SHORT STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3523, 20 September 1921, Page 57

SHORT STORIES.

[Ai.i. Rights Reserved.) THE COLONEL’S SHOES, By Foiiu Madox Hvefker, Author of ‘‘Ancient Lights,” etc., etc. On the 27/9/19 four men were held up at midnight between York and Darlington in a first-class carriage. One was an architect, aged fifty ; two were country gentlemen from the neighbourhood of Aysgarth, in the late forties; and tlie last was the M.O. of a service battalion returning on demobilisation. lie also came from near Aysgarth. where lie had had a practice. They had been a long time in the train ; it seemed longer and there was a dead silence all down the line. The architect, who had a grey beard, stretched out his legs and yawned : "Eh, but I'm tired !” he said. ‘‘As tired as the old priest Peter Monagham.” One of the country gentlemen asked who was the old priest Peter Monagham. The architect said he was a good old priest who, -on a night when he was dog tired, received a summons to administer extreme unction. But he fell asleep, being so very tired, and only waked in the morning light in great shame and tribulation. .So he rode very fast to the home of his penitent and was told the man had died.

"But. father.” said his informant, "he died easy and in the peace of God. He was very troubled in the early hours; blit after you came and administered the blessed sacraments he grew calm, and so lie made a good end.” According to the legend, an angel, or it may have been the priest’s own soul, had come to confess the dying man whilst the old priest slept. So the old priest was saved from great shame. "All,” one of the country gentlemen said, ‘‘that would be in the old days, and in Ireland.’’ "You won't find the like," the other agreed, ‘‘in the North of England to-day. The more’s the pity for u-> that arc getting on in years.” The three of them agreed. But the M.O. happened to be an Irishman. "I’ll tell you a story if you like,” he said. And though none of them were very cordial at first, off he went. The story he told was something like this: It was, he said, in the middle days of the war, and in France. And if you wanted, lie emphasised, to know the heaviest tiredness of all the world you must know the tiredness of the war in France in the winters of ’l6 and ’l7, when the Somme push was stopped and the heavy other uork began to be felt in Battalion Headquarters and such places. Heavy, hard work, endless papers, endless responsibilities, bitter, hard weather—and danger that seldom ceased. It was hard on the young, but it was bitter, bitter hard on those that were ageing at all. Some knew it less than others—but the M.O. would know better than any, for he would have a bird’s-eye view of a whole battalion and its nerves and its illnesses and its tiredness. ”1 didn’t know,” the architect said, "that it was really like that. I thought it was all fine and high spirits, really, and things going with a dash until your — what’s the word—stopped one!” "Ah, don't ye believe it,” the Irish M.O. said, "it wasn't so in the battalion that I had the honour to be attached to, and it wasn’t so in any of the other battalions that I had the honour to see—and they were many. Did won ever hear of the colonel of a regular battalion who went mad, and walked out of his own lines straight over to the Germans, and went walking on and on, stark mad, till tlte Germans took him, three miles behind their lines? Or of the next colonel of the same battalion who went home sick and shot himself in his fiat in South Audley street; or of the next who Well, there were many! There were many who went over the edge of unreason—but (here were many and many who stayed by the grace of God just on this side of the edge. By the grace, of God—as in the case of the old priest Peter Monagham. It was like that with Lieutenant-colonel i Leslie Arkwright—and it was very nearly like it with his nephew, Lieutenant Hugh, both of my battalion. And they, mind you, were two of the best men that ever wrote "Please” at the end of a memorandum about the number of time passes issued to their battalion. He was a fine, good. kindly, warm-hearted old fellow- -the colonel commanding; and the boy was a good boy. He had gaiety and sense of responsibility, and youth, and great physical strength. And they say that, never in his life did he sign a memorandum without looking it through to be sure that truth was in it—and commas. Who of us is there of which the like could be said. Heaven help ns? “Well, uncle and nephew were the best of pals; they thought alike, in a wav that was strange for the old and the young. Why. it was queer how, after dinner in the Headquarter's Mess, one would begin a sentence and stop for a word and the other finish it. Of course it was the same Wood in them very old blood, and no doubt inbred too. And their voices were alike. Why, if you were at C.O.’s orderly room and had your back to the table you could not tell, supposing the C'.O. said, ’ Six days’ field punishment No. ll,’ and the boy repeated it for the purpose of getting it surely correct on the—2s2, —you louldn’t tell which voice was which. "iSo their friendship was. til! there came the winter of ’l6-’l7, and Captain Gotch (that isn't his name. He is alive still. He would be.) This was one of those men as to whom there is a black mark against their names in the High Books. There ate such men and there are such | books in tile world. i.l don’t mean the confidential records of a battalion orderly

TocTii —but books kept higher still.) They are men wh oappear foursquare, able, intelligent, they generally have flashing teeth—and they are unsound. They r, et on—but they don't get on as* well as you expect them to. The inexperienced like them enormously; the experienced hold their tongues about them. “So Hugh Arkwright liked Captain Gotch immensely. The fellow had the usual fine teeth—and fine, rather thin legs, and a well-kept moustache, and brown eyes that did not always look at you, and fine breeches, —but he did not come out till the winter of 1916—and he came out as a captain of some seniority. . . . It isn’t what you look for—but no doubt he could give some reason for it. There was a good deal of gossip about him. He came from a reserve battalion that wasn’t popular in that regiment. So things were said about him—they were probably untrue. They ranged from nasty—very nasty things about him and the women and the colonel of his reserve battalion, to the allegation that a firm, in which he had been junior partner before the war, had been fined heavilv for trading with the enemy. But no doubt they were not true, as I said before. I don’t know what was the matter with him. I daresay lam unjust to him ; but then I didn’t like him.

“But if I didn’t there were plenty did. The young fellows in the mess, when the battalion was in support and they could get leave to go into the big towns and cut a little splash for a night—they’d swear by Gotch. He was their leader then. And Hugh Arkwright went with the rest of his age. “That was how it came to sad disagreement between him and the old C.O. Hugh thought that his uncle was unjust to Gotch. There would be recommendations going—for jobs at Divisional Headquarters and higher up. Circulars came in, you know, asking for junior officers w'ho have knowledge of Flemish, Japanese, Maregasque, Basque, bayonet-fighting as practised in Pushtu ; or for senior officers who have expert knowledge of pig-breeding, the growing of Jerusalem artichokes, the extraction of solder from old tins, the unravelling of gold lace—God knows what! And Captain Gotch would send his name in for all these things—and the C.O. would send the namb on, but without any

recommendation. Young Hugh would see the memos—-and his eyes would be troubled. He was very intimate with Gotch bv March—when the weather was frightful. I forgot to sav that Captain Gotch had a fine baritone voice. It has an important bearing on the last words of my story. He would sing the popular sentimental songs of the day—and put in nasty meanings and laise one brown eyebrow when he came to them. It made him popular with the men of the battalion who were not in his company when he sang to them at smoking concerts improvised in old barns and tents and pigsties. But his own company was nasty. One day the Colonel came to me—?s M.O.

“Pat,” he said, “I don’t believe I can stick it. Good God, that I should have to say I don’t believe I can stick it!” “I asked him what was the matter—but it wasn’t necessary to ask him what was the matter. His mind was overloaded. You see—like his nephew, he was indefatigable—and he didn’t leave as much as he might have to his subordinates. And he knew the name and regimental number of every Tommy in his battalion—and a little hit about each man too. He was a Yorkshireman, and they from the West country. But 1 remember walking with him along the main street in Amiens, in the twilight ; and there was a Tommy looking into a picture post-card shop. “Hullo, 09 Phillips,” the Colonel said to him. “Going to buy a blood-stained souvenir for the" little girl in Cairleon-on-Usk.''’—and he knew all his men like that. . . .

But latter!v it was patent that he was feeling the strain. It took the form of falling asleep. He’d fall asleep at tablein between two words of a sentence. (That was how we knew' that Hugh could complete his sentences for him!) His silver head would drop forward and his eyes close. Or the same midway in dealing at a rubber of bridge. ’And the officers would wait, silent and worried.

“On the morning he came to me he’d fallen asleep whilst taking his orderly room —for ten seconds. Ho said he didn’t believe they’d noticed it—and I don’t believe they had. But he had dozed in his chair, at a table covered with a Lianket. with the assistant adjutant beside him, and the prisoner ancl escort and Provost Sergeant, and Regimental’ Ser-geant-major, and all in front of him—and Captain Gotch. In the schoolroom of a littie town iii Flanders, it was. 1 forget the name, it made it better—or nerha-s it made it worse—that the sleeping fits only came on when we were out of the trenches proper. “ ‘ And the devil of it is,’ he said, ‘ T woke up to hear myself saying, like a baly rifle-shot, “Case explained!” And the charge was a hell of a serious char.-e of refusing to obey orders—brought bv that fellow Gotch !’ “Apparently on a beastly, cold, wet night, Gotch had stormed down ijfio ? madman on his company, who were"on some sort of fatigue, carrying stones or boxes or cases of dmnbell/ or something. And two of the men had said they couldn tr or Yvouldn t Hit somethinjr wet and heavy. It was a case that was open to a doubt Gotch swore the men said they wouldn t. The company sergeantmajor, who was a time-serving man with twenty-throe years’ service—he was the only witno s, —was not ready to swear what the word used had been. It mi e-fit have been “couldn’t” or it might have been ‘wouldn’t.** So that the ‘case explained ’ verdict rendered actually in the C.O.’s sleep’ hadn’t been outrageous. Whatever the object was that they had been required to lift might, on a dark, wet night, have seemed beyond two men’s lifting power. The C.O. said, with a trick of his old, gentle jauntiness, that he had got out of

it all right though Old Forty had not liked it.” “ ‘ And I could see that my young cut of a nephew didn’t ’ike it either,’ he said. Young Hugh had been recording the awards on the 252 —the charge sheet. “'I strafed the two men Well,” the C.O. said, ‘ before the Provost Sergeant could march them out. I said that it was for the company officer and not for the men to judge what men could do. And so on.’

“Then he had cleared the room of the other ranks—the men and N.C.O.’s. And I said to Mr Forty that I wished that in future all officers giving evidence against other ranks should do it in writing whenever possible, as is provided in King’s Regulations, though it’s apt to drop out of observance here. . . .’ “ ‘And I expect Air Forty did not like that much, either, sir,’ I said myself, softly. “The C.O. started a little.

“ ‘ Did I call Captain Gotch “Old Forty,” he asked rather guiltily. ‘lt slipped out . . . You know the men call him that, too?’ Bless you, sir,’ I said, ‘ I hear it from every one of the sick I get from “A” Company. And they’ve been many latterly.’

“ ‘ I wish to God,’ the C.O. said, ‘ the fellow had never . . . But that’s between you and me and that gate-post.’ He sighed, and I knew he was thinking of the estrangement that was growing between him and his nephew. °He knew, you see, what his nephew though without his nephew having to may what it was—and he knew that his nephew thought he had unjustly insulted Captain Gotch by that verdict. I gave him a mix vomica to-ni-c, and said I’d certify him as fit for six months at the base. But he wouldn’t have that.

“It was only two nights later that the nephew came to me—just before driving to some town or other, Steenenierek. I think, with a brake-loa.d of young fellows, in search of diversion and mavbe the young ladies. I pray God that one of them was kind to Hugh that nffiht f or he was killed, driving back, bv a stray shell that dropped through the bottom of the waggonette the young bovs were in, on a clear, still, moonlight’ night. ■ • • , when he came to me was be tore be started.

“He was terribly depressed about his health—and extraordinarily clad about something else, and he wanted/ne to give him drugs to keep pirn from breaking down He was a fine young fellow’ twenty-four, over six feet, with corrugated brows, like his uncle, and a normal trown just like his uncle’s—only they both used to break into bashful' smiles, if you understand what I mean—as if they both were ashamed of smiling and the softer emotions, as being effeminate during the war, but they couldn’t help likino- ; he queer world and the oueer people in it. So there he was, miserable about his health—and happier than you ever saw anybody—-aoout His uncle, the C 0 • ,/J e , he’d been having illusioiis—oid he think he saw pink and red or bottle green blackbirds? he said, ‘ No till' ? que - e l r if r than that ’—but he couldn’t -without telling a long storv. So 1 fold him to take some hooch and fire a wav.

“He told me a good deal that I knew aoout his coolness towards his uncle j ‘ \, am t he » he came to that mornmg. He said that, just before Orderly Room the C.O. had said to him that he It W, i kin? > t, : e Adjutant, t tv. Ip at Oiuerlv Room that momin<r_ maikmg down the cases, instead of Hindi .ion know. And that worried him, "so that instead oi going to his papers after breakfast, lie sat down in aV armchair bv the fire m the A2 me*s dining room It was a large French house, the Battauon Headquarters at that time the «» ‘‘So he sat by the fire, worrying. ■,nrl An ' , u t! Y’ ! i G °tch burst into the’ room and lushed to a writintr table at fhn f-r end. beside the piano.” He snatched rt a piece of paper and he cursed, and he began writing with a scratchy pen-ami cursmg-and *<™tehing out and rewriting He h, f» hcnntif " l moustache’ He said to. himself‘A d d pass it’s coming to if officers can’t ' > „ he roared out. for a me ss waiter and cursed him for bavin- a cod d and told him to take” the to the "n’l'XVh ''l !l " d ™ bfin Hindi \nd h( lrt I" 1 ’ W,U ? hi , s hacU "till to , •“ 11 f n(l . ■? t ciown at the piano and XiftYu foe anothe, , bs to hell and as n the war was hopeless! ; ■ And as if the officers of the hat thcy n had r L not a * m,i " h , to I,e trusted as tac-i had been six months aim, and a- if the men of the battalion were growiim stubborn. Something must be done about A Company. But what? And that dreadful bounder, Gotch, with his debts and the contempt of the men! IT„ W v , ; ,; he to get. rid of him? ■ ,\ ’ Company minor officers would shield Gotch 1 ' they were good boys. . . . A r j ' i ' was tired He was dreadfully tir/] And all his bones ached. And ids nephew Hn,f;h. ... And suddenly, Hugh said, he knew thnt it was his uncle’s worries • lie was feeling. And he wanted to go to his uncle. But he couldn’t move.' And of course, he couldn’t have gone to the 0 C) in Orderly Room if he could have moved' Goten was hanging on the piano; but suddenly Hugh beard his uncle’s voice say m Ins car, “1 can’t keep. . . < )fi God. 1 can’t keep . . I’m falling. ’ ■ “And then—he him seif: he Hugh himself; was sitting on the 1?U » woof b' n chair at the G.O.’s table, lie celt older, older; and wiser, wiser; and surer of himself than he had ever felt sure. But his hand on the blanket table cover was heavy and white and

hairy. And he said : “Call in the prisoners.” And the Provost Sergeant roared ; “Escort and Coy.Sergt.-Major Wilson.” “And he reached his heavy hand, distastefully, for the buff 252 which was pinned to the Field Conduct Sheet and had on top of it a piece of scrawled writing paper. And he read a number and the name Wilson and the rank, Company Sergeant Major, and the offence: “Highly irregular conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, using disrespectful language with regard to an officer.” And to himself he said :

“That swine, Forty, is trying to do in Wilson for not having given false evidence against those two men the day before yesterday.” But he said aloud and heavily to the Adjutant at his side ; “Ask A Company if they can’t make out better charges than that!” And he snorted with contempt over his heavy grey moustache : “Highly irregular conduct to the prejudice.” “He leant back in his chair ancl looked composedly at the always worried face of the Coy -Sergt.-Major. And he knew that the Sergt.-Major, with his brown face, black eyes and waxed moustaches was the best man in the Battalion. A time-serving man, an old Guardsman with 23 years’ service and never a mark on his conduct sheet—except that six years before when he had been Rcgt.-Q.-M.-S. he had gone mad over a woman called Hurlett and broken his leave, and been reduced to Sergt.—as will happen to the best of men. But for that he would surely have been a Guards’ Regt.-Sergt.-Major. ... A good honest man !

“And ‘old Forty.’ . . . ‘Forty foot down and still digging.’ the men called him because he never left the bottom of the deepest dug-out, was trying to do Wilson in! Well, they would see.’

“He said; “Company Sergeant Major Wilson; You have heard the charge. The first witness is your Company Commander, Captain Gotch.’ tie writes: ‘On the 17/4/17 ‘A’ Company were balloting for leave in my Orderly Room. The Company Quarter Master Sergeant was drawing names from a hat in my presence and the Company Sergeant Major was writing down the names. There were seven names to be drawn out of twentyfour. When six had been drawn I said : ‘Company Sergeant Major, put down the name of Lance Corporal Howells, 579756.’ The Company Sergeant Major demurred. I said: ‘The O.C. Company lias always the right to nominate a man for special services.’ The Company Sergeant Major said : ‘lt isn’t done in this Battalion, sir.’ I said : ‘Those are my

ordevs.’ The Company Sergeant Major wrote down the name of Lance Corporal Howells. As I was leaving the room I heard the Company Sergeant Major say to the Company Quarter Master

Sergeant: ‘Gotch will miss 56 Howells in the next ten days.’ I ordered him to be put under arrest-.’ Next witness!

The Provost Serp pant roared: “46721 Company Quarter Master Sergeant Reynolds. . . .”

“Hugh said he could see that originally Captain Gotch had written: ‘Company Sergeant Major Wilson said; Lance Corporal Howells has only been a short time with the Company—since you came, sir 1 And all the men whose names are down have been a minimum of eighteen months without leave. And leave oniv just open aft-en three months!’ Tie had then struck out those words and substituted : ‘The Compani' Sergeant Major demurred.’ He might have saved himself the trouble for the Quarter Master Sergeant reported the words in full.’ ‘And what happened then.’ ”

As Captain Gotch was going out- of the room, sir, the Company Sergeant Major .said to me, ‘Brother ” Boche will miss Lance Corporal Howells in the next ten days. Captain Gotch ordered me to put the Company Sergeant Major in the clink.

Hugh said that he reached across—the heavy, white hand—and took the charge sheet from the Adjutant who had in the meantime resumed possession of it. He was taking up a pen and writing heavily, himself, the word ‘Case. • . .’ whilst- he said : “ ‘Company Sergeant Major Wilson.

“Wilson cleared his throat; he was always husky. ‘A good man,’ Hugh said! ‘.And it was a pleasure for him to hear Wilson say : “ ‘I beg your pardon, sir, for leave to speak,’—the time-honoured Guards’ formula. He said that he agreed to the evidence given by Company Quarter Master Reynolds. And Hugh said that, whilst lie was heavily writing the word ‘Dismissed’ after tfic word ‘Case on the charge sheet. (You iii list understand that a commanding officer does not- usually write these things in ink himself, but leaves it to the Adjutant.)—lie was saying drily: ‘Company .Sergeant Major,” it is never a good thing for a N.C.O. even to -seem to comment on his Company Officers’ orders. Captain Gotch is a little haw! of hearing.’ He added: ‘Case dismissed !’ “Hugh said that the roaring of the (Provost Sergeant getting in the next and (he men stamping as they marched out. suddenly became the voice of Captain Gotch who had swung round on the piano stool and was saying; ‘You, Hugh . .’ and then: ‘By God, if the C.O. gives Wilson ‘Case explained,’ I shall go before the Brigadier.’ Hugh said he answered : I should, Gotch. I should go before Division. Because if 1 were in the ( clone] s shoes, I should make it: ‘Case dismissed.’ ’ Gotch said : “ By God, what do you mean, JTngVi ?’ “ ‘I menu.’ Hugh said, ‘that are asking for a junior officer to look after Divisional Follies.’ “Crotch's jaw fell down, and he clenched his right list. But suddenly lie stiffened to attention. The door had opened be-

hind Hugh, but he knew of course that the Colonel had come in. There had been only two eases at Orderly Room. “The Colonel had a slip ox paper in his hand, and was looking at it with his brows knitted. It was a 252. ‘Hugh, he said, ‘l’m getting to write deucedly like you.’ And then : ‘Ah, Gotch. The Adjutant says the baths are open. Bee that ‘A’ * Company parades in good time.’ ’’ Hugh said he drew himself together and looked at his uncle. “I was just recommending Captain Gotch, sir,” he uttered slowly and deliberately, “to apply for the job of the Divisional Follies. It’s going begging.” The Colonel nodded at Gotch : “I should, Gotch,” he said. “ I could recommend you cordially.” Gotch gathered up his hat, and gloves, and stick, and left the room. The old man fell into the chair by the fire. “Hugh,” he said, “get me a drink. Hugh, were you in Orderly Room just now?” “I don't know,” Hugh said. “Yes, yes. I think I vfas.” The C.O. imagined he was confused because he thought he would be strafed for having been there. “That accounts for your hand-writing on this 252. I suppose the Adjutant was 100. busy,” he said. “1 didn't really notice who was there.” And then he lifted his tired eyes and looked at Hugh with an awful apprehension : “Was I . . . was it ... all right?” he asked. “Yon were splendid, sir,” Hugh answered. “Yon looked tired . . . ill. But you were splendid.” He was mixing a whiskey and, as he handed it to his uncle he said : “I hope to God that swine Gotch goes to the Division.” The Colonel drank down his whiskey. “Thank God, Hugh, my dear,” lie raid. “I thought- I was asleep in my awn Orderly Room.” THE THEFT OF MRS. BTOWN By Fiuderick R. Burtox. (Copyright.) “I didn’t say anything of the kind, and it’s very foolish of you to insist that I did,” remarked the young man with no little asperity ; ami then ho got up from the table, stalked majestically into the hall and put on his hat preparatory to starting for business. A woman's voice came after him. “Tou’re just as mean as you can be, Harry Brown,” it said, and there followed a sound very like a sob. He stood hesitant a moment, wishing that he could return to his wife arid kiss away her tears; for they had been married but a few months, and this was their first tiff; but the rancor of the quarrel was too strong upon him. His offended pride—he called it dignity—would not permit him to take the first step toward a reconciliation, and, without so much as a .glance into the dining room, he said,

“To which, Mrs Brown, I have no retort to make.” Then he left the house. Mrs Brown remained at the breakfast table for a time, weeping. At length she

rose and began mechanically to clear away the things. There was no singing about her work this morning. Everything proceeded as if the tiniest cup she handled was an intolerable burden, and now and again she looked through the open window down the street as if she expected to see her husband returning with a plea of forgiveness on his lips. Once she started at the sound of a step approaching the side door, and nearly dropped the dish she was wiping. It did not sound like Harry’s step, and yet it might be —no-; it was onlv the butcher’s boy bringing the roast that had been ordered the dav before for this day’s dinner. The stolid voung lad walked in unceremoniously, placed his pared upon the table, and walked out again with a grin in place of the conventional “good morning.” Ordinarily Mrs Brown spoke pleasantly to him, but this morning she said nothing. The incident, however, diverted her thoughts a bit, and. giving her a suggestion of something new to do, improved her spirits remarkably. She was reminded that the refrigerator needed a thorough cleaning, and she decided to apply herself to this task before puttin ' a wav the roast. So, the breakfast dishes having been done, though not reduced on their shelves, sire took out all the articles from the refrigerator and put them on the table beside the roast. She was thus occupied when her attention was suddenly attracted bv other approaching steps. They were actually in the kitchen, and there was something in the wav they sounded that sent a ibrill of apprehension to her heart. Standing im quicklv she was terribly startled to see two strange, rough-looking men striding toward her, and before she could utter so much as a scream, a coarse hand had been clapped violently over her month. A few minutes later the butcher’s bov, returning to deliver the vegetables that he had forgotten, found the kitchen unoccupied. The roast was on the table where he had placed it. A number of other things were there, too- —butter, a can of milk, a dish of fruit, half a pie. and a small canvas bag partly filled with silverware. The bov looked around vacantly, set Ins vegetables down beside the roast, and went away again. Meantime Harry Brown could not find business duties engrossing enough to shut out from his thoughts the vision of a tearful face, and he heard unliappv sobs (hat went straight to his heart. At first he told himself severely that the experience would be a good lesson for her, but before long he blushed with shame that lie should think of presuming to teach such a sweet little woman whose frail existence there was scarcely a hundred pounds of her altogether—it was his duty to cherish and protect from discomfort of every kind. So then he called himself a

brute, and abased himself with repentant humility, and longed for the luncheon hour that lie might hurry home and confess his fault. The luncheon hour was long in coming, and during the interval Harry suffered unutterable torments at the though of how sne must be suffering on account of his stupid cruelty. He tried to get away early, but fate was against him there, for matters came up that had to be attended to, and which nobodv could handle properly save himself. Therefore it came about that when at last he started home it was fully a half-hour later than his usual departure. lie was in agony as ho hurried along the street, wondering how she would interpret his delay, and feeling sure that she would believe that he still treasured the ugly feelings of the morning. If she could only know that lie had been remorseful all the time! Never again, no matter what the provocation, would he permit a difference to arise between them. iShe might possibly misunderstand him, or illness might make her momentarily impatient, but come what might, he would be resolutely patient and never allow the slightest ugly feeling to cross him. thus thinking and resolving he dashed into the front door of Iris home. It gave him added anguish and further self-con-demnation that she was not there to greet him. It was not possible that she still treasured the resentment of the morning ; it must be, then, that she believed ho was as angry as ever. Poor little woman ;he would soon show her how repentant he could he.

“Lou!” he called anxiously, as he stepped into the dining room. There was no answer. It did not take long to explore every portion of the modest house, and with more fears than ] he could count at his throat, Harry reI turned to the ground floor, going to the kitchen, chorishing a lingering but faint hope that his wife had gone into the garden. No, she was not there, and the conviction grew upon him that she had put into execution that oft-made tnreat of young wives, and gone back to her mother’s. Ihe condition of things in the kitchen seemed to justify that theory; nothing put away, housework dropped as if the little hands could not do one more stroke for an ungrateful husband. Of a sudden Harry’s fears took quite another turn for he .saw the canvas bag partly filled with silver ware. He knew the sign. Thieves had been at work. They had left their plunder, but what had they done with his wife? Frightened her away ? j Harry ran to the nearest neighbour’s. 1 The good woman of the house there told i him she had seen the butcher’s bov call, ! and a little later she saw two men approaching. Then her attention had been absorbed elsewhere. She had heard and i seen nothing of Mrs iirown. “Then,” said Harry, in awful despair, “they have stolen her.” It was only too clear. If his wife had been alarmed by the thieves she would have screamed or run away. It was evident that she had not run away, and she was not in the house. Therefore she was out of it, and equally ; therefore, the thieves had kidnapped her! ! Appalled, and so unnerved that he could hardly walk, Harry returned to his own house. The neighbour went with him. 1 Together they made a new exploration, and came at last to the kitchen, where they stood looking around in dreadful bewilderment. qhe woman’s methodical, housewifely habits asserted themselves even under the stress of misery. “The meat and vegetables will spoil.” she said, drearily; “better put them in the ice-box, Mr Brown.” j Smiling bitterly at the thought of considering such trifles, Harry picked up the roast and carried it to the refrigerator. No sooner had he pulled the door than he dropped Ms burden and gave a loud cry. There, curled up in the storage chamber of the refrigerator was his little wife, sound asleep- He seized her hand and pulled gently, but she was too closely wedged in to budge without greater effort. The touch awakened her, and opening her eyes drowsily she said, “Oh ! I’m so glad you’ve come. Harry! Have : those dreadful men gone?” With many an “Ouch!” and “Oh my!” on her part, Harrv withdrew her from the box. She had been curled up there so long that she seemed to be asleep in every joint, and the warm weather and the close air had stupefied her, but she recovered quickly, and, all memory of the morning tiff dissipated by her adventure, told how it came about. She was standing in front of the refrigerator when the thieves came in. They had pushed her inside and closed the door, threatening to shoot if she cried out-. Too frightened to scream then, she had kept still until a moment later she thought she heard them depart hurriedly. But there was another footstep in the kitchen and she dared not make a noise, supposing that- the thieves had returned. After a long interval of silence she realised that (here was no way to get the door open from the inside/and she resigned herself to waiting for her husband. It was evident that the thieves had fled in alarm when they heard the butcher’s boy returning. They did not take away even the little plunder they had got together : so there was much rejoicing, and when they came to think of it the difference of the morning was adjusted by husband and wife with mutual repentance and forgiveness, and matters were just as they should be. (The End).