Nothing could be more unevolutionary," said Earl Lavender gravely. "There is some mystery here; you have not the temperament of a woman-hater. What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. Women are by nature unjust, unfaithful, hard-hearted, wrongheaded, perverse, hypocritical, unintelligent, uninteresting, uncompanionable -- in every respect inferior to men, and unchangeable in their inferiority."

"Here's an indictment!" said Earl Lavender, laughing.

"And," continued Lord Brumm, rejoicing in his new-found energy, "if there were any truth in this Evolutionary nonsense --"

"Pause there," said Earl Lavender at once, in a low voice, that trembled with fury. "Withdraw and apologise. It is not from you that I shall hear Evolution slighted. Apologise."

"But, my lord --" began Lord Brumm, paling a little.

"No excuse, no explanation! Apologise. You have thrown in your lot with me, and however accidental your aspersion of Evolution may have been, I require an instant apology. Apologise."

"This is just a little too much," said Lord Brumm testily.

"Very well, sir," rejoined Earl Lavender, rising and seizing his hat, "I go. A renegade already! But I am glad that your unfitness has been proved before I had committed myself further in your company."

"Stop!" cried Lord Brumm, quaking at the idea of being left alone in his penniless plight to face the waiter and the cabman. "I am very sorry. I beg your pardon. I beg Evolution's pardon."

"And will never offend again?" said Earl Lavender, taking off his hat.

"And will never offend again," repeated Lord Brumm.

"Then," said Earl Lavender, resuming his seat, "the circumstance is forgiven and forgotten. Pursue," he continued, with an immediate and full return of his gracious manner, pursue the discussion."

"Well, my lord," rejoined Lord Brumm, nothing loth, for he was now on his own subject, and was glad to forget his disagreement with Earl Lavender, "it seems to me that, woman being undoubtedly a most inferior creature, Evolution -- with all due reverence -- should have by this time provided some other means for the continuance of the race, and should have allowed man, the fittest, to survive alone."

"Your premises granted," replied Earl Lavender, "you do indeed deal a telling blow at Evolution. But I cannot believe you are in earnest in asserting the inferiority of woman; she is different from man, but not inferior. The fact that woman has survived, and is now triumphing over the oppression and slavery of which she was so long the patient victim, is, in my eyes, not only a proof of her fitness, but a proof of the truth of Evolution."

"My lord, I have been married twice," said Lord Brumm solemnly.

"That is your mystery, is it! You'll be married a third time, man, before you know where you are."

At which assurance Lord Brumm blushed scarlet, and looked very uneasy. "And you are generalising from an experience of only two women! Come, good Brumm, you must revise all your opinions from your new point of view."

"Not from my own experience alone," argued Lord Brumm; "from biography, history and fiction."

"All three admirable on any established basis, but impossible authorities in the discussion of Evolution, my best of Brumms; because it is the purpose of Evolution to re-write everything. Understand me. You might as well admit the doctrine of Pythagoras concerning the soul and Mohammed's idea of heaven as necessary data for the discussion of an Eight Hours Bill, as refer to any existing literature, system or creed in arguing the question of Evolution. The opinions of all writers are based hitherto on their own experience and the experience of other writers. Consider it very carefully. In the whole history of the world, we have had recorded hitherto only the experience and opinions of a few hundred people -- of a few hundred out of thousands of millions, and all of them disposed more or less by education to ratify the conclusions of their predecessors.

"All existing literature, philosophy and religion are as relevant to the needs of mankind as the opinion regarding opium of the Yogi, who lives on the top of Mount Everest, would be to the subject of agricultural depression in England. Under the Evolutionary system, experience and opinion must be gathered from the entire world, and before a harvest sufficient to make one little chapter of the Evolutionary Bible can be reaped, many decades must pass, many hundreds of years perhaps; for not until Evolution has been universally accepted, can we have a universally accepted opinion on any subject, even the simplest, such as the roasting of eggs. Thus, you see, Evolution overthrows all systems, all creeds, and cancels all literature. But in this transition period, this night- time of history, Evolution has not been unmindful of the world's wants. I, the fittest human being that ever walked beneath the moon, have been sent into the world, furnished with unerring intuition, as a guide to the people, and have to-night begun my apostolate triumphantly, as you yourself have witnessed."

During this deliverance Earl Lavender had kept his eye fixed on the Veiled Lady, and in his own mind, although his words were heard only by Lord Brumm, she was his true audience. As a matter of fact, he had no listener at all, for Lord Brumm's attention was so engrossed by the manouvres of their waiter, that Earl Lavender's words fell on his hearing like water through a sieve.

The rapidly served supper had been as rapidly disposed of during the quarrel and discussion; and the waiter, a baboon-faced person of dubious nationality, now moved stealthily about the table at which Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm sat. He had his bill-book in his hand, with the bill made out, and tapped it expressively with his pencil every few instants. He frowned, muttered, and gnashed his teeth; or charged the table, bill in hand, only to relent and circle his prey as if he had not yet hypnotised them to the paying point. Lord Brumm had never seen an uglier waiter, or one of stranger behaviour. He felt quite faint when he thought of what would happen on the presentation of the bill; but having that species of courage which faces the worst as soon as it is inevitable, he suggested at the pause in Earl Lavender's remarks that it was time to go.

The waiter, divining the purport of Lord Brumm's words, struck in at once with his bill.

Earl Lavender read it aloud. "Two suppers, ten shillings. Wine, eleven shillings. A guinea: He then looked up at the waiter and smiled.

"I vait," said the waiter fiercely. "It is now quarter of tvelfe. Vun, dwo, oader supper, not yet avhile, I vait, regard."

"Are you French?" asked Earl Lavender, amused by this specimen of foreign-waiter's English -- a patois of which he had had but little experience, but by which even the most experienced can seldom distinguish nationality. Many of the foreign waiters in London pick up their English chiefly in the society of each other: French, German, Italian and Swiss, they have among them produced a syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation consisting almost exclusively of mistakes, which bear the impress of the genius of one or other, and sometimes of all, of their native tongues.

"Are you French?" asked Earl Lavender, much interested in the baboon-like waiter and his hybrid speech.

"That makes nothing," replied the waiter more fiercely than before. "Ze tabble, I vait, regard."

Following with his eyes the gesture which accompanied 'regard,' Earl Lavender perceived that the waiter meant him to take note of the stream of people who were entering the room hurriedly and filling up every seat.

"Oh!" he said, "I understand. You wish us to give place to others. And indeed, it is time we did, for it may require several nights of very brisk custom to repay you the price of our supper."

"Ze bill, sir," said the waiter, tapping with his pencil.

"Have you not understood?" asked Earl Lavender in mild astonishment. "You are to pay the bill out of your own pocket since Evolution has seen fit to provide no other means."

"Sacré!" cried the waiter. "Afe you ze bayment made, pardon, quick, vun, dwo, oader supper. 'Immel I ze time vly, beoble vait, I vait, ze tabble, vill you den yourself dwo oader suppers take tvice? heh! heh!"

"Explain to him, Brumm," said Earl Lavender, rising.

"We have no money, waiter," said Lord Brumm, who was ghastly pale, and covered with perspiration. "Understand? We-have-no-money."

"Vat you say? Mein Gott!" shrieked the waiter, drawing all eyes on himself. "You eat, you drink, you talk, and you zit, zit, zit, and go not avay upon nothing I bresent, and 'afe no monney! Ach! roppers! Bonne mère! tventy-vun shilling lost dead, and ze provitable tip, tip, tip. Jean' -- this to the commissionaire, a burly young Soudanese veteran who had just entered -- " vetch ze boleece."

"Stop!" said the superintendent of the room, interfering unwillingly, and only at the last moment, between the waiter and his prey. "Gentlemen, what is the matter?" Instead of replying immediately, Earl Lavender motioned the commissionaire and the waiter, who intercepted his view, to stand aside. This they did mechanically; whereupon Earl Lavender delivered a short address sitting in his chair, and seen by everybody in the room, those nearest him remaining seated, while the others arranged themselves gallery-wise, standing up, according to distance, on the floor or the chairs.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Earl Lavender in his clear, musical voice, "the ready inclination you show to attend to my message is very gratifying, but that hardly decreases the difficulty I find in making myself understood, for even my disciple here, Lord Brumm, fails, except in snatches, to grasp my meaning. Unaccustomed, as I imagine you all are, with one transcendent exception, to any effort of real thought, I cannot expect to find you more receptive than my last audience, which consisted of authors -- men in the habit of at least trying to think. I may, however, remind you that in certain spheres of knowledge Evolution has already been recognised and welcomed as an iconoclast. This you must all have gathered from the newspapers and ordinary conversation, as I myself have done. It has remained for me, however, to discover and teach Evolution as a religion which shall remould all our ideas, all our customs, all our habits; and you will at once understand that a better missionary could not have been chosen when I inform you that I am the fittest of human beings. Instead of writing a book, or delivering a series of lectures in St James's Hall, I have adopted, as in Evolution bound, a new method of promulgating the new system. In my own person and that of Lord Brumm I am illustrating the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. Without money we enter a restaurant, and eat and drink of the best, trusting to Evolution to defray the expense. No propaganda could be simpler or more efficacious. Twice to-night Evolution has vindicated our fitness, providing in the 'Cap-and-Bells' the price of steaks and ale and of a magnum of Mumm. I have perfect confidence that a third miracle will now be performed; for these are Evolutionary miracles, ladies and gentlemen, and the only kind possible in the nineteenth century.

The distinct, authoritative utterance, and the calm, smiling face of Earl Lavender produced such an effect that for a few seconds after he had concluded perfect silence reigned. Then laughter rose and swelled and filled the room; people began to chatter, and many plied their knives and forks again, although still keeping a watchful eye on the scene in progress.

"Boleece!" cried the baboon-faced waiter, blue with anger. You lose me my situacion. You no know what all you do. But you s'all soof-soof-soofer. You s'all in ze mill wheel hum for t'ree six weeks like ze busy leetle basso in ze song, and 'afe a deal of ze blank to sleeb, heh! heh!"

The superintendent, perplexed but self-possessed, bidding the waiter be quiet, appealed to Lord Brumm.

"The joke has gone far enough," he said. "Your friend is evidently prepared to carry it on, but I think you hardly seem to be of his mind in the matter."

"We have no money," said the miserable Brumm inertly.

"I'll take your watches, then," said the superintendent.

Lord Brumm shook his head and threw open his coat.

"Well," said the superintendent, feeling that they were not common sharpers, "if you will leave your names and addresses, and an acknowledgment of the debt, you may go."

"To our names," said Earl Lavender, pleasantly, "you are welcome. I am the Earl of Lavender, and this is Lord Brumm. And also to our address, which, in the meantime, is London. But from to-night forward we shall never pay for anything. In the economic, as in all spheres, Evolution spells change."

The superintendent looked carefully at the nails of his own right hand, then he nodded to the Soudanese veteran. There was again silence in the room, and all eyes were fixed on Earl Lavender. But just as the commissionaire turned towards the door, the Veiled Lady rose and advanced to the table at which Earl Lavender sat.

"Wait a little," she said in a harp-like voice, calling after the commissionaire, who came back at once. "How much is it?" she asked of the superintendent.

The superintendent pointed to the bill.

"One pound one," she said, stooping over the table and opening her purse.

The baboon-faced waiter immediately held out his hand, and the Veiled Lady placed in it a sovereign and half- a-crown.

"I zank you," he said, pocketing the coins greedily, and without making that feeble appearance of searching for change, the usual ceremony accompanying the acceptance of a tip which is not paid separately. "I zank you, but I zink I would 'afe him in ze mill wheel much more hum."

When the bill was paid, Earl Lavender rose and made a deep bow to the Veiled Lady, who acknowledged it with a slight inclination. He then offered her his arm, which, after a moment's hesitation, she took. He conducted her to the door of the saloon, and there he faced the people again.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "when I consider the tremendous issues involved in the episode you have witnessed to-night, I confess that, in spite of my desire to take things as they come, I am amazed at your callousness. Had I risen in a crowded meeting of Parliament and introduced a bill for the compulsory emigration of the inhabitants of Great Britain, and the peopling of Scotland and England with Hibernian and American- Irish, my reception would have been of a very warm nature. And yet, I assure you, what you have heard and seen in this place to-night, is the beginning of a change in polity, creed and conduct, to which the racial rearrangement I have suggested would be but as a pyrotechnic display at Sydenham to the fires of Doomsday. It fills me indeed with consternation to see you sitting here eating and drinking, laughing and talking, thoughtless and secure at the very moment when a lever has been put to the world which shall shift its orbit. Not that I would have you gloomy; not that I would have you what is called serious: seriousness, as it is commonly understood, is no part of the radiant Evolutionary life; but I should like to see you interested and excited. Doubtless you have often said to yourselves, -- 'We recognise the change going on about us: Society is being re-edified on a new plan?' But I tell you dilapidation did not cease with the walls, and while you are busy with your new social structure, a mine is laid under the ancient foundations on which you build. Be warned in time; leave your patchwork and start afresh. You are erecting your new marble on an old groundwork of brick. Get down to the solid rock once more, I beseech you. Take example by me. Not in parliaments, or cathedrals, or colleges, but in taverns and restaurants is the new doctrine preached; and its veracity is attested not by banners and trumpets and embattled hosts, but by a simple miracle which lay to my hand -- to wit, the being publicly provided for at the expense of others -- that is, by Evolution. Although I bid you take example by me, I do not ask for slavish imitation. That would be impossible were you to attempt it, for Evolution permits the course I follow only to the fittest of mortals and his chosen disciple. But I say again, take example by me. Although you cannot be the fittest, you may be fit enough. Make clean sheets of your minds; and in place of all old ideas inscribe this alone, -- 'The fit shall survive, and Earl Lavender is the fittest.' You may also, in many ways, invite Evolution to vindicate your fitness. Those of you who are wealthy, might easily bestow your goods upon the poor, and begin life anew. Those of you who have no means, but whose ambition it is to be rich, could abandon that ambition at once, and spend the remainder of your days in beggary, or in some precarious occupation such as that of vending bootlaces and collar studs in Fleet Street and the Strand. You see, with a little ingenuity, you could devise many means of challenging Evolution. Above all, be thoughtful, be cheerful, be serene. Good-night."

He had his hand on the door when he suddenly remembered the lady. "I forgot to invite your attention," he said, again addressing his silent and astounded audience, "to the most signal testimony to the truth of my mission. My mission is twofold; to be the first and greatest exemplar of the Evolutionary life, and to find and mate with the fittest woman. On this the very first day of the Evolutionary era my triumph is complete. I have lived the Evolutionary life without a hitch, and have found before the new era is many hours old the woman whom Evolution appoints. I may, indeed, without vanity, ask you to rejoice with me, and command you in the name of Evolution to become my disciples on the instant. Fully persuaded that you are all convinced of the truth of my mission, I invite you to signify your conversion by giving three cheers for Earl Lavender. Lord Brumm will lead the cheering."

"Lord Brumm will be damned first," said that wretched man under his breath.

But his services were not required. Many of those in the room were actors and music hall artistes. They had all doubtless formed their own opinions as to the condition of Earl Lavender's wits; but recognising that he was dowered with a full share of the gifts and graces which they themselves most wished to possess, they burst into a shout of genuine admiration, again and again repeated and joined in by almost everybody in the room.

Earl Lavender, having bowed his acknowledgments, left the cafe with the lady on his arm, and followed by Lord Brumm, the extent of whose disgust was to be measured only by the extent of his astonishment.

An oft-renewed altercation it had been, for the cabman had repeatedly taken his stand opposite the door; whenever, indeed, the approach to the restaurant was unoccupied by arrivals or departures: only to be warned away by the watchful constable. Both his patience and the policeman's were exhausted, and the latter was declaring that he believed the cabman had no engagement at all at the very moment his fare reappeared.

"Here; take my number," cried the cabman triumphantly to his tormentor; "Fifteen million three hundred and thirty-nine thousand five hundred and sixty-two and a half. I got no fare, haven't I? Oh, no; I'm one o' these wealthy private cabs that sneaks a livin' from the miserable toffs wot runs the 'ansoms. D'ye see my armorial bearin's, stoopid? Can't yer read Latin? Vidget incendiary Virus and a Venux above a B. This yer's Lord Basinghoume's cab, and pretty sweetly I pay for it, I can tell you."

The policeman grinned but made no reply.

"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.

The Veiled Lady, who sat between Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm, replied, -- "Trallidge's Hotel."

"Move on there," shouted the policeman, adding in an aside to the Soudanese commissionaire, "incendiary vegetable or whatever you call yourself."

Rookwood Square, one side of which is occupied by Trallidge's is not far from Piccadilly Circus, and in less than five minutes the party arrived. The lady paid the fare, and the three entered the hotel.

In the hall Lord Brumm rebelled. He had heard of Trallidge's, and so, indeed, for the matter of that, had Earl Lavender. It had a very dubious reputation. No specific charge was ever brought against it, but ordinary people looked mighty knowing when it was mentioned.

"I'm not going to stay here," said Lord Brumm; "I have still some character to lose if you haven't."

"What's the matter?" said Earl Lavender.

"How do I know?" retorted Lord Brumm; "but you surely can't be ignorant of the ill-name this place has. We may all be arrested in the night and appear in to-morrow's evening papers among a herd of German Jews and Jewesses, needy swells and commercial travellers -- 'Raid on a West-end Nighthouse,' or something of that kind." The Lady of the Veil, who had vanished on entering the hotel, now reappeared from the clerk's office. She overheard the last of Lord Brumm's remarks, and, raising one hand to stay Earl Lavender's answer, beckoned a stalwart porter with the other. She then led the way to a stair which went down to the kitchen department. Earl Lavender followed closely, and so did Lord Brumm, for behind him came the stalwart porter smiling sardonically. Pursuing a passage in the sunk flat, the Lady of the Veil brought them to a second stair, very broad and well lit, at the foot of which they found themselves in a large room floored with cedar, hung with tapestry, and furnished with rugs, couches and cushions. A small fountain gurgled and lisped in a marble basin, and several doors admitted muffled sounds of music and conversation. Four men and four women, stately in figure, and with grave, pleasant faces, were the inmates of this room; they were dressed in loose flowing robes, and from the books in their hands, or laid open on the couches, it was plain that they had been reading before the new arrivals disturbed their studies. Too amazed to speak or think, Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm stared about them, while the Veiled Lady, having dismissed the porter, conversed in whispers with the occupants of the room. Shortly the four men approached Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm, and led them towards one of the doors. Earl Lavender, submitting to the Evolutionary will, remained passive in the hands of the pair who had laid hold on him; but Lord Brumm was at first inclined to resent interference with his liberty. However, the powerful grasp which his captors laid upon him at his first struggle taught him to abandon all attempts at resistance.

They were conducted along a lofty carpeted passage to a room much larger than that they had left, which was also hung with