Classic Audiobook Collection - Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill ~ Full Audiobook [fantasy]

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill audiobook. Genre: fantasy A set of often funny, sometimes tragic stories by Israel Zangwill. Most famous for his scathingly accurate portrayals of the Jewish ghetto, these stories have a wider stage, poking fun at social conventions and society itself, both high and low. The real and the fantastic collide to produce a world uniquely Zangwill's. These are the tales of figures as diverse as a pantomime dragon, an excellent butler, a man living his life in the wrong order and a Jewish maiden who knows exactly what she is worth. Well observed and original, the satire is biting and the wit sparkling. Many of the stories in this volume are accompanied by excellent illustrations, which are well worth a look. They are available in the Gutenberg e-text. The novella, King of Schnorrers, which began this collection when it appeared in print, has already been recorded separately. As such it is omitted from this collection, and only the shorter stories are included. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:02:23) Chapter 01 (00:25:54) Chapter 02 (00:34:43) Chapter 03 (00:46:23) Chapter 04 (01:19:18) Chapter 05 (01:35:56) Chapter 06 (01:57:30) Chapter 07 (02:14:09) Chapter 08 (02:24:11) Chapter 09 (02:57:58) Chapter 10 (03:25:04) Chapter 11 (03:54:03) Chapter 12 (04:02:26) Chapter 13 (04:31:27) Chapter 14 (04:55:59) Chapter 15 (05:12:10) Chapter 16 (05:37:43) Chapter 17 (05:47:49) Chapter 18 (06:00:58) Chapter 19 (06:08:59) Chapter 20 (06:27:08) Chapter 21 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwil The semi-sentimental dragon There was nothing about the outside of the dragon To indicate so large a percentage of sentiment It was a mere everyday dragon With the usual squamous hide Glittering like silver armour A commonplace crested head with a forked tongue

A tail like a barbed arrow A pair of fan-shaped wings And four indifferently ferocious claws One per foot How it came to be so susceptible you shall hear, and then perhaps you will be less surprised at its unprecedented and undragon-like behavior. Once upon a time, as the good old chronicler Richard Johnson relatedeth, Egypt was oppressed by a dragon who made a plagy to do unless given a virgin daily for dinner.

For 24 years the menu was practicable, then the supply gave out. There was absolutely no virgin left in the realm save Sabra, the king's. daughter. As 365 times 24 only equals 8,760, I suspect that the girls were anxious to dodge the dragon by marrying in haste. The government of the day seems to have been quite unworthy of confidence, and utterly unable to grapple with the situation, and poor Ptolemy was reduced to parting with the princess, though even so destruction was only staved off for a day, as virgins would be altogether off on the morrow. So short-sighted was the Egyptian policy that this does not appear to have occurred to anybody. At the last moment, an English tourist from Coventry, known as George, and afterwards

synceded by an outgoing administration sent to his native borough by the country, resolved to tackle the monster. The chivalrous Englishman came to grief in the encounter, but by rolling under an orange tree he was safe from the dragon so long as he chose to stay there, and so in the end had no difficulty in dispatching the creature, which suggests that the soothsayers and the magicians would have been much better occupied in planting orange trees than in sacrificing virgins, thus far the story, which is improbable enough to be an allegory. Now many centuries after these events did not happen, a certain worthy citizen, an illiterate fellow, but none the worse for that, made them into a pantomime, to wit St. George and the

dragon, or harlequin Tom Thumb, and the same was duly played at a provincial theatre with a lightly clad chorus of Egyptian lasses, in glaring contradiction of the dearth of such in the fable, and a Sabra who sang to them a topical song about the county council. Curiously enough, in private life, Sabra, although her name was Miss on the posters, was really a miss. She was quite as young and pretty as she looked, too, and only rouged herself for the sake of stage perspective. I don't mean to say she was as beautiful as the Egyptian princess, who was as straight as a cedar and wore her auburn hair in wanton ringlets, but she was a sprightly little body with sparkling

eyes, and a complexion that would have been a good advertisement to any soap on earth. But better than Sabra's skin was Sabra's heart, which, though as yet untouched by man, was full of love and tenderness, and did not faint under the burden of supporting her mother and the household, for instead of having a king for a sire, Sabra had a drunken scene-shifter for a father. Everybody about the theatre liked Sabra, from the actor-manager, who played St. George, to the stage-doorkeeper who played St. Peter. Even her understudy did not wish her ill. Needless, therefore, to say, it was Sabra who made the dragon semi-sentimental. Not in The Book, of course, where his desire to eat her remained purely literal.

Real dragons keep themselves aloof from sentiment, but a stage dragon is only human. Such a one may be entirely the slave of sentiment, and it was perhaps to the credit of our dragon that only half of him was in the bonds. The other half, and that the better half, was saturnine and T-total, and answered to the name of Davy Brigg. Davy was the headman on the dragon. He played the anterior parts, waggled the head, and flapped the wings, and sent gruesome grunts and penny squibs through the fire-breathing jaws. He was a dour, middle-aged,

but stage-struck Scott, very proud of his rapid rise in the profession, for he had begun as a dramatist. The rear of the dragon was simply known as Jimmy. Jimmy was a wreck. His past was a mystery, his face was a brief record of baleful experiences, and he had the aspirates of a gentleman. He had gone on the stage to be out of the snow and the rain. Not knowing this, the actor-manager paid him ninepence a night. His wages just kept him in beer money. The original Sabra tamed two lions, but perhaps it was a greater feat to tame this half of a dragon.

Jimmy's tenderness for Sabra began at rehearsal when he saw a good deal of her and felicitated himself on the fact that they were on in the same scenes. After a while, however, he perceived this to be a doleful drawback, for whereas at rehearsal he could jump out of his skin and breathe himself and feast his eyes on Sabra when the dragon was disengaged, on the stage he was forced to remain cramped in darkness while Ptolemy was clowning or St. George executing a dance step. Sabra was invisible, except for an odd moment or two between the scenes when he caught sight of

her gliding into her dressing-room like a streak of discreet sunshine. Still he had his compensations, Her dulcet notes reached his darkness, mellowed by the painted canvas and the tin scale sewn over it, as the chant of the unseen cuckoo reaches the woodland wanderer. Sometimes when she sang that song about the county council, he forgot to wag his tail. Thus was love-blind, while indifference, in the person of Davy Brigg, looked its full through the mask that stood for the monster's head. After a bit, Jimmy conceived a mad envy of his superior's privileges, He longed to see Sabre through the dragon's mouth.

He was so weary of the little strip of stage under the dragon's belly, which, even if he peered through the breathing-holes in the patch of paint-discised gauze let into its paunch, was the most he could see. One night he asked Davy to change places with him. Davy's look of surprise and consternation was beautiful to see. Do I hear aright? he asked. Just for a night, said Jimmy abashed. "'But do you know, Ken, this is a speaking part?'

"'I did not know that,' faltered Jimmy. "'Where's your ears, ma'n?' inquired Davy sternly. "'Then you hear me growling and grizzling and squealing and skirling.' "'Yes,' said Jimmy, "'but I thought you did it at random.' "'Though I did it at random!' cried Davy, holding up his hands in horror. "'And maybe also you thought anybody could do it.' "'Jimmy's shamed silence gave consent also to this unflinching interpretation of his thought.

"'Ah, weel,' said Davy, with melancholy resignation, "'this is the artist's reward for his sweat and labour. "'Why, ma'am, let me tell ye. "'I'll not only time, but modulate it to the dramatic interest "'or the moment, and that I practised the squeak hours at the time a bag, Piper. Take my place, indeed. Are you four again, or how you tint your senses? But you could do the words all the same. I only want to see for once. And how do you think the word should sound coming from the creature's belly? And what should

you see? You should not ken where to go, I warrant. Come, I'll spear you. Where do you come in for the fight with St. George? Is it R2E or L-U-E? L-U-E, replied Jimmy feebly. "'You donard all the rant!' cried Davy triumphantly. "'Tis neither one nor t'other. "'Tis R.C. Why, you're capable of deepened up stage instead of down? "'You'd spoil my great scene. "'And you are to remember I would bear the wait for it,

"'for nobody but our two cells should ken the truth. "'Nay, no, ma'am. "'I hate my responsibility to the management. "'You're all very well in a subordinate position, "'but then he aspired to more than beseems your abilities. "'I'm right glad you spoke me.' "'A, but it would be an awful thing "'if I was taken bad a nabody to play the part.

"'I warned the manager to put out an understudy betimes.' "'Oh, but let me be the understudy then,' pleaded Jimmy. "'Davy sniffed scornfully. "'Tis a bra-thing ambition,' he said. "'But there's a proverb about it you can, maybe.' "'But I'll notice everything you do, and exactly how you do it.' Davy relented a little. "'Ah, will,' he said cautiously.

"'I'll bide away before speaking to the manager.' But Davy remained doggedly robust, and so Jimmy still walked in darkness. He often argued the matter out with his superior, maintaining that they ought to toss for the position, head or tail. Failing to convince Davy, he offered him fourpence a knight for the accommodation. But Davy saw in this extravagance evidence that. of a determined design to supplant him. In despair, Jimmy watched for a chance of slipping into the wire framework before Davy, but the conscientious artist was always at his post first.

They held dialogues on the subject, while with pantomimic license, the chorus of Egyptian lasses was dancing round the dragon as if it were a maypole. Their angry messages to each other vibrated along the wires of their prison house, rending the dragon with intestinal war. weave your cloud-wrought utopias, oh, social reformer, but wherever men inhabit their jealousy and disunion shall creep in, and this gaudy canvas tent with its tin roofing was a hotbed of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness.

Yet love was there, too, a stranger, purer passion than the battered Jimmy had ever known, for it had the unselfishness of a love that can never be more than a dream, that the beloved can never even know of. Perhaps if Jimmy had met Sabra before he left off being a gentleman. The silent, hopeless longing, the chivalrous devotion, yearning dumbly within him, did not stop his beer. He drank more to drown his thoughts. Every night he entered into his part gladly, knowing himself elevated in the zoological scale, not degraded, by an assumption that made him only half a beast. It was kind of providence to hide him wholly away from her vision, so that her bright eyes might not be sullied by the sight of his foulness. None of the grinning audience suspected the tragedy of the hind legs of the dragon, as blindly following their leader they went glumphing about the stage.

The innocent children marveled at the monster in wide-eyed excitement, unsuspecting even its humanity, much less its double nature. Only Davy knew that in the dragon there were the ruins of a man and the makings of a great actor. Why are ye so anxious to stand in my shoe? He would ask when the hind legs became too obstreperous. I don't want to be in your shoes. I only want to see the stage for once. But Davy would shake his head incredulously, making the dragon's mask wobble at the wrong cues. At last, once when Sabra was singing, poor Jimmy, driven to extremity,

confessed the truth, and had the mortification of feeling the wires vibrate with the Scotsman's silent laughter. He blushed unseen. But it transpired that Davy's amusement was not so much scornful as skeptical. He still suspected the tale of a sinister intention to wag the dragon. "'Nay, nay,' he said, "'you shall not get me to swallow that. You're a nuncoupur creature, but you're "'Nay's so daft as to want the moon. "'She's a bonny lass, "'and I will ne be surprised if she catches a cornet in the end "'when she makes a name in Linen.

"'Four the swells here, "'though I see a whine, foolish faces "'necht after night in the stalls, "'are but a pure lot. "'Eh, but it's a gay, gaunt to her is a pretty face. "'In the meanwhile, like a cany girl, "'she's set in her cap at the chief. "'Hold your tongue,' hissed the hind-legs.

"'She's as pure as an angel. "'Who, too, to. answered the head. "'Did a label for angels. It's no angel that lets her manager give her a sly squeezes and soft kisses that are ney in the stage directions.' "'Then she can't know he's a married man,'

said the hind legs hoarsely. "'Dinna fasch yourself. She cans that full wheel and a thought or two more. "'Dod, you should just see how she and St. George "'Carry on after my death scene "'when he is supposed to have rescued her "'and they fall a cuddlin.' "'You're a liar,' said the hind legs.

Davy roared and breathed burning squibs and capered about, and Jimmy had to prance after him in involuntary pursuit. He felt choking in his stuffy, hot, black, rollicking dungeon. The thought of this bloated sexagenarian faked up as a jean premier, pawing that sweet little girl, sickened him. "'Don't leer yourself,' resumed Davy, coming to a standstill. I'm unbelieve my own eyes, what they tell me necht after night. Then let me see for myself, and I'll believe you.

You didn't catch me like that, said Davy, chuckling. After that, poor Jimmy's anxiety to see the stage became feverish. He even meditated malingering and going in front of the house, but could only have got a distant view, and at the risk of losing his place in an overcrowded profession. His opportunity came at length, but not to be. the pantomime was half run out, and the actor-manager sought to galvanize it by a second edition, in which some meant a new lot of the variety entertainers who came on and played copephones

before Ptolemy, did card tricks in the desert, and exhibited trained poodles to the palm trees. But Davy, determined to rise to the occasion, thought out a fresh conception of his part, involving three new grunts, and was so busy rehearsing them at home that he forgot the flight of the and arrived at the theatre only in time to take second place in the dragon that was just waiting half-maned at the wing. He was so flustered that he did not even think of protesting for the first few minutes. When he did protest, Jimmy said, What are you drawing about? This is a second edition, isn't it? And caracled around, dragging the unhappy Davy in his train. I'll tell the chief, groaned the hind legs.

All right, let him know you. "'You were late,' answered the head cheerfully. "'Eh, but it's pit-merk here. I cannot see on'ything.' "'You see, I'm no liar. Shall I send a squib your way?' "'Nay, nay, nah, larkin, mind the business, or you'll ruin my reputation.' "'Mind my business, or mind yours,' replied Jimmy joyously, for the lovely Sabra was smiling right in his eyes. "'A dragon divided against itself cannot stand, so Davy had to wait till the beast came.

off. To his horror, Jimmy refused to bud from his shell. He begged for just one kick at the stage, but Jimmy replied, You don't catch me like that. Davy said little more, but he matured a crafty plan, and in the next scene he whispered, Jimmy. Shut up, Davy, I'm busy. I've got a pin, and if you shallna promise to restore me my rex after the next exit, you shall feel the taste. You shall feel the taste of it. You'll just stay where you are, came back, the preemptory reply. Deep went the pin in Jimmy's rear, and the dragon gave such a howl that Davy's blood ran cold.

Too late he remembered that it was not the dragon's cue and that he was making havoc of his own professional reputation. Through the canvas he felt the stern gaze of the actor-manager. He thought of pricking Jimmy only at the howling cues, but then the howl the Howell thus produced was so superior to his own that if Jimmy chose to claim it, he might be at once engaged to replace him in the part. What a dilemma! Poor Davy!

As if it were not enough to be cut off from all the brilliant spectacle, bent in pitchy gloom and robbed of all his fat and his painfully rehearsed second edition touches, he felt like one of those fallen archangels of the footlights, who lived to bear Ophelia's beer on boards where they once played. Hamlet. Far different emotions were felt at the dragon's head, where Jimmy's joy faded gradually away, replaced by a passion of indignation, as with love-sharpened eyes he ascertained for himself the true relations of the actor-manager with his principal girl. He saw, from his coin of vantage, the poor modest little thing shrinking before the cowardly advances of her employer, who took

every possible advantage of the stage potentialities in ways the audience could not discriminate from acting. Alas, what could the gentle little breadwinner do? But Jimmy's blood was boiling. Davy's great scene arrived, the battle royal between St. George and the dragon. Sabra, bewitchingly radiant in white Arabian silk, stood under the orange tree where the pendant fruit was labeled three a penny. here St. George in knightly armor-clad retired between the rounds to be sponged by the fair Sabra, from whose lips he took the opportunity of drinking encouragement. When the umpire cried, time! Jimmy uttered inarticulate cries of real rage and maledictation, vomiting his squibs straight at the champion's eyes with intent to do him grievous bodily injury,

but squibs have their own ways of jumping, and the actor may be able to be. manager's face was protected by his glittering burgeonette. At last Jimmy and Davy were duly dispatched by St. George's trusty sword, Ascalon, which passed right between them and stuck out the other side amid the frantic applause of the house. The dragon reeled cumbrously sideways and bit the dust, of which there was plenty. Then Sabra rushed forward from under the orange tree and encircled her heroes' hauberk with a stage embrace, while St. George, lifting up his visor, reigned kiss after kiss on Sabra's scarlet face, and the gods went hoarse with joy.

"'Oh, sir!' Jimmy heard the still, small voice of the breadwinner protest feebly again, and again amid the thunder as she tried to withdraw herself from her employer's grasp. This was the last straw. Anger and the foul air of his prison wrought up Jimmy to asphyxiation point. What wonder if the dragon lost his head completely? Davy will never forget the horror of that moment when he felt himself dragged upwards as by an irresistible tornado and knew himself for a ruined actor.

Mechanically he essayed to cling to the ground, but in vain the dead dragon was on its feet in a moment. In another, Jimmy had thrown off the mask, showing a shock of hair and a blotched crimson face spotted with great beads of perspiration. Unconscious of this culminating outrage, Davy made desperate prods with his pin, but Jimmy was equally unconscious of the pricks. The thunder died abruptly. A dead silence fell upon the whole house.

You could have heard Davy's pin drop. St. George, in amazed consternation, released his hold of Sabra and cowered back before the wild glare of the blood. bloodshot eyes. How dare you? Rang out in hoarse, screaming accents from the protruding head, and with one terrific blow of its right foreleg, the hybrid monster felled Sabra's insultter to the ground.

The astonished St. George lay upon his back, staring up vacantly at the flies. I'll teach you how to behave to a lady, roared the dragon. Then Davy tugged him frantically backwards, but Jimmy could have a little. afforded obstinately in the centre of the stage, which the actor-manager had taken even in his fall, so that the dragon's hind legs trampled blindly on Davy's prostrate chief amid the hysterical convulsions of the house. Next morning, the local papers were loud in their praises of the second edition of St. George and the dragon,

especially of the genuinely burlesque and topsy-turvy episode, in which the dragon rises from the dead to read St. George a less, in chivalry, a really side-splitting conception made funnier by the grotesque revelation of the constituents of the dragon just before it retires for the night. The actor-manager had no option but to adopt this reading, so had to be hoofed and publicly reprimanded every evening during the rest of the season, glad enough to get off so cheaply. Of course, Jimmy was dismissed, but St. George was painfully polite to Sabre ever after, not knowing but what Jimmy was in the gallery with a brick-bat,

and perhaps not unimpressed by the lesson in chivalry he was receiving every evening. Perhaps you think the dragon deserved to marry Sabra. But that would be really too topsy-turvy, and the sentimental beast himself was quite satisfied to have rescued her from St. George. But the person who profited it most by Jimmy's sacrifice was Davy, who stepped into a real speaking part, emerged from the obscurity of his surroundings, burst his swaddling clothes,

and made his appearance on the stage, a thing he could scarcely be said to have done in the dragon's womb. And so the world wags. End of the sentimental dragon. Section 2 of Grotesques and Fantasies. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, Please visit Libravox.org. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangweil. An honest log-roller. Lewis Monders was writing an anonymous novel, and the large circle of friends and acquaintances expected it to make a big hit. Lewis Monders was so modest,

but he distrusted his own opinion and was glad to find his friends sharing it in this matter. It strengthened him. He carried the manuscript, unostentatiously about in a long brief bag while the book was writing and worked at it during all his spare moments even in omnibuses he was to be seen scribbling hard with a stylus and neglecting to attend to the conductor the plot of the story was sad and heart-rending for lewis was only twenty-one lewis refused to give those rosy-eight pictures of life which the conventional novelist turns out to please the public he He objected to happy endings. In real life he said,

No story ends happily, for the end of everybody's story is death. In this book he said some bitter things about life, which it would have winced to hear had it been alive. As for death, he doubted whether it was worth dying. Towards nature he took a tone of haughty superiority and expressed himself disrespectfully on the subject of fate. He mocked at it through the lips of his hero, and altogether seemed qualifying for the liver complaint,

which is the Prometheus myth done into modern English. He taught that the only peace for man lies in snapping the fingers at fortune, taking her buffets and her favors with equal contempt, and generally teaching her to know her place. The soul of the philosopher, he said, would stand grinning cynically, though the planetary system were soul. off by auction. These lessons were taught with great tragic power in Maunder's novel, and he was looking forward to the time when it should be in print, and on all the carpets of

conversation. He was extremely gratified to find his friends thinking so well of his prospects, for it was pleasing to him to discover that he had chosen his circle so well, and had such intelligent friends. It did not seem to him at all unlikely that he would make his fortune with this novel, and he hurried on with it till the masterpiece needed only a few final touches, and a few last insults to fate. Then he left the bag in a handsome cab. When he remembered his forgetfulness, he was distracted. He raved like a maniac, and like a maniac did not even write his ravings down for after use. He applied at Scotland Yard, but the superintendent said that drivers brought their only articles of value.

He sent paragraphs to the papers, asking even of the echo where his lost novel was. But the echo answered not. Several spiteful papers insinuated that he was a liar, and a high-class comic paper went out of its way to make a joke and to call his book The Mystery of a Handsome Cab. The annoying part of the business

was that after getting all this gratuitous advertisement in itself enough to sell two editions, the book still refused to come up for publication. Monders was too heartbroken to write another. For months he went about, a changed being. He had put the whole of himself into that book, and it was lost. He mourned for the departed manuscript, and generously extolled its virtues.

For years he remained faithful to its memory, and its pages were made less dry with his tears. but the most intemperate grief wears itself out at last, and after a few years of melancholy, Maunders rallied and became a critic. As a critic, he set in with great severity, and by carefully refraining from doing anything himself, gained a great reputation far and wide.

In due course he joined the staff of the Acadium, where his signed contributions came to be looked for with profound respect by the public, and with fear and trembling by authors. For Monders' criticism was so very superior, even for the Acadium, of which the trade motto was, stop here for criticism, superior to anything in the literary market. Monders flayed and excoriated Marseus till the world accepted him as Apollo. What Monders was most down upon was novel writing. not having to follow them himself.

He had high ideals of art, and woe to the unfortunate author who thought he had literary and artistic instinct when he had only pen and paper. Monders was especially severe upon the novels of young authors with their affected style and jejun ideas. Perhaps the most brilliant criticism he ever wrote was a merciless dissection of a book of this sort, reeking with the insincerity and crudity of youth, full of accumulated ignorance of life, and brazening it out by flashy cynicism. A week after this notice appeared, his oldest and dearest friend called upon him, and asked him for an explanation. What do you mean? said Monders.

When I read your slashing notice of a finger-snap for fate, I at once got the book. What? after I had disemboweled it, after I had shown it was a stale sausage, stuffed with old and putrid ideas. Well, to tell the truth, said his friend, a little crestfallen at having to confess, I always get the books you pitch into. So do lots of people. We are only plain ordinary homespun people, you know, so we feel sure that whatever you praise will be too superior for us, while what you condemn will suit us to a tea. That is why the great public studies and respects your criticisms.

You are our literary pastor and monitor. Your condemnation is our guidepost, and your praise is our index expurgatorious. But for you we should be lost in the wilderness of new books. And this, all the result of my years of laborious criticism, fumed, the Akkadium critic, proceed, sir. Well, what I came to say was that if my memory does not play me a trick after all these years, a finger-snap for fate is your long-lost novel. What? shrieked the great critic,

my long-lost child, impossible. Yes, persisted his oldest and dearest friend. I recognized it by the strawberry mark in Chapter 2, where the hero compares the younger generation to fresh strawberries smothered in stale cream. I remember you're reading it to me. Heavens! The whole thing comes back to me, cried the critic. Now I know why I damned it so unmercifully for plagiarism. All the while I was reading it, there was a strange, haunting sense of familiarity.

But surely you will expose the thief. How can I? It would mean confessing that I wrote the book myself. That I slated it savagely as nothing, and that will pass as a good joke, if not a piece of rare modesty. But confess myself the author of such a wretched failure? Excuse me, said his friend.

It is not a failure. It is a very popular success. It is selling like wildfire. Excuse the inaccurate simile, but you know what I mean. Your notice has sent the sale up tremendously. Ever since your notice appeared, the printing presses have been going day and night,

and are utterly unable to cope with a demand. Oh, you must not let a rogue make a fortune out of you like this, that would be too sinful. And so the great critic sought out the thief, and they divided the prophets, and then the thief, who was a fool, as well as a rogue, wrote another book all out of his own head this time, and the critic slated it, and they divided the prophets. End of an honest log-roller. Section 3 of Grotesques and fantasies. This is a Libre-Von, recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Grotesques and fantasies by Israel Zangwill. A tragicomedy of creeds.

Not much before midnight in a Midland town, a thriving commercial town, whose dingy back streets swarmed with poverty and piety. A man in a soft felt. hat and a white tie was hurrying home over a bridge that spanned a dark, crowded river. He had missed the tram, and did not care to be seen out late, but he could not afford a cab. Suddenly he felt a tug at his long black coat-tail. Vaguely alarmed and definitely annoyed, he turned round quickly. A breathless, roughly clad, rugged-featured man loosed his hold of the skirt. "'Excuse me, sir. I've been running,' gasped the stranger, placing his horny hand on his

breast and panting. "'What is it? What do you want?' said the gentleman, impatiently. "'My wife's dying,' jerked the man. "'I'm very sorry,' murmured the gentleman, incredulously, expecting some conventional street plea. "'Awful sudden attack, this last of hers, only came on an hour ago.' "'I'm not a doctor?' "'No, sir, I know.' I don't want a doctor.

He's there and only gives her ten minutes to live. Come with me at once, please. Come with you? Why? What good can I do? You're a clergyman. A clergyman? repeated the other.

Yes, aren't you? The wearer of the white tie looked embarrassed. Yes, he stammered. In a way, but I'm not the sort of clergyman your wife will be wanting. No? said the man puzzled and pained. And then with a sudden dread in his voice, "'You're not a Catholic clergyman?'

"'No,' was the unhesitating reply. "'Oh, then, it's all right,' cried the man relieved. "'Come with me, sir, for God's sake. Don't let us waste time.' His face was lit up with anxious appeal. But still the clergyman hesitated. "'You're making a mistake,' he murmured. "'I'm not a Christian clergyman.'

He turned to resume his walk. "'Not a Christian clergyman?' exclaimed the man. "'As who should say not a black negro? "'No, I'm a Jewish minister.' "'That don't matter,' broke in the man, "'almost before he could finish the sentence, "'as long as you're not a Catholic. "'Oh, don't go away now, sir.'

His voice broke piteously. "'Don't go away after I've been chasing you for five minutes. "'I saw your rig out. "'I beg pardon, your coat and hat. "'In the distance, just as I came out of the house. "'Walk back with me anyhow,' he pleaded, "'seeing the Jews's hesitation. Oh, for pity's sake, walk back with me at once, and we can discuss it as we go along.

I know I should never get a hold of another parson in time at this hour of the night. The man's accents were so poignant, his anxiety so apparently sincere, that the minister's humanity could scarcely resist the solicitation to walk back at least. He would still have time to decide whether to enter the house or not, whether the case were genuine or a mere trap concealing robbery or worse. The man took a shortcut through evil-looking slums that did not increase the minister's confidence. He wondered what his flock would think if they saw their pastor in such company. He was a young unmarried minister, and the reputation of such in provincial Jewish congregations,

overflowing with religion and tittle-tattle, is as a pretty unprotected orphan girls. "'Why don't you go to your own clergyman?' he asked. "'I've got none,' said the man half apologetically. "'I don't believe in nothing myself. "'But you know what women are.' The minister sniffed, but did not deny the weakness of the sex. "'Betsey goes to some place or other every Sunday almost. "'Sometimes she's there and back from a service before I'm up.

"'And so long as the breakfast's ready, I don't mind. "'I don't ask her no questions. "'And in return, she don't bother about my soul, at least wise not for these ten years, ever since she's had kids to convert. We get along all right, the Mrs. and me and the kids. Oh, but it's all come to an end now, he concluded, with a sob. Yes, but my good fellow, protested the minister. I told you you were making a mistake.

You know nothing about religion, but what your wife wants is someone to talk to her of Jesus, or to give her the sacrament, or the confession, or something, for I confess I'm not very clear about the forms of Christianity, and I haven't got any wafers or things of that sort. No, I couldn't do it, even if I had a mind to. It would ruin my position if it were known. But apart from that, I really can't do it. I wouldn't know what to say,

and I couldn't bring my tongue to say it if I did. Oh, would you believe in something? persisted the man piteously. Hmm, yes, I can't deny that, said the minister, but it's not the same something that your wife believes in. You believe in a God, don't you? The minister felt a bit chagrined at being catechized in the elements of his religion. Of course, he said fretfully.

There, I knew it, cried the man in triumph. None of us do in our shop, but of course clergymen are different. But if you believe in a God, that's enough, ain't it? You're both religious folk. No, it isn't enough, at least, not for your wife. Oh, well, you needn't let out, sir, need you. So long as you talk of God and keep clear of the Pope. I've heard her going on about a scarlet woman to the kids.

God bless their little hearts. I wonder what they'll do without her. She'll never know, sir, and she'll die happy. I've done my duty. She whispered I wasn't to bring a Roman Catholic, poor thing. I fancy I heard her say once, they're even worse than Jews. Oh, I didn't mean that, sir. You're sure you're not a Roman Catholic?

he concluded anxiously. Quite sure. Well, sir, you'll keep the rest dark, won't you? There's no call to let her out that you don't believe the same other things as her. I shall tell no lie, said the minister firmly. You have called me in to give consolation to your dying wife, and I shall do my duty as best I can. Is this the house? Yes, sir, right at the top. The minister conquered a last impulse of mistrust, and looked round consciously to be sure he was unobserved. Charity was not a strong point with his flock, and certainly his proceedings were suspicious. Even if they learnt the truth, he was not at all sure they would not consider his praying with a dying Christian akin to blasphemy. On the whole, he must be credited with some courage in mounting that black, ill-smelling,

interminable staircase. He found himself in a gloomy garret at last, lighted by an oil lamp. A haggard woman lay with shut eyes on an iron bed, her chilling hands clasping the hands of the converted kids, a boy of ten and a girl of seven, who stood blubbering in their night attire. The doctor leaned against the head of the bed, the ungainly shadows of the group sprawling across the blank wall. He had done all he could, without hope. hope of payment to ease the poor woman's last moments. He was a big-brained, large-hearted Irishman, a Roman Catholic who thought science and religion might be the best of friends. The husband looked at him in frantic interrogation. You are not too late, replied the doctor. Thank God, said the atheist.

Betsy, old girl, here is the clergyman. The cloud seemed to pass off the blind face, and the wave of wan sunlight to traverse it, slowly the eyes opened, the hands withdrew themselves from the children's grasp, and the palms met for prayer. Christ Jesus began the lips mechanically. The minister was hot with confusion and a quiver with emotion. He knew not what to say, as automatically he drew out a Hebrew prayer book from his pocket, and began reading the deathbed confession in the English version that appeared on the alternate pages. I acknowledge unto thee, O Lord, my God, and the God of my fathers, that both my cure and my death are in thy hands.

As he read, the dying lips moved, mumbling the words after him. How often had those white lips prayed that the stiff-necked Jews might find grace and be saved from damnation? How often had those poor rough hands put pennies into condes? conversionist collecting boxes after toiling hard to scrape them together, so that only she might suffer by their diversion from the household treasury. The prayer went on, the mournful monotone, thrilling through the hot, dim, oil-reaking attic, and awing the weeping children into silence. The atheist stood by reverently, torn by conflicting emotions. Glad the poor foolish creature

had her wish, and on thorns, lest she should live long enough, to discover the deception. There was no room in his overcharged heart for personal grief just then. Make known to me the path of life in thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures for ever more. An ecstatic look overspread the plain, careworn face.

She stretched out her arms as if to embrace some unseen vision. Yes, I'm coming, Jesus, she murmured. And then her hands dropped heavily upon her breast. The face grew rigid, the eyes closed. Involuntarily, the minister seized the hand nearest him. He felt it respond faintly to his clasp in unconsciousness of the pagan pollution of his touch. He read on, "'Thou who art the father of the fatherless, and the judge of the widow, protect my beloved kindred, with whose soul my own is knit.' The lips still echoed him almost imperceptibly. The departing spirit, lulled into peace by the prayer of the unbeliever.

Into thy hand I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Amen and amen. And in that last amen, with a final gleam of blessedness flitting across her sightless face, the poor Christian toiler breathed out her life of pain, holding the Jew's hand.

There was a moment of solemn silence, the three men becoming as little children, in the presence of the eternal mystery. It leaked out, as everything did in that gossipy town, and among that gossipy Jewish congregation, to the minister's relief, his flock took it better than he expected. What a blessed privilege for that heathen female was all their comment. End of a tragicomedy of creeds.

Section 4 of Grotes and Fantasies. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill, The Memory Clearinghouse. When I moved into Better Quarters on the strength of the success of my first novel,

I little dreamt that I was about to be the innocent instrument of a new epic in telepathy. My poor Geraldine, but I must be calm. It would be madness to let them suspect I am insane. No, these last words must be final. I cannot afford to have them discredited. I cannot afford any luxuries now. Would to heaven I had never written that first novel? Then I might still have been a poor, unhappy, struggling, realistic novelist. I might still have been residing at one-09. Little Turncott Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras. But I do not blame Providence. I knew the book was conventional even before it succeeded. My only consolation is that Geraldine was part author of my misfortunes, if not my novel. She it was who urged me to abandon my high ideals, to marry her,

and live happily ever afterwards. She said if I wrote only one bad book, it would be enough to established my reputation, that I could then command my own terms for the good ones. I fell in with her proposal. The bands were published, and we were bound together. I wrote a rose-tinted romance which no circulating library could be without, instead of the voracious picture of life I longed to paint. And I moved from 109, Little Turncott Street, chapel-be-road, St. Pancras, to 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster. a few days after we had sent out the cards i met my friend o'donovan late member for blackthorn he was an irishman by birth and profession but the recent general election had thrown him out of work the promise of his boyhood and of his successful career at trinity college was great but in later years he began to manifest the grave symptoms of genius i have heard whispers that it was in the family though he kept it from his wife

possibly i ought not to have sent him a card and have taken the opportunity of dropping his acquaintance but geraldine argued that he was not dangerous and that we ought to be kind to him just after he had come out to parliament o'donovan was in a rage i never thought it of you he said angrily when i asked him how he was he had a good irish accent but he only used it when addressing his constituents never thought of what i inquired in amazement that you would treat your friends so shabbily. What? Didn't you get a card? I stammered. I'm sure the wife. Don't be a fool, he interrupted.

Of course I got a card. That's what I complain of. I stared at him blankly. The social experiences resulting from my marriage had convinced me that it was impossible to avoid giving offense. I had no reason to be surprised, but I was. "'What right of you to move and put all your friends to trouble?' he inquired savagely. "'I have put myself to trouble,' I said,

"'but I fail to see how I have taxed your friendship.' "'No, of course not,' he growled. "'I didn't expect you to see. "'You're just as inconsiderate as everybody else. "'Don't you think I had enough trouble to commit to memory?' "'One-09, Little Turncott Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras. without being unexpectedly set to study, 21 Victoria Flats,

22, Albert Flats, I interrupted mildly. There you are, he snarled. You see already how it harasses my poor brain? I shall never remember it. Oh, yes, you will, I said deprecatingly. It is much easier than the old address. Listen here. 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square,

Westminster. Twenty-two, a symmetrical number, the first double-even number. The first is two, the second is two, two, two, and the whole is two, two, two. Quite aesthetical, you know. Then all the rest is royal, Albert, Albert the good, see, Victoria, the queen, Westminster, Westminster Palace, and the other words, geometrical terms, flat, square, why there never was such easy address since the days of Adam before he moved out of Eden. I concluded enthusiastically. It's easy enough for you, no doubt, he said unappeased. But do you think you're the only acquaintance who's not contented with his street and number? Bless my soul with a large circle like mine. I find myself charged with a new schoolboy task twice a month. I shall have to migrate

to a village where people have more stability of character. Heavens! Why have snails been privileged, with a domiciliary constancy denied to human beings. But you ought to be grateful, I urged feebly. Think of 22 Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster, and then think of what I might have moved to. If I have given you an imposition, at least admit, it is a light one. It isn't so much the new address I can plain of. It's the old. Just imagine what a weary grind it has been to master. 109, little turncot street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras. For the last 18 months, I have been grappling with it, and now, just as I am letter-perfect and post-card secure, behold, all my labor destroyed,

all my pains made ridiculous. It's the waste that vexes me. Here is a piece of information, slowly and laboriously acquired, yet absolutely useless. Nay, worse than useless, a positive hindrance, for I am just as slow at forgetting as at picking up. Whenever I want to think of your address, up it will spring. 109. Little Turncott Street. Chapelby Road, St. Pancras. It cannot be scotched.

It must lie there blocking up. My brain's a heavy, uncouth mass, always ready to spring at the wrong moment, a possession of no value to anyone but the owner, and not the least use to him. He paused, brooding on the thought in moody silence. Suddenly his face changed. But isn't it a value to anybody but the owner? He exclaimed excitedly, are there not persons in the world who would jump at the chance of acquiring it?

Don't stare at me as if I was a comment. Look here. Suppose someone had come to me 18 months ago and said, Patrick, old man, I have a memory I don't want. It's 109, Little Turncott Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras. You're welcome to it, if it's of any use to you. Don't you think I would have fallen on that man's or woman's neck and watered it with my tears? Just think of what a saving of brain force it would have been to me, how many petty vexations it would have spared me. See here then. Is your last place a let? Yes, I said. A Mr. Morrow has it now. Ha! He said with satisfaction. Now there must be lots of Mr. Morrow's friends in the same

predicament as I was, people whose brains are softening in the effort to accommodate 109, Little Turncott Street, Chapobey Road, St. Pancras. Psychical science has made made such great strides in this age that with a little ingenuity it should surely not be impossible to transfer the memory of it from my brain to theirs but i gasped even if it was possible why should you give away what you don't want that would be charity you do not suspect me of that he cried reproachfully no my ideas are not so primitive for don't you see that there is a memory i want thirty-three three royal flats, 22 Albert flats, I murmured shamefacedly. 22 Albert flats, he repeated witheringly. You see how badly I want it. Well, what I propose is to exchange my memory of 109, Little Turncott Street, Chapelby Road,

St. Pancras. He always rolled it slowly on his tongue with. the morbid self-torture and almost intolerable reproachfulness. For the memory of 22 Albert Square. But you forget, I said, though I lacked the courage to correct him again, that the people who want 109 little turn cot street are not the people who possess 22 Albert flats. Precisely, the principle of direct exchange is not feasible. What is wanted, therefore, is a memory clearinghouse.

If I can only discover the process of thought transference, I will establish one, so as to bring the right parties into communication. Everybody who has old memories to dispose of will send me in particulars. At the end of each week, I will publish a catalogue of the memories in the market, and circulated among my subscribers who will pay, say, a good. guinea year. When the subscriber reads his catalog and lights upon any memory he would like to have, he will send me a postcard and I will then bring him into communication with the proprietor, taking, of course, a commission upon the transaction. Doubtless in time, there will be

supplementary catalog devoted to once, which may induce people to scour their brains for half-forgotten reminiscences or persuade them to give up memories they would never have parted with otherwise. Well, my boy, what do you think of it? It opens up endless perspectives, I said half-dazed. It will be the greatest invention ever known, he cried, inflaming himself more and more. It will change human life. It will make a new epic. It will affect a greater economy of human force than all the things.

machines under the sun. Think of the saving of nerve tissue. Think of the prevention of brain irritation. Why, we shall all live longer through it. Centenarians will become as cheap as American millionaires. Live longer through it. Alas, the mockery of the recollection. He left me, his face working wildly. For days, the vision of it interrupted my own work. At last I could bear the no more and went to his house. I found him in ecstasies, and his wife in tears. She was beginning to suspect the family skeleton. Eureka, he was shouting, Eureka. What's the matter? sobbed the poor woman. Why don't you speak English? He's been going on like this for the last five minutes. She added, turning pitifully to me, Eureka, shouted O'Donovan. I must say it. No new invention is

complete without it. Bah, I didn't think you were so conventional, I said contemptuously. I suppose you have found out how to make the memory transferring machine. I have, he cried exultantly. I shall christen it the noemograph, or thought writer. The impression is received on a sensitized plate, which acts as a medium between the two minds. The brow of the purchaser is pressed against the plate, through which a current of electricity is then passed.

He rambled on about volts and dynamic psychometry and other hard words, which, though they break no bones, should be strictly confined in private dictionaries. I am awfully glad you came in, he said, resuming his mother tongue at last, because if you won't charge me anything, I will try the first experiment on you. I consented reluctantly, and in two minutes he rushed about the room, room and triumphantly shouting, 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster,

till he was hoarse. But for his enthusiasm, I should have suspected he had crammed up with my address on the sly. He started the clearinghouse forthwith. It began humbly as an attic in the strand. The first number of the catalogue was naturally meager. He was good enough to put me on the free list,

and I watched with interest the development of the enterprise. He had canvassed his acquaintances for subscribers, and begged everybody he met to send him particulars of their cast-off memories. When he could afford to advertise a little his clientele increased, there is always a public for anything bizarre, and a percentage of the population would send 13 stamps for the Philosopher's Stone post-free. Of course, the rest of the population smiled at him for an ingenious quack. The Memories on Sale Catalog grew thicker and thicker. The addition issued to the subscribers contained merely the items, but O'Donovan's copy comprised also the names and addresses of the vendors,

and now and again he allowed me to have a peep at it in strict confidence. The inventor himself had not foreseen the extraordinary uses to which his noemograph would be put, nor the extraordinary developments of his business. Here are some specimens called at random from number 13 of the clearinghouse catalog when O'Donovan still limited himself to facilitating the sale of superfluous memories. Item 1. 25, Portsdown Avenue, Midda Vale. Item 3, 13502, 17208, banknote numbers. Item 12. History of England, a few Saxon kings missing, as successful in a recent examination by the College of Preceptors, adapted to the requirements of candidates for the Oxford and Cambridge Local and the London matriculation.

Item 17, Pelley's evidences, together with a job lot of dogmatic theology, secondhand, a valuable collection by a clergyman recently ordained who has no further used. for them. Item 26. A dozen whisked wrinkles as used by a retiring speculator, excessively cheap. Item 29, mathematical formulae, complete sets all the latest novelties and improvements, including those for the higher plane curves, and a selection of the most useful logarithms, the property of a dying senior wrangler. Applications must be immediate, and no payment need be.

made to the heirs till the will has been proved. Item 35. Arguments in favor of home rule warranted sound. Propriotor, distinguished Gladstonian MP, has made up his mind to part with them at a sacrifice, eminently suitable for by-elections, principles only. Item 58, witty wedding speech, as delivered amid great applause by a bridegroom, also in a sort of of toasts, jocose and serious, in good condition, reduction on taking a quantity. Politicians, clergymen, and ex-examinees, soon became the chief customers. Graduates in arts and science hastened to disencumber their memories of the useless load of learning which had outstayed its function of getting them on in the world. Thus not only did they make

some extra money, but memories which would otherwise have rapidly faded were turned over to new minds to play a similarly beneficent part in aiding the careers of the owners. The fine image of Lucretius was realized and the torch of learning was handed on from generation to generation. Had O'Donovan's business been as widely known as it deserved, the curse of cram, would have gone to roost forever, and a finer physical race of Englishmen would have been produced. In the hands of honest students, the invention might have produced intellectual, giants. For each scholar could have started where his predecessor left off, and added more to his wealth

of lore, the modern standing upon the shoulders of the ancients in a more literal sense than Bacon dreamed. The memory of Macaulay, which, all Englishmen rightly reverence, might have been possessed by his schoolboy, as it was, omniscient idiots abounded, left colossally wise by their fathers, whose painfully acquired memories they inherited without the intelligence to utilize them. O'Donovan's parliamentary connection was a large one, doubtless merely because of his former position and his consequent contact with political circles. Promises to constituents were always at a discount. The supply being immensely in excess of the demand, indeed promises generally were a drug in the market. Instead of issuing the projected supplemental catalog of memories wanted,

O'Donovan by this time saw his way to buying them up on spec. He was not satisfied with his commission. He had learned by experience the kinds that went best, such as exam answers, but he resolved to have all sorts and be remembered as the whitely of memory. Thus the clearinghouse, very soon developed into a storehouse. O'Donovan's advertisement ran thus. Wanted, wanted, wanted, wanted, memories, memory.

best prices in the trade happy sad bitter sweet as used by minor poets high prices for absolutely pure memories memories historical scientific pious etc good memories special terms to liars precious memories exeter hallmarked new memories for old lost memories recovered while you wait old memories turned equal to new O'Donovan soon sported his Brigham. Any day you went into the store which now occupied the whole of the premises in the strand, you could see endless traffic going on. I often love to watch it. People who were tired of themselves came here to get a complete new outfit of memories and thus change their identities. Plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses came to be fitted with memories that would stand the test of the oath. And they often brought solicitous. with them to advise them in selecting from the stock. Council's opinion on these points was regarded as especially valuable. Statements that would wash and stand rough pooling about were much sought after. Gentlemen and ladies writing reminiscences and autobiographies were to be met with at all hours, and nothing was more pathetic than to see the humble artisan investing his hard-earned tanner in recollections of a seaside holiday. In the buying-up department, trade was equally brisk, and people who were hard up were often forced to part with their tenderest recollections.

Memories of dead loves went at five shillings a dozen, and all those moments which people had vowed and never to forget were sold at starvation prices. The memories indelibly engraven on hearts were invariably faded and only sold as damaged. The salvage from the most ardent fires of affection rarely paid the porterage. As a rule, the dearest memories were the cheapest. Of the memory of favors, there was always a glut, and often heaps of diseased memories had to be swept away at the instigation of the sanitary inspector. Memories of wrongs done, being rarely parted with except when their owners were at their last gasp, fetched fancy prices.

Mourner's memories ruled especially lively. In the memory exchange, too, there was always a crowd, the temptation to barter worn out memories for new, proving irresistible. One day O'Donovan came to me crying, Yorika once more. Shut up, I said annoyed by the idiotic Hellenicism. Shut up why I shall open ten more shops.

I have discovered the art of duplicating, triplicating, polyplocating memories. I used only to be able to get one impression out of the sensitized plate. Now I can get any number. Be careful, I said. This may ruin you. How so, he asked scornfully. Why, just see. Suppose you supply two candidates for a science degree with the same chemical reminiscences.

You lay them under a suspicion of copying. Two after-dinner speakers may find themselves recollecting the same joke. Several autobiographers may remember they're making the same remark to Gladstone. Unless your customers can be certain they have the exclusive right in other people's memories, they will fall away. Perhaps you're right, he said, I must Eureka something else. His Greek was as defective as if he had had a classical education. What he found was the hire system. Some people who might otherwise have been good customers objected to losing their memories entirely.

They were willing to part with them for a period. For instance, when a man came up to town or took a run to Paris, he did not mind dispensing with some of his domestic recollections just for a change. People who knew better than to forget themselves entirely profited by the opportunity of acquiring the funds for a holiday merely by leaving some of their memories behind them. They were always others ready to hire for a season the discarded bits of personality, and thus remorse was done away with, and double lives became a luxury within the reach of the multitude.

To the very poor, O'Donovan's new development proved an invaluable auxiliary to the pawn shop. On Monday mornings, the pavement outside was congested with wretched-looking women, anxious to pawn again the precious memories they had taken out with Saturday's wages. Under this higher system, it became possible to pledge the memories of the absent four wine instead of in it. But the most gratifying result was its enabling pious relatives to redeem the memories of the dead on payment of the legal interest. It was great fun to watch O'Donovan strutting about the rooms of his newest branch, swelling with pride like a combination cock and John Bull.

The experiences he gained here afforded him the material for a final development. But to be strictly chronological, I ought first to mention the newspaper into which the catalog evolved. It was called In Memorium and was published at a penny, and gave a prize of a thousand pounds to any reader who lost his memory on the railway and who applied for the reward in person. In Memorium dealt with everything relating to memory, though dishonestly enough, the articles were all original. So were the advertisements which required to have some reference

to the objects of the clearinghouse. For example, a philanthropic gentleman of good address who has traveled a great deal wishes to offer his addresses to impecunious young ladies, orphans preferred. Only those genuinely desirous of changing their residences and with weak memories need apply. And now for the final and fatal Eureka. The anxiety of some persons to hire out their memories for a period led O'Donovan to see that it was absurd for him to pay for the use of them,

the owners were only too glad to dodge remorse. He hit on the sublime idea that they ought to pay him. The result was the following advertisement in In Memorium and Its Contemporaries. Amnesia Agency, O'Donovan's Anodyne, cheap forgetfulness, complete or partial, easy amnesia, temporary or permanent, haunting memories laid, conscience is cleared, cares carefully removed without gas or pain. The London address of Lef is one zero-zero-one strand. Don't forget it. Quite a new class of customers rushed to avail themselves of the new pathological institution. What attracted them was having to pay.

Hitherto they wouldn't have gone if you paid them, as O'Donovan used to do. Widows and widowers presented themselves in shoals for treatment, with the result that marriages took place even within the year of morning, a thing which obviously could not be done under any other system. I wonder whether Geraldine... But let me finish now. How well I remember that bright summer's morning when wooed without by the liberal sunshine

and disgusted with the progress I was making with my new study in realistic fiction. I threw down my pen, strolled down the strand and turned into the clearinghouse. I passed through the selling department, catching a babble of cries from the counter-jumpers. Two gross anecdotes? Yes, sir, this way, sir.

Half-dozen proposals, it'll be cheaper if you take a dozen, miss. Can I do anything more for you, mum? Just let me show you a sample of our innocent recollections the Duchess of Bayswater has just taken some. Anything in the musical line this morning, signor? We have some lovely new recollections just in from the impecunious composers. Won't you take a score? Good morning, Mr. Clement Archer.

We have the very thing for you, a memory of Macriady playing Wolseley, quite clear and an excellent preservation, the only one in the market. Oh, no, mum, we have already allowed for these memories being slightly soiled. Jones, this lady complains the memories we sent her were short. O'Donovan was not to be seen. I passed through the buying department where the employees were beating down the prices of kind remembrances, and through the higher department, where the clerks were turning up their noses at the old memories that had been pledged so often into the amnesia agency.

There I found the great organizer appearing curiously at a sensitized plate. Oh, he said, is that you? Here's a curiosity. What is it, I asked? The memory of a murder. The patient paid well to have it off his mind. But I am afraid I shall miss the usual second profit for who will buy it again. I will, I cried with a sudden inspiration.

Oh, what a fool I have been. I should have been your best customer. I ought to have bought up all sorts of memories and written the most voracious novel the world has seen. I haven't got a murder in my new book, but I'll work one in at once. Eureka. Stash that, he said revengefully.

You can have the memory with pleasure. I couldn't think of charging an old friend like you, who's moving from an address, which I've sold to 22 Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster, made my fortune. That was how I came to write the only true murder ever written. It appears that the cellar, a poor laborer, had murdered a friend in Epping Forest, just to rob him of half a crown and calmly hid him under some tangled brushwood.

A few months afterwards, having unexpectedly come into a fortune, he thought it well to break entirely with his past, and so had the memory extracted at the agency. This, of course, I did not mention, but I described the murder and the subsequent feelings of the assassin and launched the book on the world with a feeling of exultant expectation. Alas, it was damned universally for its tameness and the improbability of its murder scenes. The critics, to a man, claimed to be authorities on the sensations of murderers. And the reading public aghast said I was flying in the field. face of Dickens. They said the man would have taken daily excursions to the corpse and have been

forced to invest in a seasoned ticket to Epping Forest. They said he would have started if his own shadow crossed his path not calmly have gone on drinking beer like an innocent babe at its mother's breast. I determined to have the laugh of them. Stung to madness, I wrote to the papers asserting the truth of my murder and giving the exact date and the place of burial. The next day a detective found the body, and I was arrested. I asked the police to send for O'Donovan and gave them the address of the amnesia agency, but O'Donovan denied the existence of such an institution and said he got his living as secretary of the Shamrock Society. I raved. I cursed him then.

and now it occurs to me that he had perhaps submitted himself, and everybody else to amnesiastic treatment. Well, the jury recommended me to mercy on the grounds that to commit a murder for the artistic purpose of describing the sensations bordered on insanity, but even this false plea has not saved my life. It may, a petition has been circulated by Moody's, and even at the eighth hour my reprieve may come. yet if the third volume of my life be closed tomorrow,

I pray that these my last words may be published in an edition deluxe, and such of the profits as the publisher can spare be given to Geraldine. If I am reprieved, I will never buy another murderer's memory. Not for all the artistic ideals in the world. I'll be hanged if I do. End of the Memory Clearing House. Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia. Section 5 of Grotesques and Fantasies.

This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Grotesks and Fantasies by Israel of Zangwill. Section 5. Maided by a Waiter. Chapter 1, Black and White. Jones I mention him here because he is the first and last word of the story. It is the story of what might be called a game of chess between me and him,

for I never made a move, but he made a counter move. You must remember, though, that he played, so to speak, blindfold. While I started the game, not with the view of mating him, but merely for the fun of playing. There was to be a review of the fleet, and the inhabitants of Ride rejoiced as befitted sons of the sea. Although many of them would be reduced to living in their cellars, like their own black beetles, so that they might harbor the patriotic emigrant,

they sacrificed themselves ungrudgingly. No, it was not the natives who grumbled. My friends, Jack Wollwich and Merton Tower, being in the same, the civil service, naturally desired to pay a compliment to the less civil department of state, and to pick their month's holiday so as to include the review. They took care to let the review come out at the posterior extremity of the holiday, so as to find them quite well and in the enjoyment of excellent quarters at economical rates. They selected a comfortable but unfashionable hotel at moderate but uninclusive terms, and joyously stretched their free limbs unswaddled by red tape.

London became a forgotten nightmare. They wrote to me irregularly, tantalizing me unwittingly with glimpses of buoyant wave and sunny pasture. It fretted me to be amured in the stone prison of the metropolis, and my friend's letters did but sprinkle sea salt on my wounds, for I was working up a medical practice in the Northern District, and my absence might prove fatal, not so perhaps to my patients as to my prospects.

I was beginning to be recognized as a specialist in throats and eyes, and invariably sent my client's ears to my old hospital chum, Robbins, which increased the respect of the neighborhood for my professional powers. Your general practitioner is a suspiciously omniscient person, and it is far sager to know less and to charge more. My dear Ted, wrote the Woolwich Infant, of course we could not escape calling Jack Woolwich thus. I do wish we had you here.

Such larks! We've got the most comical cuss of a waiter you ever see. saw. I feel sure he would appeal irresistibly to your sense of humor. He seems to boss the entire establishment. His name is Jones, and when you have known him a day, you feel that he is the only Jones, the only Jones possible. He is a middle-aged man, with a slight stoop and a cat-like crawl. His face is large and flabby, ornamented with mutton-shop whiskers, streaked as with the silver of a half-century of tips. He is always at your elbow. mercenary metastophiles, suggesting drives or sails and recommending certain yachts, boats,

and carriages with insinuitive irresistibleness. He has the tenacity of an army of able-bodied leeches, and if you do not take his advice, he spoils your day. You may shake him off by fleeing into the interior of the aisle, or plunging into the sea, but you cannot be always trotting about or bathing, and at meal-times he waits upon those who have disrequels. He waits upon those who have disregarded his recommendations. He has a hopelessly corruptive effect on the soul, and I, who have always prided myself on my immaculate moral get-up, was driven to desperate lying within 24 hours of my arrival. I told him how much I had enjoyed the carriage drive he had counseled, or the sale he had sanctioned by his approval, and, in return, he regaled me with tidbits at our

tabled a halt dinner. But the next day he followed me about with large reproachful eyes, in grieved silence. I saw that he knew all, and I dragged myself along with my tail between my legs, miserably asking myself how I could regain his respect. Wherever I turned,

I saw nothing but those dilated orbs of rebuke. I took refuge in my bedroom, but he glided in to give me a bad French haypenny the chambermaid had picked up under my bed, and the implied contrast to be read in those eyes between the honesty of the establishment and my own was more than I could bear. I flew into a passion, the last resource of detected guilt, and irreverently told him I would choose my own amusements,

and that I had not come down to increase his commissions. Ted, till my dying day I shall not forget the dumb martyrdom of those eyes. When he was sufficiently recovered to speak, He swore in a voice broken by emotion That he was scorn taking commissions from the quarters I imagined Ashamed of my unjust suspicions, I apologized And went out that afternoon alone for a trip in the May blossom And was violently sick

Merton funked because the weather was rough And had a lucky escape But he had to meet Jones in the evening Merton's theory is that Jones doesn't get commissions For the simple reason that the wagon and Rogham's and Beth chairs and boats and yachts he recommends, all belong to him, and that the nominal proprietors are men of straw, stuffed by the only Jones. This theory is, I must admit, borne out by the evidence of O'Raffody, a jolly old Irishman

whose wife died here early in the year, and who has been making holiday ever since. He says that Jones had a week off in March when there was hardly anybody in the hotel, and he was to be seen driving a wagonette between Ryan and Cowell's day. daily. And indeed, there is something curiously provincial and plebeian about Jones's mind, which suggests a man who was risen from the cabranks. His ideas of tips are delightfully democratic, and you cannot insult him even with a tuppence. He handles a bottle of cheap claret as reverently as a Russian the image of his saint, and he has never got over his awe of champagne. To drink Monopole at dinner is to mount a pedestal of dignity, and I complete

recovered his esteem by drowning the memories of that awful marine experience in a pint of dry. When he draws the champagne cork, he has a sacerdotal air, and he pours out the foaming liquid with the obsequiousness of an archbishop placing on his sovereign's head the crown he may never hope to do more than touch. But perhaps the best proof of the humbleness of his origin is his veneration for the aristocracy. An average waiter is, from the nature of his occupation, liable to be brought into contact with the bluest of blood, and to have his undiminished reverence for it, tempered with a good-natured perception of mortal foibles.

But Jones's attitude is one of awestruck, unquestioning worship. He speaks of a lord with bated breath, and he dare not, even in conversation, ascend to a duke. It would seem that this is not one of the hotels which the aristocrats' fancy turns to thoughts of, for apparently only one lord has ever stayed here, judging by the frequency with which Jones whispers his name. Though some of us seem to have a beastly lot of money,

and to do all the year round what Merton and I can only indulge in for a month, we are or rather being company, I fear, and it is simply overwhelming the way Jones Rams Lord Porchester down our throats. When his lordship stayed here, he practically admired the view from about their window. his lordship wouldn't drink anything but pommerie grino he used to swallow it by tumblers full as you or i might rum and water sir ah sir lord porchester hired the may blossom all to himself and often said by jove she's like a sea-gull she almost comes near my own little beauty i think i shall have to buy her by gad i shall and let them raise each other and the fellow is such an inveterate gossip that everybody here knows everybody else's business the proprietor is a quiet gentlemanly fellow and is the only person in the place who keeps his presence of mind in the presence of jones

and is not in mental subjugation to the flabby florid crawling boss of the rest of the show you may laugh but i warrant you you you wouldn't be here a day before jones could get the upper hand of you On the outside, of course, he is as fixedly deferential as if every moment were to be your last, and the cab were waiting to take you to the station. But inwardly, you feel he is wound about you like a boa constrictor. I do so long to see him swathing you in his coils. Won't you come down and give your patience a chance? My dear Jack, I wrote back to the infant, I am sorry that you are having bad weather.

You don't say so. But when a man covers six sheets of writing paper, I know what it means. I must say, you have given me an itching to try my strength with the only Jones. But, alas, this is a musical neighborhood, and there is a run on sore throats. So I must be content to enjoy my Jones by deputy. Is there any other attraction about the shanty? burton jones took up the running barring ourselves and jones he wrote and perhaps o rafferty there isn't a decent human being in the hotel the ladies are either old and ugly or devoted to their husbands the only ones worth talking to are in the honeymoon stage but jones is worth a hundred petticoats he is tremendous fun we've got a splendid spree on now

I think the infant told you that Jones has not enjoyed that actual contact with the hopper-suckles that his simple snobbish soul so thoroughly deserves, and that, in spite of the eternal Lord Porchester, his acquaintance is less with the Beaumond than with the Baum and Bromley-Mond. Since the infant and I discovered this, we have been putting on the grand air. Unfortunately, it was too late to claim titles, but we have managed to convince us. the impression that, although commoners and plain miser's, we have yet had the privilege of rubbing against the purple. We have casually and carelessly dropped hints of aristocratic acquaintances, and Jones has bowed down and picked them up reverently. The other day, when he brought us our charreuse after dinner,

the infant said, Ah, I suppose you haven't got damn to damn in stock. The only Jones stared awestruck. Of course not. How can it possibly have penetrated to these parts yet? I struck in with supercilious reproach. Dem to dem? What is that, sir?

Fultered Jones. What? You don't mean to say you haven't even heard of it, exclaimed the infant in a maze. Jones looked miserable and apologetic. It's the latest liqueur, I explained graciously, awfully expensive, made by a new brotherhood of anchorites in Dalmatia, who have secluded themselves, from the world in order to concoct it.

They only serve the aristocracy, but of course now and then a millionaire manages to get hold of a bottle. Lord Everett made me a present of some a couple of months ago, but I use it very, very sparingly, and I dare say the flasks at least half full. I have it in my port-bant-to-o. How does it taste, sir? inquired Jones, in a hushed, solemn whisper.

Damn to damn is not the sort of thing that would please the uncultured. palate, I replied haughtily. It's what they call an acquired taste, ain't it, sir? He asked wistfully. Would you like to have a drop? I said affably. Oh, towers, cried the infant.

What would Lord Everett say? Well, but how is Lord Everett to know? I responded. Jones will never let on. His lordship shall never hear a word from my lips, Jones protested gratefully. But you won't like it at first, to really enjoy damn to damn.

you'll have to have several goes at it. Have you got a little vial? Jones ran and fetched the vial, and I fished out of my portmanteau the bottle of dyspepsia mixture you gave us and filled Jones' vial. I watched him glide into the garden and put the vial to his lips

with a heavenly expression, through which some suggestions of purgatory subsequently flitted. That was yesterday. Well, Jones, how do you like, damn to damn? I inquired genially this morning. "'Very high class.

"'Very high class in its taste, thank you, sir,' he replied. "'It's hardly for the likes of me, I'm afraid. "'But as you've been good enough to give me some, "'I'll make so bold as to enjoy it. "'I add a second sip at it this morning, "'and I liked it a deal better than yesterday. "'It requires time to get the taste, sir, "'but depend upon it, I'll do my best to acquire it.'

"'I wish you success,' I cried. Once you get used to it, it's simply delicious. Why, I never travel without a bottle of it. I often take it in the middle of the night. You finish that vile, Jones, never mind the cost. I'm writing to Lord Everett today, and I'll drop him a broad hint that I should like another. Eureka!

As I write this, a glorious idea has occurred to me. I am writing to you today, and you are the giver of Dam to Dam. alias dyspepsia mixture oh if you could only come down and pose as lord everett what larks we should have do oh boy it'll be the greatest spree we've ever had don't say no you want to change you know you do or you'll be on the sick list yourself soon come if only for a week surely you can find a chum to take your practice how about robins he can't be all ears i dare say he's equal to looking after your throat and eyes for a week, the infant joins with me and says that if you don't come, he'll kill off Jones and deprive you forever of the pleasure of knowing him. I remain yours till Jones's death, Merton Towers. P.S. When you come, bring a dozen of Damnedadam. The prospect of becoming Lord Everett flattered and tickled me, and was a daily temptation

to me in my dreary drudgery. To the appeal of the pictured verse of the picture of visions of woods and waters was added the alluring figure of jones standing a little bent amid the smiling landscape acquiring a taste for dam to dam his pasty face kneaded ecstatically his hand on the pit of his stomach at last i could stand it no longer i went to see robins and i wrote to my friends jones wins expect me about ten days before the review so that we can return to town together when i first asked robins to take my eyes he was inclined to dash them but the moment I let him into the plot against Jones, he agreed to do all my work on condition of being informed of the progress of the campaign. I shan't tell anyone I'm leaving town, and Robbins will forward my letters in an envelope addressed to Lord Everett. P.S. I am bottling a special brand of Dam to Dam. End of Maided by a Wader, Chapter 1. Recording by Todd

Section 6 of Grotesques and Fantasies This is a Librebox recording All Librevox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Librebox.org Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwell Mated by a Waiter

Chapter 2, a difficult opening The proudest moment of Jones's life was probably when he assisted me to a light from the carriage I had ordered at the station. I wore a light duster, a straw hat, and goloshes, among other things, together with the air of having come over in the same steamboat as the conqueror. I may as well mention here that I am tall, almost as tall as the Woolwich infant, who frequently stand six foot two on my pet corn. Towers, by the way, is a short squat man, whose delusion that he is handsome can be read plainly upon his face. my features like my habits are regular by complexion i belong to the fair sex but there is a masculine vigor about my physique and my language which redeems me from effeminineous

i do not mention my tawny moustache because that is not an exclusively male trait in these days of women's rights good morning my lord said jones his obeisance so low and his voice so loud that i had to give the driver half a crown i nodded almost imperceptibly knowing that the surest way to impress jones with my breeding was to display no trace of it i strolled languidly into the hall deferentially followed by the infant and merton towers leaving jones distracted between the desire to handle my luggage and to show me my room "'Excuse me, my lord,' said Jones, flustered. "'Jane, run for the master.' "'Excuse me, my lord,' said the infant. "'I'll run up and watch for lunch. See you in a moment. "'Come along, Merton. It's so beastly high up. "'When are you going to get a lift, Jones?'

"'In a moment, in a moment,' replied Jones automatically. "'He seemed half-dazed. "'The quiet, gentlemanly young proprietor, "'who appeared to have been disturbed in his studies, "'for he held the volume of, Dickens in his hand, conducted me to a gloriously furnished bedroom on the first floor, facing the sea. It's the best we can do for your lordship, he said apologetically, but with the review so near,

I waved my hand impatiently, wishing he could have done worse for me. In town I had been too busy to realize the situation in detail, but now it began to dawn upon me that it was going to be an expensive joke. Besides, I was separated from my friends, who were to be a little bit of who were corridors away and flights higher, and convivial meetings at midnight would mean disagreeable stocking wanderings for somebody. A mere shadow of a trifle, no doubt, but little things like that worry more than they look. I was afraid to ask the price of this well-bedroom, and I began to comprehend the meaning

of nobles obelige. The sitting-room adjoins, said the hotel-keeper, suddenly opening a door and ushering me into a magnificent chamber with a lofty ceiling and a dado. The furniture was plushed covered and suggestive. of footman. I presume you will not be taking your meals in public. Hmm, hmm, I muttered, talking up my mustache. Then, struck by a bright idea, I said, What do Mr. Woolwich and Mr. Towers do? They joined the table to halt, your lordship, said the proprietor. They didn't require a

sitting-room, they said, as they should be almost entirely in the open air. Oh, well, I could hardly leave my friends, I said reflectively. I suppose I shall have to join them at the table de haute. I dare say they would like to have your lordship with them, said the proprietor with a faint, flattering smile. I smiled internally at my cunning and getting out of the sitting-room. It's an awful boar, I yawned, but I'm afraid they'd be annoyed if I ate up here alone,

so you'll invite them up here for all meals, yes, my lord, said Jones at my elbow. He had sidled up with his cat-like quillard. crawl. Through the open door of communication I saw he had deposited my boxes in the gorgeous bedroom. There was a moment of tense silence in which I struggled desperately for a response. The brazen shudder of a gong vibrated through the house. Is that lunch? I asked him relief, making a step towards the door. Yes, my lord, said Jones, but not your lordship's lunch. It will be laid here immediately, my lord. I will go at once and convey your invitation to your lord's.

Lordship's friends. He hastened from the room, leaving me dumbfounded. I did not enjoy Jones as much as I had anticipated. In a moment, a pretty parlor-maid arrived to lay the cloth. I became conscious that I was hungry and thirsty and travel-stained, and I determined to let things slide until after lunch, when I could easily set them right. The sunshine was flooding the room, and the sea was a dance of diamonds. The sight of the perennial preparation softened me. I retired to my beautiful bedroom and plunged my face into a basin of water. There was a knock at the door. Come in! I spluttered.

Your hot water, my lord. It was Jones. I've got into enough already, I thought. Don't want it, I growled preemptorily. I always washing cold. I would have my way in small things, I resolved, if I could not have it in great. Certainly your lordship. This is only for shaving. My cheeks grew hot beneath the the fingers washing them. I remembered that I had overslept myself that morning and neglected shaving, lest I should miss my train. There were but a few microscopic hairs, yet I felt at once I had

not the face to meet Jones at lunch. Thank you, I said savagely. When I had wiped my eyes, I found he was still in the room, bent in meek adoration. What in the devil do you want now, I thundered. His eyes lit up with rapture. It was as though I had made an oath I was a nobleman and removed his last doubt. Pomerigrino, or hide-seek, my lord? I cursed silently. I am of an easy-going disposition, and in my most pernourious student days, had to spend twenty-five percent more on my modest lunch

whenever the waiter said, stout or bitter, sir. But the present alternative was far more terrible. I was on the point of saying I was a teetotaler, when I remembered that that would shut off my noctrine. "'and condemn me to goody-goody-goody beverages at meals. "'I remembered, too, that Jones intended the champagne "'as much for my friends as myself. "'And lords are proverbially disassociated from temperance.

"'Oh, it was horrible that this oliginous snob "'should rob a poor man of his beer. "'Perhaps I could escape with claret. "'In my agitation I commenced lathering my chin "'and returned no answer at all. "'The voice of Jones came at last. last, charged with a deeper respect, but inevitable as the knell of doom. Did you say Pomerigrino, my lord?

No, I yelled defiantly. Thank you, my lord. Lord Portschester was very partial to our hide-seek when he was here. We have an excellent year. I wish you had twelve months, I thought furiously. Then, when the door closed upon him, I ground my razor savagely, and muttered, "'All right. I'll take it out of you in damnty-dam.' I heard the bustle of my friends arriving to lunch, and I shaved myself hastily. Then, slipping on my coat and dabbing a bit of sticking-blaster on my chin,

I threw open the door violently, for I was not going to let those two fellows off an exhibition of slang. They should have thought out the plot more fully, have hired me a moderate bedroom in advance, and not have let me in for the luxuries of Lucullus. It was a cowardly desertion They're leaving me at the critical moment And they should learn what I thought of it You ruffians! I began

But the words died on my lips Jones was waiting at table It ought to have been a delicious lunch Boiled chickens and apple tart The cool breeze coming through the open window The sea and the champagne sparkling But I, who was hungriest, enjoyed at least

Jones, who ate nothing, enjoyed it most. The infant in Merton Towers simply overflowed with high spirits, keeping up a running fire of aristocratic allusions, which galled me beyond endurance. By the way, how is the Dowager Duchess? wound up the infant. Dee, the Dowager Duchess, I roared, losing the remains of my temper. Jones grew radiant, and the infant winked, irritating approval of my natural touches. Such contempt for Duchesses could only be bred of familiarity. At last I could contain myself no longer. I must either explode or have a fit.

I sent Jones for cigarettes. Directly the door closed, those two men turned upon me. I say, old fellow! exclaimed towers reproachfully. Isn't this just going it a little too far? What, in creation, made you take these howling apartments? asked the infant. Review time, too! They've been saving up these rooms,

foreseeing there would be some tip-top swells crowded out of the fashionable hotels. "'Why, there's a cozy little crib next to ours I made sure you'd have.' "'Well, I call this cool,' I gasped. "'So it is,' said the infant. "'I admit that. "'It's the coolest room in the house. "'It'll be real jolly out here. "'And if you can stand the racket, I'm sure I'm not the chap to grumble.'

"'You must have been doing beastly well, old man,' Towers put in enviously, "'to feed us like critics on chicken and champagne. "'I suppose they'll be opening new cemeteries down your way presently. Look here, my fine fellows, I said ferociously. Don't you forget that there's plenty of room still in Rye Churchyard. Hello, Ted, cried the infant, looking up with ingenuous surprise. I thought you came down here on a holiday. Stash that, I said.

It's you who's got me into this hole, and you know it. A hole, cried Towers, looking round the room in a maze. He calls this a hole? Hang it, oh, my boy, are you a millionaire? I call this good enough for a lord. Yes, but as I'm neither, I said grimly, I should like you to understand that I'm not going to pay for this bread. What? gasped the infant.

Invite a man to lunch, and expect him to square the bill? I never invited you, I said indignantly. Who then? said Tower sternly. Jones, I answered. Yes, my lord. Sorry to have kept your lordship waiting, but I think you will find these cigarettes to your liking. I haven't been at this box since Lord Porchester was here, and it got mislaid.

Take them away, I roared. They're Egyptians. Yes, my lord, said Jones in delight. He glided proudly from the room. Jones invited us, pursued the infant. What wrought! As if Jones would dare do anything you hadn't told him. We are his slaves, but you? Why, he hangs on your words!

D him! I should like to see him hanging on something higher, I cried. "'Yes, your language is low,' admitted the infant. "'But seriously, what's all to row about? "'I thought this champagne lunch was a bit of realism, just to start off with.' "'I explained briefly how Jones had coiled himself round me, even as they had described. "'The dado echoed their rebald laughter. "'Oh, well,' said the infant,

"'it's only right you should give a lunch the day you come into a peerage. "'It's really too much to expect us to pay Scott, "'when there was a beautiful lunch of cold beef and pickles, waiting for us in the dining-room, and included in our terms per week. We aren't going to pay for two lunches. I don't mind the lunch, I said, smiling, my sense of humor returning now that I had poured forth by grievance. I'll gladly give you chaps a lunch any day, and I'm pleased you enjoyed it so much, but, for the rest, I'm going to run this joke by syndicate, or not at all.

I only came down with a tenor. A pound a day, said Towers. That ought to be enough. Why, there's a pound gone bang over this lunch already, I retorted. And then there's the apartments, put in the infant roguishly. I wonder what they'll taught up to. Jones alone knows, I groaned. He came in, a veritable devil, while his name was on my lips, with a new box of cigarettes.

Clear away, I said briefly. He cleared away, and we briefed freely. We leaned back in the plush-covered easy-chairs, sending rings of fricers. sending rings of fragrant smoke towards the blue horizon. And I felt more able to face the situation calmly. I dare say we can lend you five quid between us, said Towers. What's the good of a loan to an honest man? I asked. Can't we work the joke without such a lot of capital?

The first thing is to get out of these rooms and in that cozy little crib near you. I can say I yearn for your society. But have you the courage to look Jones in the face? and tell him that? queried towers dubiously. I hesitated. I felt instinctively that Jones would be dreadfully shocked if I changed my palatial apartments for a cheap bedroom.

That it would be better if someone else broke the news. Oh, the infant will explain, I said lightly. Nothing of the sort, said the infant. It won't wash now. Besides, they'd make you shell out in any case. They'd pretend they turned lots of applicants away this morning because the rooms were let. No, keep the bedroom, and we'll go shares in the sitting-room.

It's jollier to have a proper private room. Good, said I, that it only remains to escape from these special meals and the champagne. You leave that to me, said the infant. I'll tell Jones that you hunger for our company at meals, but that we can't consent to come up here, because you, would that reckless prodigiality which is wearing the dowager-judges to a shadow, insist on paying for everything consumed on your premises, so that you must even come to the general table.

"'Jones will be glad enough to trot you round.' "'And I'll tell him,' added Towers, "'that, with that determined thatipsomania "'which is making the moneylenders daily friendlier to your little brother, "'you swill champagne till you fly at waiter's throats like a mad dog, "'and that it is our sacred duty to diet you on table beer or tantara.' "'Wouldn't it to be simpler to tell him the truth?' I asked feebly. "'What?' gasped the infant?

"'chuck up the sponge! "'Don't spoil the loveliest holiday I ever had, oh! man. Just think how you will go up in his estimation when we tell him you are a spendthrift and a drunkard. For pity's sake, don't throw a gloom over Jones's life. Very well, I said, relenting. Only the exes must be cut down. The motto must be extravaganza without extravagance, or farces economically conducted. Right you are, they said. And then we smoked on in Helisian voluptuousness, now and then passing the matches or a drollery mark about Jones. In the middle of one of the latter, there was a knock at the door, and Jones entered.

The carriage will be round in five minutes, my lord, he announced. The carriage, I faltered, growing pale. Yes, my lord, I took the liberty of thinking your lordship wouldn't waste such a fine afternoon indoors. No, I'm going out at once, I said resolutely, but I shan't drive. Very well, my lord. I will countermand the carriage, and order a horse. I presume your lordship would like a spirited one?

Jays up the street has a beautiful bay steed. Thank you. I don't care for riding, er, other people's horses. No, of course not, my lord. I'll see that the May blossom is reserved for your lordship's use this afternoon. Your lordship will have time for a glorious sale before dinner. He hastened from the room. You'd better have the carriage, said the infant dryly.

It's cheaper than the yacht. You'll have to have it once, and you may as well get it over. After one trial you can say it's too springless, and the cushions are too crustaceous for your delicate anatomy. I'll see him at Jericho first, I cried, and wrenched at the bell-pull with angry determination. Yes, my lord. He stood bent and insinuitive before me. I won't have the yacht. Very well, my lord, then I won't counterman the carriage.

He turned to go. Jones! I shrieked. He looked back at me. His eyes, full of a trusting reverence, met mine. My resolution began oozing out at every pore. "'Is, is, are you going with the carriage?' I stammered for want of something to say. "'No, my lord,' he answered wistfully. That settled it. I let him depart without another word.

"'It was certainly a pleasant drive through the delightful scenery of the aisle, and I determined, since I had to pay the piper, to enjoy the dance. The infant and towers were hilarious to the point of vulgarity. I let myself go with the will of Jones. When we got back, we realized with a start that it was half-past six. The dressing gong was sounding. Jones met me in the passage. Dinner at seven, my lord, in your room.

I made frantic motions to the infant. Tell him, I breathed. It's too late now, he whispered back. Tomorrow. I telegraphed desperately to towers. He shook his thick head helplessly. "'Have you invited my friends to dinner?' I asked to Jones, bidingly. "'No, my lord,' he said simply.

"'I thought your lordship had seen enough of them today.' There was a suggestion of reproach in the apology. Jones was more careful of my dignity than I was. When I got to my room, I found, to my horror, my dress clothes laid out on the bed. I had brought them on the off chance of going to a local dance. Jones had opened my portmanteau. For a moment a cold chill traversed my spine,

as I thought he must have seen the monogram on my linen and discovered the imposter. Then I remembered with joy that it was an E, which is the more formal initial of Ted, and would do for Everett. In my relief, I felt I must submit to the nuisance of dressing, an honor of Jones. While changing my trousers, a sudden curiosity took me.

I peeped through the keyhole of my sitting room and saw Jones just arriving with another box. of Hidesick. I moaned. I knew I should have to drink it, to keep up the fiction towers was going to palm off on Jones tomorrow. I felt like bolting on the spot, but I was in my jiggers. Presently, Jones sidled mysteriously towards my door and knelt down before it. It flashed upon me, he wanted the keyhole I was occupying. I jumped up an alarm and dressed with the decorum of a god with a worshipper's eye on him. I swallowed what Jones gave me, fuming. With the roast, a blessed thought came to soothe me.

Thenceforth I chuckled continuously. I refused the Paffe O'Frey and the savory in my eagerness for the end of the meal. Revenge was sufficient sweets. Hmm. Oh, hmm, I murmured, caressing my mustache. Bring me a diadem. I knew his little vial must be exhausted long since. I intended to give him a bottle.

Did your lordship say damn to damn? Damn to damn, I roared while my heart beat full up to his music. You don't mean to say you don't keep it. Oh, no, my lord. We laid in a big stock of it, but Lord Porchester was that fond of it. Used to drink it like your lordship does champagne. I doubt if I could lay my hand on a bottle. What an awful bo-a, I yawned.

I suppose I'll have to get a bottle of my own out of that little black box under my bed. I couldn't possibly go without it after dinner. Hang it all, the keys of my other trousers. Oh, don't trouble, my lord, said Jones anxiously. I'll run and see if I can find any. I waited, gloating. Jones returned gleefully. I found plenty, my lord, he said, sitting down a brimming liqueur glass.

He lingered about, clearing the table. His eye was upon me. I drank the dam-to-dam. Then Jones departed, and I went about kicking the furniture and striding about in my desolate grandeur like Napoleon at St. Helene. Lina. Presently, the infant in Towers came rushing in, choking with laughter. Your arrival has fired afresh all Jones's aristocratic ambitions, gurgled towers. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ho! Ho! Pinto the infant! He coax us out of all of our remaining damn to damn.

I grinned a sickly response. Great Scott, the infant bellowed. Plus this howling wilderness of shirtfront. It's cooler, I explained. End of Maited by a Waiter, Chapter 2. Recording by Todd Section 7 of Grotesques and Fantasies This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill. Mated by a waiter, Chapter 3. The Queen comes into play. I had to breakfast in my room, but by lunch the next day, my friends had found an opportunity to explain me to Jones. They had, on several occasions, strongly exhorted Jones to secrecy as to my rank, so that the eyes of the whole table were on me when I entered.

I ate with the ease of one conscious of giving involuntary lessons in etiquette to a furtive glancing bourgeois. The infant gave me tentara to break me gradually of champagne, and reduced me to malt. After lunch, Towers remonstrated with Jones on having obviously given me away. "'Sir,' protested Jones in righteous indignation, "'I promised to tell no one in the hotel, and I have kept my word.' "'Well, how do they know then?' inquired Towers. "'I shouldn't be surprised if they read it in the visitors' list,' Jones answered. Being now half-mancipated, I fell into the usual routine.

of seaside holiday. I swam. I rode. I walked. I lounged. Whenever Jones would let me. One wet morning, we even congratulated ourselves on our luxurious sitting room as we sat and smoked before the rain-wipped sea till, unexpected, Jones brought up lunch for three. That evening, as we were entering the dining room, Jones observed humbly to the infant and towers. Excuse me, gentlemen. I've had to separate you for from his lordship. We've had such an influx of visitors for the review. I've been odd put to it to squeeze them all in. Those wretched cowards marched feebly to a new extremity of the table, while I walked to my usual seat near the window, with anger flaming duskily on my brow.

This time I was determined. I would stick to table-beer all the same. But before I dropped into my chair, every trace of anger vanished. My heart throbbed violently, my dazzled violently, my dazzled eyes surveyed my serviette. At my side was one of the most charming girls I had ever met. When the Heidzik came, I raised my glass as in a dream, and silently drank to the glorious creature nearest my heart on the left hand. We medicos are not easily upset by woman's beauty. We know too well what it is made of. But there was something so exquisite about this girl's face as to make a hardened materialist hesitate to resolve her into a psychological. logical formula. It was not long before I offered to pass her the pepper. She declined with thanks and brevity. Her accent grated unexpectedly on my ear. I was puzzled to know why. I spoke of the

rain that still tapped on the window, as if anxious to come in. It was raining when I left Paris, she said, but up till then I'd had a lovely time. Now I saw what was the matter. She suffered from twang and was American. I have always had a prejudice against Americans? Chiefly, I believe, because they always seem to be having a lovely time. It was with a sense of partial disenchantment that I continued the conversation. So you have been to Paris, I said, thinking of the old joke about good Americans going there when they die. I must admit you look as if you would come from heaven. So wretched is all that, she retorted, laughing merrily. There was no twang in the laugh. It was a ripple of music.

"'I don't mean an exile from heaven,' I answered. "'An excursionist, with a return ticket.' "'Oh, but I'm not going back,' she said, shaking her lovely head. "'Not even when you die?' I asked, smiling. "'I guess I shall need a warmer climate, then,' she flashed back audaciously. "'You're too good for that,' I answered without hesitation. I caught a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes as she answered, "'Gracious, you're very spry at giving strange folks' certificate.'

certificates. It's my business to give certificates, I answered smiling. Marriage certificates, my lord, she asked roguishly. I was about to answer doctor certificates, but her last two syllables froze the words on my lips. You, you know me? I stammered. Yes, your lordship, with a mock bow. But how? I faltered. You've only just come. Jones, she answered. "'Jones,' I repeated, vexed.

"'Yes, my lord,' he glided up and refilled my glass. "'Jones is a nuisance,' I said when he was out of earshot again. "'Jones is a Britisher,' she said enigmatically. "'Surely you don't mind people knowing who you are.' "'I'm afraid I do,' I replied uneasily. "'I guess your reputation must be a real shady,' she said with her American candor. "'You English lords, we have just about sized you up in the States.' I, I stammered.

No, don't tell me, she interrupted quickly. I'd rather not know. My aunt here, that lady on my left, she's a widow and half a Britisher, and respectable, don't you know? Will want me to cut you? And you don't want to? I exclaimed eagerly. Well, one must talk to somebody, she said, arching her eyebrows. It's all very well for my aunt. She's left her children at home.

That's happiness enough for her. that doesn't make things equally lively for me. Your language is frank, I said laughingly. Yes, that's one of the languages you've forgotten how to speak in this old country. Again, that musical ripple of mirth. Her fascination was fast and swathing me like another Jones, only a thousandfold more sweetly. Already I found her twang delightful, lending the last touch of charm to her original utterances.

I looked up suddenly, and saw the infant and towers glaring enviously at me from the other end of the table. Then I was quite happy. True, they had the sprightly old raverty between them, but he did not seem to console them, rather to chaff them. Oh, ho! I roared when we reached our sitting-room that night. There's virtue in the peerage after all. Shut up, the infant snarled. If you think you're going to annex that ripping creature, I warn you, that bloated aristocracy will have to settle up for its marble halls. We're running this thing by syndicate, remember? Yes, but this isn't part of the profits, I urge defiantly. Oh, it isn't, put in Towers. Why do you suppose Jones set her next to you, if not as a prerogative of nobility? Well, but if I can get her to go

out with me alone, that's a private transaction. No go, Teddy, said the infant. We don't allow you to play for your own hand. Or hers, added Towers. While you were spooning, Jones was telling us all about her. Her name's Harper. Ethelberta Harper. and her old man is a railway king or something. She's a queen, I don't care of what, I said fervently. We got very chummy, and I'm going to take her for a row tomorrow morning. It's not my fault if she doesn't pal on to you. Stowe that can't, cried the infant.

Either you surrender her to the syndicate or pay your own exes. Choose. Well, I'll compromise, I said desperately. Oh, no, you don't. It's to prevent you're compromising her we want to stand in. We'll all go for that row. No, listen to my suggestion. I'll invite her to lunch after the row,

and I'll invite you fellas to meet her. But how do you know she'll come? said Towers. She will if I ask her aunt, too. Scoundrel, you've asked them both already, cried the infant. Where's the compromise? I hadn't asked you already, I reminded him. No, but now you propose to use the capital of the syndicate, he rejoined sharply.

Nothing of the kind, I retorted rashly. So it was settled. I had four guests to lunch, and Jones expanded visibly. The infant and towers kept Miss Harper pretty well to themselves, while I was left to entertain Mrs. Winpeg, a comely but tedious lady, who gave me details of her life in England since she left New York, a newly married wife 20 years before.

She seemed greatly interested in these details. Ethelberda paid no attention to her aunt, but a great deal to my friends. Several times I found myself gnawing my lip instead of my wing, but I had my revenge at the Tabalda Holt. Jones kept my friends remorselessly at bay, and religiously guarded my proximity to the lovely American. Strange mental revolution, the idea of tipping Jones actually commenced to germinate in my mind.

It was on review day that I realized I was hopelessly in love. Of course my quartet of friends was at the window of my sitting-room. Jones also selected this room to see the review from, and I fancy he regaled my visitors with delicate refreshments throughout the day, and I remember being vaguely glad that he made amends for the general neglect of Mrs. Winpeg by offering her the choice's tidbits. But I have no clear recollection of anything but Ethelberta. Her face was my review, though there was no powder on it.

The play of light on her cheeks and hair was all the manoeuvre's I cared for. The pearls of her mouth were my ranged rows of ships, and when everybody else was peering hopelessly into the thick smoke, my eyes were feasting on the sunshine of her face. I did not hear the cannon, nor the long, endless clamor of the packed streets. Only the soft word she spoke from time to time. "'Tomorrow morning I must go away,' I murmured to her at dinner. I fancied she grew paler, but I could not be sure, for Jones at that moment, changed by plate. I am sorry, she said simply.

Must you go? Yes, I answered sadly. My beautiful holiday is over. Tomorrow, to work. I thought, for you lords, life was one long holiday, she said, surprised. I was glad of the reminder. My love was hopeless. A struggling doctor could not ask for the hand of an heiress.

Even if he could, it would be a poor rome. recommendation to start with a confession of imposture. To ask, without confessing, were to become a scoundrel and a fortune hunter of the lowest type. No, better to pass from her ken, leaving her memory of me untainted by suspicion, leaving my memory of her an idyllic, unfinished dream. And yet I could not help reflecting, with agony, that if I had not begun under false colors, if I had come to her only as what I was, I might have dared to ask for her love. and perhaps have won it. Oh, how weak I had been not to tell her from the first.

As if she would not have appreciated the joke. As if she would not have enrolled herself joyously in the campaign against Jones. Ah, my life will be anything but a long holiday, I fear, I sighed. Say, you're not an hereditary legislator, she asked. Legislation is not the hereditary disease I complain of, I said evasively. What then? Love, I replied desperately. She laughed gaily.

I guess that's an original view of love. Why? My parents suffered from it. At least I hope they did. Doubtful, your upper ten is usually supposed to have cured marriage of it. She bent her head over her plate, so that I strove in vain to read her eyes. Well, it's a beastly shame, I said.

Don't you think so, Miss Harper? "'Ethelberta? "'May I call you, Ethelberta?' "'If it gives you any comfort,' she said plumply. "'It gives me more than comfort,' I rejoined. "'A wild hope flamed in my breast. "'What if she loved me after all? "'I would speak the word.'

"'But no. If she did, "'I had won her love under a false glamour of nobility. "'Better, far better, "'to keep both my secrets in my own breast. "'Besides, had I not seen she was a flirt, I continued to call her Ethelberta, but that was all. When we rose from table I had not spoken. Knowing that my friends would claim my society for the rest of the evening,

I held out my hand in final farewell. She took it. Her own hand was hot. I clasped it for a moment, gazing into the wonderful blue eyes. Then I let it go, and all was over. I do believe Teddy is hit, Towers. said when I came into our room whether they had preceded me. Rot, I said, turning my face away.

A seasoned bachelor like me? Hey, ho! I shall be awfully glad to get to work again tomorrow. Yes, said the infant, I see from the statistics that the mortality of your district has declined frightfully. That Robbins must be a regular duffer. I'll soon set that right, I exclaimed with a forced grin. She certainly is a stunner, Towers mused.

Hello? I'm afraid it's Merton that's damaged, I laughed boisterously. Well, if she wasn't an heiress, began Towers slowly. She might have you, finish the infant. But I say, boys, we'd better ask for our bills. We've got to be off in the morning by the eight five. Jones mightn't be up when we leave. The room echoed with sardonic laughter at the idea.

There was no need to ring for Jones. He found two pretext an hour to come and gaze upon me. When my bill came, I went to. the window for air and to hide my face from Jones. All right, Jones, cried the infant, guessing what was up. We'll leave it on the table before we go to bed. Well, my friends inquired eagerly when Jones had crawled off. 27 pounds, two in tuppence, I groaned, letting the accursed paper drift helplessly to the floor.

Deereasonable, said the infant. You would go it, towers added soothingly. Reasonable or not, I said. I've only got six pounds in my pockets. You said you brought ten, said towers. Yes, but what of carriage sales and yacht drives? I cried agitatedly. You're drunk, said the infant brutally. However, I suppose, before going into dividing X's, we must get together the gross sum.

It was easier said than done. When every farthing had been scraped together, we were thirteen pounds short on the three bills. We held a long council of war, discussing the possibilities of surreptitious pledging. The unspeakable Jones, playing his blindfold game, had reduced us to pawn. But even these were impracticable. Confound you, cried Merton Towers. Why didn't you think of the bill before?

As if I had not had better things to think of. The horror of facing Jones in the morning drove us to the most desperate devices, but none seemed workable. There's only one way left of getting the coin Teddy, said the infinite last. what's that i cried eagerly ask the heiress it was an ambiguous phrase but in whatever since he meant it it was a cruel and unmanly thrust in my indignation i saw light what fools we have been i shouted it's as easy as a b c i'm not in an office like you bound to be back to the day i stay on over to-morrow and you send me the money from town where are we to get it from growled towers. Anywhere, anybody, I cried excitedly.

I'll write to Robbins at once for it. Why not wire? said the infant. I don't see the necessity for wasting sixpence, I said. We must be economical. Besides, Jones would read the wire. End of Section 7, Recording by Todd. Section 8 of Grotesques and Fantasies. This is a Libervox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. for more information or to volunteer please visit librovocs dot org grotesques and fantasies by israel sangwell mated by a waiter chapter four the winning move time slipped on but i could not tear myself away from this enchanted hotel the departure of my friends allowed me to be nearly all day with ethelberta i had drowned reason and conscience day followed day in a golden languor and the longer i stopped the harder it was to go at last robins's telegrams became too imperative to be disregarded and even my second supply of money would not suffice for another day the bitter experience of parting had to be faced again the miserable evening when i had first called her ethelberta had to be repeated we spoke little at dinner afterwards as i had not my friends to go to this time we left mrs windpeg sitting over her dessert and paced up and down in the little cultivated enclosure which separated the hotel from the parade it was a balmy evening the moon was up sobering the greenery stretching a rippling band across the sea and touching Ethelburna's face to a more marvelous fairness. The air was heavy with perfume, everything combined to soften my mood.

Tears came into my eyes as I thought that this was the very last respite. Those tears seemed to purge my vision. I saw the beauty of truth and sincerity, and felt that I could not go away without telling her who I really was. Then, in future years, whatever she thought of me, I, at least, could think of her sacredly, with no cloud of falseness between me and her. Ethelberta, I said in low, trembling tones. Lord Everett, she murmured responsibly.

I have a confession to make. She flushed and lowered her eyes. No, no, she said agitatedly. Spare me that confession. I have heard it so often. It is so conventional. Let us part friends. she looked up into my face with that frank heavenly glance of hers it shook my resolution but i recovered myself and went on it is not a conventional confession i was not going to say i love you no she murmured

was it in the trixie play of the moon among the clouds or did a shade of disappointment flit across her face were her words genuine or was she only a coquette i stopped not to analyze i paused not to analyze i paused not to inquire. I forgot everything about the loveliness that intoxicated me. I—I mean I was, I stammered awkwardly. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. I strove to take her hand, but she drew it away haughtily. Lord Everett, it is impossible. Say no more. The twang dropped from her speech in her dignity. Her accents rang pure and sweet. Why not? I cried passionately. Why is it impossible?

You seem to care for me. She was silent. At last she answered slowly. You are a lord. I cannot marry a lord. My heart gave a great leap. Then I felt cold as ice. Because I am a lord, I murmured wonderingly.

Yes, I flirted with you at first out of pure fun. Believe me, that was the truth. If I loved you now, her words were tremulous, and almost inaudible. It would be right that I should be punished. We must never meet again. Goodbye. She stood still and extended her hand.

I touched it with my icy fingers. Oh, if you had only let me confess just now what I wanted to, I cried in agony. Confess what? she said. Have you not confessed? No. You may disbelieve me now, but I wanted to tell you that I am not a lord at all,

that I only became one through Jones. Her lovely eyes dilated with surprise. I explained briefly, confusedly. She laughed, but there was a catch in her voice. Listen, she said hurriedly, starting pacing again. I, too, have a confession to make. Jones has corrupted me, too. I am not an heiress at all, nor even an American.

just a moderately successful london actress resting a few weeks and mrs windpag is only my companion and general factorum the widow of a drunken stage carpenter who left her without resources poor thing but we had barely crossed the steps of the hotel before jones mentioned lord everett was in the place and buzzed the name so in our ears that the idea of a wild frolic flashed into my head i am a great flirt you know and i thought that while i had the chance i would test the belief that english lords always fall in love with american heiresses it was no test i interrupted a chinese mandarin would fall in love with you equally i let miss winpeg tell jones all about me imaginatively she went on with a sad smile i told her to call me harper because harper's magazine came into my mind but it was jones who seated us together i will believe that you took a genuine liking to me still it was a foolish freak on both sides and we must both forget it as soon as possible i can never forget it i said passionately i love you and i dare to think you care for me though why you fancied I was a peer, you stifled the feeling that had grown up to spite you. Believe me, I understand the purity of your motives, and love you the more for them. She shook her head.

Good-bye, she faltered. I will not say goodbye. I have little to offer you, but it includes a heart that is aching for you. There is no reason now why we should part. Her lips were white in the moonlight. I never said I loved you, she murmured. not in so many words i admitted but why did you let me call you effelberta i asked passionately because it is not my name she answered and a ghost of the old gay smile lit up the lovely features i stood for a moment dumbfounded unconsciously we had come to a standstill under the window of the dining-room she took advantage of my consternation to say more lightly come let us part friends

i dimly understood that in some subtle way i was too coarse to comprehend she was ashamed of the part she had played throughout that she would punish herself by renunciation i knew not what to say i saw the happiness of my life fading before my eyes she held out her hand for the last time and i clasped it mechanically so we stood silent what does that matter mrs winpeg you're a real lady that's enough for me it wasn't because i thought you've done you've been for me it wasn't because i thought you've had to be had money that I ventured to raise my eyes to you. We started. It was the voice of Jones. Mrs. Winpeg had evidently lingered too long over her dessert. But I tell you, I have nothing at all, nothing, came the voice of Mrs. Winpeg. I don't want it. You see, I'm like you, not what I seem. This place belongs to me, only I was born and bred a waiter in this very hotel, and I don't see why the ouse shouldn't profit by the tips instead of a stranger.

My son does the show part, but he ain't fit for anything but reading Dickens and other low-class writers, and I feel the want of a real lady, knowing the ways of aristocrats. What with Lord Porchester and Lord Everett, it looks as if this hotel is going to be fashionable, and I know there's lots of eye-class wrinkles I ain't picked up yet. Only lately, I was flummoxed by a gent asking for a liquor I'd never heard of. You're mixed up with tip-top swells. I love you from the moment I saw you fold your first serviette. I'm a widower.

You're a widow. Let bygones be bygones. Why shouldn't we make a match of it? We looked at each other and laughed. False subtleties were swept away by a wave of mutual merriment. Let bygones be bygones. Why shouldn't we make a match of it? I echoed.

Jones is right. I tightened my grasp of her hand and drew her towards me, almost without resistance. You're going to lose your companion. You'll want another. Her lovely face came nearer and nearer. Besides, I said gaily. I understand you're out of an engagement.

Thanks, she said. I don't care for an engagement in the provinces. And I have sworn never to marry in the profession. There are a bad lot. Call me an actor? My lips were almost on hers. You played Lord Dundrory, not unforgivably our lips met oh augustus came the voice of mrs windpeg i feel so faint with happiness lose your arms a moment my popsy i'll fetch you a drop of damn to damn answered the voice of jones

end of made it by a waiter recording by todd section nine of grotesques and fantasies this is a Librevox recording all Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Sandra Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill The Principal Boy 1 To sit out a play as a bore

To sit out a dance demands less patience Even when you do it merely to prevent your partner dancing with you, it is the less disagreeable alternative, but it sometimes makes you gidder than galloping. Frank Redhill lost his head, a well-built head, completely through indulging in it, and without the head to look after it,

the heart soon goes. He held Lucy's little hand in his hot clasp. She wished he would get himself gloves, large enough not to split at the thumbs, and felt quite affectionate towards the dear untidy boy. As a woman, almost out of her teens, she could permit herself a motherly feeling for a lad who had but just attained his majority.

The little thing looked very sweet in a demure dress of nuns veiling, which Frank would have described as white robes, for he was only an undergraduate. Some undergraduates are past masters in the science and art of woman, but Frank was not in that set. Nor did he heard with the athletic, who drift mainly into the unpaid magistracy, nor with the worldly who usually go in for the church. He was a reading man, only he did not stick to the curriculum, but fed himself on the conceits of the poets and thirsted to redeem mankind. So he got her second class. But this is anticipating.

Perhaps Lucy had been anticipating too. At any rate, she went through the scene as admirably as if she had rehearsed for it. And yet it was presumably the first time she had been asked to say, I love you. That wonderful little phrase, so easy to say and so hard to believe. still Lucy said and Frank believed it not that Lucy did not share his belief it must be for love that she was conceding Frank her hand

since her mother objected to the match as the nephew of a peer Frank could give her rather better society than she now enjoyed even if he could not give her that of the peer who had an hereditary feud with him Of course she could not marry him yet He was quite too poor for that But he was a young man of considerable talents

Which are after all gold pieces When fame and fortune came to him Lucy would come and join the party On a tonde Their souls would be wed They kissed each other passionately sealing the contract of souls With the red sealing wax of burning lips

to them in paradise entered the guardian angel with flaming countenance and drove them into the outer darkness of the brilliant ball-room my dear said the guardian angel who was lucy grayling's mother there is going to be an interval and mrs bayswater is so anxious for you to give that sweet recitation from racine so lucy declaimed one of athalie's terrible speeches in a way that enthralled those who understood it and made those who didn't enthusiastic the applause did not seem to gratify the guardian angel as much as usual lucy wondered how much she had seen and disliking useless domestic discussion extorted a promise of her of secrecy from her lover before they parted. He did not care about keeping anything from his father, especially something of which his approval was dubious. Still, all's fair and honorable in love, or love makes it seem so. Frank took a solemn view of engagement and embraced Lucy in his general scheme for the redemption of mankind. He felt she was a sacred, as well as a precious charge, and he promised himself to attend to her spiritual salvation in so far as her pure instincts needed guidance he directed her reading in bulky letters bearing the oxford postmark

meantime lucy disapproved of his neckties she thought he would be even nicer with a loving wife to look after his wardrobe two when frank achieved the indistinction of a second class as prematurely revealed he went to canada and became a farm pupil it was not that his physique warranted the work but there seemed no way in the old country of making enough money to marry lucy much less to redeem mankind on he was suffering too at the moment from a disgust with the schools and a sentimental yearning to return to nature. The parting with Lucy was bitter, but he carried her bright image in his heart, and wrote to her by every male. In Canada, he did not look at a woman, as the saying goes. True, the opportunities were scant on the lonely log farm. Absence, distance, lent the last touch of idealisation and enchantment to his conception of Lucy. She stood to him not only for womanhood and purity, but for England, home and beauty. Nay, the thought of her was even

culture, when the evening found him too worn with physical toil to read a page of the small library he had brought with him. He saw his way to profitable farming on his own account in a few years' time. Then Lucy would come out to him, if they should be too impatient to wait till he had made money enough to go to her. Lucy's letters did nothing to disabuse him of his ideals or his aims. They were charming, affectionate and intellectual. Midway, in the batch he treasured more than Eastern jewels, the sheets began to wear mourning for Lucy's mother. The guardian angel was gone, whether to continue the role none could say. Frank comforted the orphan girl as best he could, with epistolary kisses and condolences and hoped she would get along pleasantly with her aunt till the necessity for that good relative vanished

and so the correspondence went on lucy's mind improving visibly under her lover's solicitor's guidance then one day redhill the elder cabled that by the death of his brother and nephew within a few days of each other he had become lord redhill and frank consequently heir to a fine old peerage and with an heir's income whereupon frank returned forthwith from nature to civilization now he could marry lucy and redeem mankind immediately only he did not tell lucy he was coming he could not deny himself or her the pleasure of so pleasurable a surprise Three. It was a cold evening in early November when Frank's handsome drove up to the little house near Bond Street, where Lucy's aunt resided. He had not been to see his father yet. Lucy's angel face hovered before him, warming the wintry air, and drawing him onwards towards the roof that sheltered her. The house was new to him, and as he paused outside for a moment, striving, to still his emotion, his eye caught sight of a little placard in the window of the ground floor inscribed apartments. He shuddered, a pang akin to self-reproach shot through him. Lucy's aunt was poor, was reduced to letting lodgings. Lucy herself had perhaps been left penniless. Delicacy had restrained her from alluding to her poverty in her letter.

he had taken everything too much for granted surely straightened as were his means he should have proffered her some assistance a suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom dawned upon him for the first time as he rang the bell poor little lucy well whatever she had gone through the bright days were come at last the ocean which had severed them for so many weary moons no longer rolled between them thank god only the panels of the street door divided them now in another instant that darling head no more the haunting elusive phantom of dream would be upon his breast then as the door opened the thought flashed upon him that she might not be in the idea of waiting a single moment longer for her turned him sick But his fears vanished at the encouraging expression on the face of the maid-servant who opened the door. Miss Gray's upstairs, she mumbled, without waiting for him to speak, and all intelligent reflection swamped by a great wave of joy, he followed her up one narrow flight of stairs, and passed eagerly into a room to which she pointed.

It was a bright, cosy room, prettily, furnished and a cheerful fire crackled on the half. There were books and flowers about and engravings on the walls. The little round table was laid for tea. Everything smiled, welcome. But these details only gradually penetrated Frank's consciousness, for the moment all he saw was that she was not there. Then he became aware of the fire and moved involuntarily toward it and held his hands over it for they were almost numbed with the cold straightening himself again he was startled by his own white face in the glass he gazed at it dreamily and beyond it towards the folding doors which led into an adjoining room his eyes fixed themselves fascinated upon these reflected doors and strayed no more it was through them that she would come suddenly a dreadful thought occurred to him when she came through those doors what would be the effect of his presence upon her would not the sudden shock joyful though it was upset the fragile little beauty had he not even heard of people dying from joy why had he not prepared her for his return if only to the tiniest extent the suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom gave him to his return the suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom gained in force tumultuous suggestions of retreat crossed his mind but before he could move the folding doors in the mirror flew apart and a radiant image dashed lightly through them it was a vision of dazzling splendour that made his eyes blink a beautiful glittering figure in tights and tinsel the prancing prince of pantomime

for an infinitesimal fraction of a second. Frank had the horror of the thought that he had come into the wrong house. Good evening, George, the prince cried. I had almost given you up. Great God was the voice indeed Lucy's? Frank grasped at the mantle, sick and blind, the well-tumbling about his ears. The suspicion that he lacked worldly wisdom became a,

uncertainty. Slowly he turned his head to face the waves of dazzling color that tossed before his dizzy eyes. The prince's outstretched hand dropped suddenly. A startled shriek broke from the painted lips. The reunited lovers stood staring half blindly at each other. More than the Atlantic rolled between them. Lucy broke the terrible silence. Brute! it was his welcome home brute he echoed interrogatively in a low hoarse whisper brute and cad said the prince vehemently the musical tone strident with anger is this your faith your loyalty to sneak back home like a thief to peep through the keyhole to see if i was a good little girl lucy don't he interrupted in anguish tones as there is a heaven above us i had no suspicion but you have now the prince interrupted with a bitter laugh neither made any attempt to touch the other though they were but a few inches apart out with it lucy i have nothing to say against you how should i i know nothing it is for you to speak for pity's sake tell me all what is this masquerade

this masquerade she touched her pink tights he shuddered at the touch these are she paused why not tell the easy lie and be done with the whole business and marry the dear devoted boy but the mad instinct of revolt and resentment swept over her in a flood that dragged the truth from her heart and hurled it at him these are the legs of prince pretty pet if i am lucky i shall stand on them in the pantomime of the enchanted princess or harlequin dick turpin at the oriental theatre the man who has the casting of the part is coming to see how i look You have gone on the stage? Yes, I couldn't live on your lectures, Prince Pretty Pet said, still in the same resentful tone. I couldn't fritter away the little capital I had when Mama died, and then wait for starvation.

I had no useful accomplishments. I could only recite Athali. But surely your aunt is a fiction. Had she been a fact, it would have been all the same. had had enough of Mama, no more leading strings. Lucy, and you wept over her so in your letters. Crocodile's tears, heavens are women to have no lives of their own. Oh, why did you not write to me of your difficulties? he groaned. I would have come over and fetched you. We would have borne poverty together. Yes, the prince said mockingly. He was very good to me, he was. Do you think I

could submit to government by a prig. He started as if stung, the little tinselled figure, looking taller in its swash-buckling habits, stared at him defiantly. Tell me, he said brokenly. Have you made a living? No, if truth be told, Lucy Gray, docked at the tale, sir, hasn't made enough to keep Lucy grailing in theatrical costumes. I got plenty of kudos.

in the provinces, but two of my managers were bogus. Yes, he said vaguely. No treasury, don't you know? Ghost didn't walk. No oof, rhino, shiners, coin, cash, salary. Do I understand you have travelled about the country by yourself? By myself? What?

In a company? You've picked up Irish in America. Ha, ha, ha. You know what I mean. Lucy. It seems strange to call this new person Lucy, but Miss Grayling would have sounded just as strange. Oh, there was sure to be a married lady with her husband in the troop, poor thing. The prince had a roguish twinkle in the eye, and surely I am old enough to take care of myself. Still, I felt you wouldn't like it. That's why I was anxious to get a London appearance. If only an East End pantom

mine. The money's safe and your notices are more valuable. I only want a show to take the town. I do hope George won't disappoint me. I thought you were he. Who is George? He said slowly, as if in pain. The shrill clamour of the bell answered him. There he is, said the prince joyfully. George is only Georgie Spanner, stage manager of the Oriental. I have been besie. I have been besieging him for two days. Bella Bright, who had to play Prince Pretty Pet, has gone and eloped with the property man, and as soon as I heard of it,

I got a letter of introduction to Georgie Spanner, and he said I was too little, and I said that was nonsense, that I had played in burlesque at Eastbourne. Come in? Are you at home, Miss? said the maid, putting her head inside the door. Certainly Fanny, that's Mr. Spanner, I could.

told you of. The girl's head looked puzzled as it removed itself, and so he said, if I would put my things on, he would try and run down for an hour this evening and see if I looked the part. And couldn't all that be done at the theatre? Of course it could, but it's ten times more convenient for me here, and it's very considerate of Georgie to come all this way. He's a very busy man, I can tell you. The street door slammed loud. A sudden paroxim shook Frank's frame. Lucy, send this man away, for God's sake. In his excitement he came nearer.

He laid his hand pleadingly upon the glittering shoulder. The prince trembled a little under his touch and stood as in silent hesitancy. The stairs creaked under heavy footsteps. Go to your room, he said more imperatively. Even in the wreck of his eyes. It was an added bitterness to think that limbs whose shapeliness had never even occurred to him should be made a public spectacle. Put on decent clothes.

It was the wrong chord to touch. The prince burst into a boisterous laugh. Silly old McDougal! The footsteps were painfully near. You are mad, Frank whispered hoarsely. You are killing me. you whom I throned as an angel of light, you who were the first woman in the world, and now I'm going to be the principal boy, she laughed quietly back.

Is that you, dear old chap? Come in, George. The door opened. Frank, disgusted, heartbroken, moved back towards the window curtains. A corpulent, beef-faced, double-chinned man with a fat cigar and a fur overcoat came in. How do Lucy, cold, eh? What, in your togs? That's right. There, you bad man, don't I look ripping. Stunning Lucy, he said, approaching her. Well then, down on your knees, George, and apologize for saying I was too little. Well, I see more of you now. Yes, you'll do. What's swell Diggins. Come to the fire. Take that easy chair. There, that's right, old man. Now, what is it to be? There's tea laid. You've let it get cold and punctual ruffian. Perhaps you'd like a brandy and soda better.

Hmm, yes. She rang the bell. So glad, because there's only tea for two, and I know my friend would prefer tea with a sneering intonation. Let me introduce you, Mr. Redhill. Mr. Spree. You have heard of Mr. Spanner, the celebrated author and stage manager. The celebrated author and stage manager half rose in his easy chair, startled and not overpleased. The pale-faced rival visitor, half hidden in the curtains, inclined his head stiffly, then moved toward the door. Oh no, don't run away like that without a cup of tea in this bitter weather. Mr Spanner won't mind talking business before you, will you, George? Such a dear old friend, you know.

It was a merry tea party. Lucy rattled away bewitchingly, overpowering Mr. Spanner like an embodied brandy and soda. The slang of the green room and the sporting papers rolled musically off her tongue, grating on Frank's ear like the scraping of slate pencils. He had not insight enough to, to divine that she was accentuating her vulgar acquirements to torture him. Spanner went at last, for the Oriental boards claimed him, leaving behind him as nearly definite a promise of the part

as a stage manager can ever bring himself to utter. Lucy accompanied him downstairs. When she returned, Frank was still sitting as she had left him, one hand playing with the spoon in his cup, the rest of the body, lethargic, immobile. She bent over him tenderly. Frank, she whispered. He shivered and looked up at the lovely face, daubed with rouge and pencilled at the eyebrows with black, as for the edification of the distant gods. He lowered his eyes again and said slowly, Lucy, I have come back to marry you. What date will be be most convenient to you. You want to marry me, she echoed in low tones.

All the same. A strange, wonderful light came into her eyes. The big lashes were threaded with glistening tears. She put her little hand caressingly upon his hair and was silent. Yes, it is an old promise. It shall be kept. Ah, she drew her hand away with an inarticulate cry. Like a duty dance, but you do not love me.

He ignored the point. I am rich now. My father has unexpectedly become Lord Redhill. You probably heard it. You don't love me. You can't love me. It sounded like the cry of a soul in despair. So there's no need for either of us to earn a living.

But you don't love me. love me. You only want to save me. Well, of course. Lord Redhill wouldn't like his daughter-in-law to be the principal boy. Ha, ha, ha, ha. But what? Ho, ho. I must laugh, frank, old man. It is so funny. What about the principal boy? Do you think he'd caught into the idea of marrying a peer in embryo? Not if Lucy Gray knows it. No, by Jove. Why, when you're Coronet came along, I should have to leave the stage, or else people would be saying I couldn't act worth a cent. They'd class me with Lady London and Lady Hansard. Oh, Lord, fancy me on the Drury Lane bills, Prince Pretty Pet, Lady Redhill. And then, great Scott, think whom they'd class

you with. Ha, ha, ha. No, my boy, I'm not going to marry. A microcephalus, idiot. Ho, ho, ho. I wish somebody would put all this in a farce. Do I understand that you wish to break off the engagement, Frank said slowly, a note of surprise in his voice? You've hit it. Now that I hear about this peerage business, why didn't you tell me before? I'm out of all the gossip of court circles, and it wasn't in the era. No, I might have redeemed my promise to a commoner, but a lord, ugh, I never had your sense of duty, Frank, and must really cry quits. Now you see the value of secret engagements. Hours is off, and nobody will be the wiser, or the worse. Now get thee to his lordship, concealment, like a worm, either bud,

no longer praying upon thy damask cheek. I was always sorry you had to keep it from the old buffer, but it was for the best, wasn't it? Ha, ha! It was for the best. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Frank fled down the staircase, followed by long peals of musical laughter. They followed him into the bleak night, which had no frost for him, but they became less musical as they rang on.

And as the terrified maid and the landlady strove in vain to allay the hysterical tempest. The Oriental unboxing night was like a baker's oven for temperature and an unopened sardine barrel for populaceness. The East End had poured its rollicking multitudes into the vast theatre, which seethed over with noisy vitality. There was much traffic in ginger beer, oranges, bambri cakes and bitter. The great audience roared itself hoarse over old choruses with new words. Lucy Gray, as Prince Pretty Pet, made an instant success.

The mashes of the Oriental ogled her in silent flattery. Her clear elocution, her charming singing voice, her sprightly dancing, her chic, her frank vulgarity, when she let herself go, took every heart captive. Every heart, that is, save one, which was filled with sickness, and anguish and covered with a veil of fine linen. The heir of the house of Red Hill,

cowered at the back of the O.P. stage box, the only place in the house disengaged when he drove up in a mistaken dress suit. It was the first time he had seen Prince Pretty Pet since the merry tea party, and he did not know why he was seeing her now. He hoped she did not see him. She pirouetted up to the front of his box pretty often during the evening,

and several times held ancient wheezes at the riotous funny men from that coin of vantage. Spoken so near his ear, the vulgar jokes tingled through him like lashes from a whip. Once she sang a chorus, winking in his direction, but that was the business of the song and impersonal. He saw no sure signs of recognition. and was glad. When, during the gradual but gorgeous evolution of the transformation scene, he received a note from her. He remained glad. It ran, The bearer will take you behind. I have no one to see me home. Always your friend, Lucy. He went behind, following his guide, through

a confusion of coatless carpenters, waving torches of blue and green fire from the wings. and gauzy highly coloured whitechapel girl, esconsing themselves in uncomfortable attitudes on wooden pedestals, which were mounting and descending. Georgie Spanner was busing about, half crazed amid a hubbup perfectly inaudible from the front, but he found time to scowl at Frank, as that gentleman stumbled over the pantaloon

and fell against a little iron lever, whose turning might have plunged the stage, in darkness. Frank found Lucy in a tiny cellar with whitewashed walls and a rough counter, on which stood a tin basin and a litter of makeup materials. She had changed before he came. It was the first time for years. He had seen her in her true womanly envelope. Assuredly she had grown far lovelier, and her face was flushed with triumph. Otherwise, it was the old Lucy. The prince was washed off with the paint. Frank's eyes filled with tears. How hard he had been on her, nay, had he not misjudged her? She looked so frail, so little, so childish, what guile could

she know? It was all mere surface froth on her lips. How narrow to set up his life, his ideals as models, patterns. The poor little thing had her own tastes, her own individuality. How hard she worked to earn her own living. He bent down and kissed her forehead, remorsefully, as one might kiss an over-scoled child. She drew his head down lower and kissed him passionately on the lips. Let us wait a little, she said, as he said, as he's.

spoke of sending for a handsome. Sloman, the lessee, gives a little supper on the stage after the show. He'll be annoyed if I don't stay. He'll be delighted to have you. The pantomime had gone better than anyone had expected. It had been insufficiently rehearsed, and though everybody had said, it'll be all right at night. In the immemorial phrase of the profession, they had said it more automatically than confidently.

consequently everyone was in high feather and agreeably surprised at the accuracy of the prophesying even georgie spanner ceased to scowl under the genial influences of success and sloeman's very decent champagne The air was full of laughter and gaiety, and everybody, except the clown, cracked jokes. The leading ladies made themselves pleasant and did not swear. Everybody seemed to have acquired a new respect for Lucy, seeing her with such a real Belgravean swell. Probably she would soon have a theatre of her own. It was the Priggs' first excursion into Bohemia, and he thought the natives very same. civil spoken, naive and cordial. Frank had no doubt now that Lucy was right, that he was a prig to want to redeem mankind, and the conviction that he lacked worldly wisdom was sealed for

I. Five. So he married her. End of the principal boy. Section 10 of Grotesques and Fantasies. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org recording by lynn thompson grotesques and fantasies by israel zangwill an odd life it was the most curious case of croup i had ever attended not that there was anything unusual about the symptoms they were so correct as to be devoid of the slightest interest certainly they were not worth while being called up for in the middle of the night the patient it was that attracted my attention he was a handsome baby of one year and nine months by name willie's street side with such an expression of candor and intelligence that i was moved to see him suffer i sat down by his bedside took his poor little feverish hand and felt the weak quick pulse and i knew it had not much longer to beat i put the glass of barley and water to his lips and he drank eagerly he seemed to be an orphan in charge of a strange silent serving man apparently the only other occupant of the luxurious and artistically furnished flat i judged downton to be a man of some culture from the latest magazine strewn about the bedroom but i could not help thinking that a female more familiar with infantile ailments might have been more useful

apathetic and torpid though I was, from eighteen hours continuous activity in a hundred sick-rooms, my eyes filled with tears, and I sat for an instant holding the little hand, listening to the poor child's painful breathing, and speculating on the mystery of that existence so early recalled. All his organs were sound, but for this accidental croup I told myself, he might have lived till eighty. Poor Willie Street sighed, I murmured, for this curious name clung to my memory. Suddenly the baby turned his blue eyes full on me and said,

I suppose it's all up, doctor. I started violently and let go his hand. The words were perhaps not altogether beyond the capacity of an infant, but the air of manly resignation, with which they were uttered, was astonishing. For more reasons than one, I hesitated. You need not. be afraid to tell me the truth said the baby with a wistful smile i'm not afraid to hear it well well you're pretty bad i stammered ah thank you the child replied gratefully how many hours do you give me the baby's gravity took my breath away he spoke with an old-world courtesy and the ingenuous stateliness of an infant prince it may not be quite hopeless i'm not quite hopeless i'm

murmured. Willie shook his head, the pretty one features distorted by a quaint grimace. I'm suppose I'm too young to rally, he said quietly, and closed his eyes. Presently he reopened them, and added, But I should have liked to live to see the Irish question settled. You would, I ejaculated, overwhelmed. Yes, he said, adding with a whimsical expression in the wee blue eyes, you mustn't think i crave for earthly immortality i use settled in a merely rough sense my mother was an irish poetess over whose songs impetuous celts still break their hearts and their heads i gaze speechless at this wonder child pushing the golden locks back from his feverish baby brow as if to assure myself by touching him that he was not a phantom ah well he finished it doesn't matter i have had my day and mustn't grumble i scarcely thought when i witnessed the dissolution of the third gladstone government that i should have lived to see him premier a fourth time three doctors told me i was breaking up fast

i began to be frightened of this extraordinary infant divining some wizardry behind the candid little face some latter-day mystery of reincarnation esoteric buddhism what not the child perceived my perturbation you are thinking i have packed a good deal into my short life he said with an amused smile and yet some men will make a gladstone bag hold as much as a portmanteau gladstone has done so and why not i in my home humble degree. True, I answered, but you cannot begin to pack before you are born. You are entirely mistaken, replied the baby, if you think I have done anything so precocious as that. Then you must have lived an odd life, I said, puzzled. You have hit it, exclaimed the child with a suspicion of eagerness, not unmingled with

surprise. I did not mean to tell anyone, but since you are a man of science, and I am on the point of death, you may as well know you have guessed the truth. Have I? I said more bewildered than ever. Yes, in all these years no one has suspected it. It has been carefully kept from outsiders, but now it would perhaps be childish folly to be reticent about it. It is the truth, the plain literal truth.

I have lived an odd life. How did it begin? I asked, scarce knowing what I said or what I meant. You shall know all, said Willie. I must begin before I was born, before I could begin packing, as you put it. His breath came and went painfully. Overwrought with curiosity as I was,

I experienced a pang of compunction. No, no, never mind, I said. You have not the strength to speak much. You must not waste what you have. It can only cost me a few minutes of life. I can spare the time, he answered almost peevishly. Now that he had been strung up to speaking point, he seemed to resent my diminished interest. I put the glass of barley and water to his lips, and forced him to moisten his throat.

I can spare the time, he repeated, while an air of grim satisfaction came over the tiny features. I have stolen plenty. I have outwitted the arch thief himself. I have survived my own death. "'What?' I gasped. "'Have you already died?' "'No, no,' he replied fretfully. "'I am only just going to die. "'That is how I have survived my death. "'How dull you are!'

"'You were going to begin at the beginning,' I murmured feebly. "'No, what is the use of beginning at the beginning?' "'This Enfonterreble inquired, "'in the same peevish tones. "'I was going to begin before the beginning.' "'Yes, yes,' I said, soothingly patting his golden curls you were going to begin before you were born with my mother he said more gently she did not lead a very happy life it enabled her to him the wrongs of her country her childhood was a succession of sorrows her girlhood amass of misfortunes and when she married the man she loved she found herself deserted by him a few months later it was then that she first conceived the thought that has changed my life. It came to her in a moment of tears as she sat over the ashes of her happiness.

From that moment the thought never left her. There was a wild look in the baby's eyes. I began to suspect him of premature insanity. What was this thought? I murmured. I'm coming to it. They came into her head suddenly the refrain of a song she had learnt at school. Life like a river with constant motion. The river of life, the stream of life. How true it is, she mused. How much more than mere metaphors these phrases are. Verily, one's life flows on towards the dark ocean of death,

irresistibly, unrestingly willy-nilly, whether swift or slow, whether long or short, whether it flows through pleasant champagne or dreary marshes, past romantic castles quags, or by, bleak quarries? What is the use of experience of knowledge of past bits of the root, when no two bits are ever really alike? When the future course is hidden, and is always a panorama of surprises, when no life stream knows what awaits it around the corner every time it turns, when the scenery of the source avails one nothing in one's restless progress towards the scenery of the

mouth. What is life but a series of mistakes whose fruit is wisdom may be, but wisdom overripe? We do not pluck the fruit till it will no longer serve our appetites. Nothing repeats itself on the stage of existence. Always new situations and new follies. Experiancia dot it. Experience teaches indeed, but her lesson is that nothing can be learned. The baby paused and reached out his wasted hand for the glass. His pinafore and his tiny shoes on the chest of drawers caught my eye, and moistened it with the thought that he would never don them again. As my mother brooded upon this bitter truth, he resumed when he had refreshed himself, and saw how sad an illustration of it was her own life, with its sufferings and its mistakes. She could not help wishing existence

had been ordered otherwise. If we had had at least two lives, we might probably, profit in the second by the first. But, she told herself with a sigh, this was vain daydreaming. Then suddenly the thought flashed upon her, granting that more than one life was impossible upon this planet, why should it not be differently distributed? Suppose instead of flowing on like a stream, one's life progressed like a London street, the odd numbers on the one side and the even on the other, so that after doing the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, etc., etc., one could return and do the numbers

2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc., without craving from Providence more than man's allotted span, what if, by a slight rearrangement of the years, it were possible to extort an infinitely greater degree of happiness from one's lifetime? what if it were possible to live the odd years gleaning experience as well as joys and then to return to the even years armed with all the wisdom of one's age what if her child could enjoy this inestimable privilege the thought haunted her she brooded on it day and night and when i was born she drew me eagerly towards her as if to see some mark of promise written on my forehead but a year passed before she day

to think her wish had found fulfillment. On the eve of my first birthday she measured and weighed me with intense anxiety, though pretending to herself she only wished to keep a register of my growth. In the morning I was more by a year's inches and pounds. I had shot up at a bound into my third year, and manifested sudden symptoms of walking and talking. She almost fainted with joy when my unexpected teeth bit her finger she could not get my shoes on nor my frock but although my mother had made no preparations for my changed condition she welcomed the trouble i put her to and carefully laid aside my useless garments knowing i should want them again the neighbours noticed nothing they thought me a big boy for my age and extremely precocious when i was in my fifth year i went on the stage as an infant phenomenon my age being attested by my certificate of birth, though you will, of course, see that I was really in my ninth. In the next few years I made enough money to gild my mother's few declining years,

and when I retired temporarily from the boards at the advice of my critics, it was of course with the intention of studying and returning to the stage when I was younger. And so I advanced to manhood, skipping the alternate years. I rejoiced to say that my mother, though she died when I was 73, had the satisfaction of knowing what felicity her unselfish aspiration had brought into my life. She told me of my strange exemption from the common burden of continuous existence, as soon as I had skipped into years of discretion. Not with me did time pass with that tragic footstep which never returns on itself. For me he was not the irrevocable, the relentless. I regretted my lost youth, but it was not with hopeless, passionate tears, with mutinous

yearnings after the impossible. It was as one who waved the regretful adieu to a charming girl he will meet again. Ah, but you will not meet her again, I said softly. No, but the feeling was the same. Of course, when I was thirty, I did not know I should die before I was two. I had no more privilege of prescience than the ordinary mortal but in everything else how enviable was my lot compared to his whom every day is sweeping towards death for whom no vision of renewed youth gleams behind the black hangings oh the glory of growing old without dread with the assurance that age which is ripening you is not ripening you for the gleaner that the years will add wisdom without eternally subtracting the capacity for joy and that every tottering step is bringing you nearer, not the grave, but the joyous resurrection of your youth. And you have experienced that? I cried with envious incredulity. Yes, answered the baby solemnly. Of course, I prepared for the great change.

Not that nature did not herself smooth the metamorphosis. The loss of teeth, the gradual baldness, the feeble limbs, everything pointed to the proximity of my second child. I knew that my odd life had not much longer to run, that at any moment the transformation might take place, and the even numbers begin. Giving out that I was going to explore the African deserts, and accompanied only by my faithful body servant, Downton, I retired to Egypt to await the great event, having previously ordered baby linen, and the various requisites of infantile toilet. I had at one time meditated providing myself with parents, but ultimately concluded that they would prove too troublesome to manage, and that it would be better to trust myself

entirely to the management of Downton, since I had already placed myself in his power by leaving him all my money. But what necessity was there for that? I inquired. Every necessity, he replied gravely, do you not see that I had to arrange all my affairs and make my will before being born again, because afterwards I should not be of legal age for ten years. At first I thought of leaving all my money to myself, and passing as my own child, but there would have been difficulties. I was unmarried, and 77. Downton could easily pretend his septuagenarian master had died in the African deserts, but he could not so easily pitch up a little. a marriage there. I had no option, therefore, but to make Downton my heir, and I have never

had occasion to regret it from the day of my rebirth to this, the day of my death. As soon as I was born, we returned to England, and I wrote my obituary, and drove to the press association with it. Downton took it into the office while I waited in Fleet Street in the Hanson. I can scarcely hope to convey to you an idea of the intensity and agreeableness of my sensations at this unprecedented epoch. The variegated life of Fleet Street gave me the keenest joy. Every sight and every sound, beautiful or sordid, thrilled my nerves to rapture. I was interested in everything. Imagine the delicious freshness of one's second year, supervening upon the jaded sensibilities of 77. All my wide and varied knowledge of life lay in my soul as before, but transfigured.

Over my large experience of men and things was shed a stream of sunshine, which irradiated everything with divine light, every streak of cynicism faded. I had the wisdom of an old man and the heart of a little child. I believed in man again, and even in woman. I shed tears of pure ecstasy, and when I heard a female of the lower classes say, poor little thing. What a shame to leave it crying in a cab. I laughed aloud with glee. She exclaimed, Ah, now it's laughing, my petsy-woodsy. Her conversation saddened me again, and I was glad I had not burdened myself with a mother, and that I took my milk from a bottle instead of a doting

nurse. And how exquisite was this same apparently monotonous menu of milk to an epicurean who had ruined his digestion. I felt I was recuperating on a vegetarian diet, and I rejoiced to think some years must elapse before I would care for champagne, or reacquire a taste for full-flavored manillas. Perhaps somewhat unreasonably I was proud of my strength of will, which had enabled me in one day to abandon tobacco without a pang, and seven-course dinners without repining. I slept a good deal too at this period, whereas I had previously been greatly exercised by insomnia. But these joys of the senses were nothing to the joys of the intellect. An exquisite curiosity played like a sea breeze about my long, stagnant soul.

All my early interests revived. Worldly propositions I had thought settled showed themselves unstable and volent. Everything was shaken by the moving. spirit of youth. Theology, poetry, and even metaphysics became alive. All sorts of unpractical questions became suddenly burning. I saw in myself the seeds of a great thinker, a felicitous congruity of opposite capacities that had never before met in a single man, the sobriety of age tempered by the audacity of youth, fire and water, judgment and inspiration. I was revolutionist and reactionist in one. I read all the new books and agreed with all the old.

All you tell me only makes the pathos of your premature death more intolerable, I said in moved accents. You are like Keats and Chatterton, only an early edition, an inheritor of unfulfilled renown. The little blue eyes smiled wistfully at me. Not at all, said the wee rose lips with a quiver. Don't you see? I have already dodged death. Evidently, if I had taken my second year in its natural order, I should have been cut short by croup at the outset. Apparently I had enough vital energy in me to have lasted till 77 if I could only get over the croup.

I think one ought to be satisfied with having survived himself by 30-odd years. Yes, if you put it like that, the pathos lightened. I admitted. Of course I saw from the first that you were considerably in advance of your age. Did you assure your life? I asked with a sudden thought. I did, but by an oversight I let the policy be invalidated by my imaginary expedition to the African deserts. Downton has, however, taken out a fresh policy for my new life. What a baffling complex of probabilities would be added to life assurances, if your way of living were to become general, I observed. Downton will probably more than recoup himself for his first loss.

Have you always been a bachelor, by the way? I asked. Yes, said the baby with a sigh. I miss marriage. It probably fell in an even year. Poor child, I cried, my eyes growing humid again. To think, too, of that beautiful young girl, that fond wife, waiting for him who would never come. that innocent maiden cheated of love and happiness because her appointed husband had not lived in the other alternate series of years to think of this tangled tragedy moved me to fresh tears not a few of which were for the husband who never was nay do not pity me said the baby and his tones were hushed and low and in his heavenly blue eyes i seem to read the high sorrowful wisdom of the ages for since i have lain here on this bed of sickness with no spectacular whirl to claim my thoughts with four walls for my horizon and the agony of death in my throat the darker side of my dual existence has been borne in upon me i see the shadow cast by the sunshine of my privilege of double birth i see the curse which is the obverse of the blessing my mother's prayers brought me

i see myself dissipating a youth which i knew would recur throwing away a manhood which i knew would come again and sinking into a sensual senility which i knew would pass into an innocent infancy i see myself rejecting the best gifts and the highest duties of to-day for the illusory felicities and the far-away virtues of the day after to-morrow i see myself passing by love with the reflection that i should be passing again putting off purity with a thought that i should be round that way presently and waving to duty an amicable salute expect me soon and in this moment of clear vision i see not a very vision i see not a very much of that way presently and waving to duty an amicable salute of expect me soon and in this moment of clear vision i see not only my past i realize what my future would be if i lived i see the influx of fresh feeling gradually exhausted overcome ousted and finally replaced by a satiety more horrible than that of the septuagenarian as i came to realize that life for me held no surprises no lures to curiosity that the future was no enchanted realm of mysterious possibilities that the white clouds revealed no seraph shapes on the horizon that hope did not stand like a veiled bride with beckoning finger that fairies were not lurking round every corner nor magic palaces waiting to start up at every turn i see life stretching before me like old ground i had been over in my mother's image like a street one side of which i had walked down what could the other offer of fresh of delightful it is so rarely one side differs from the other a church for a public house a grocer's instead of a bookshop conceived the horror of foreknowledge of having no sensations to learn and few new emotions to feel

to have moreover the enthusiasm of youth sickled over with the prescience of senile cynicism and the healthy vigour of manhood made flaccid by anticipations of the dodderings of age i foresee the ever-growing dismay at the leaps and bounds with which my youth was fleeting i see myself instead of profiting by my experience feverishly clutching at every pleasure on my path as a drowning man borne along by a torrent snatches at every scrap of flotsam and jetsam i see manhood arrive only to pass away as an express passes through a petty station full speed for the terminus i see manhood arrive only to pass away as an express passes through a petty station full speed for the terminus I see a panic terror close upon me, with every hurrying year at the knowledge that my hours were thirty minutes and my months virtually fortnights, and that I was leading the fastest life on record. Add to this the anguish of feeling myself torn from the bosom of the wife I loved, and hurried away from the embraces of the children, whose careers it would be my solicitude to watch over. imagine the agony if I had been cruelly spared to my 78th year, the agony of a condemned criminal who does not know on what day he is to be executed. His voice failed suddenly.

He had slightly raised himself on his pillow in his excitement, but now his head fell back, revealing the fatal white patches on the baby throat. I seized his hand quickly to feel his pulse. The little palm lay cold. in mine. I started violently and sat up rigidly in my chair. The child was dead. Downton was sobbing at my side. As I was writing out the certificate, an odd thought came into my head. I scribbled what I thought an appropriate epitaph and showed it to Downton, but he glared at me furiously. I hastened home to bed. My epitaph ran. Here lies William Willie Streetside.

who led a double life and died in blameless repute at the average age of 39 years. And in their death they were not divided. End of Section 10 Section 11 of Grotesque and Fantasies This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Grotesque and Fantasies

by Israel Zangwill Cheating the Gallows Chapter 1 A Curious Couple They say that a union of opposites makes the happiest marriage And perhaps it is on the same principle That men who chum together

are always so oddly assorted You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an auctioneer And a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk Perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk shop in his hours of leisure, while he supplements his own experiences of life by his companions. There could not be an odder couple than Tom Peters and Everard G. Rockstall. The contrast began with their names and ran through the entire chapter. They had a bedroom and a sitting

room in common, but it would not be easy to find what else. To his landlady, worthy Mrs. Seekin, Tom Peters's profession was a little vague. But everybody knew that Rockstall was the manager of the city and suburban bank, and it puzzled her to think why a bank manager should live with such a seedy-looking person, who smoked clay pipes and sipped whiskey and water all the evening when he was at home. For Roxdale was a spruce and erect as his fellow lodger was round-shouldered and shabby. He never smoked, and he confined himself to a small glass of claret at dinner. It is possible to live with a man and see very little of him, where each of the partners lives his own life in his own way, with his own circle of friends and external amusements,

days may go by without the men having five minutes together. Perhaps this explains why these partnerships jog along so much more peaceably than marriages, where the chain is drawn so much tighter and galls the partners rather than links them. Diverse, however, as were the hours and habits of the chums, they often breakfasted together, and they agreed in one thing, they never stayed out at night. For the rest, Peters sought his diversions in the company of journalists and frequented debating rooms, where he propounded the most iconoclastic views, while Roxdale had highly respectable houses open to him in the suburbs, and was in fact engaged to be married to Clara Newell, the

charming daughter of a retired corn factor, a widower with no other child. Clara naturally took up a good deal of Rocksdall's time, and he often dressed to go to the play with her, while Peters stayed at home in a faded dressing-gown and loose slippers. Mrs. Seekin liked to see gentlemen about the house in evening dress, and made comparisons not favourable to Peters, and this in spite of the fact that he gave her infinitely less trouble than the younger man. It was Peters who first took the apartments, and it was characteristic of his easy-going temperament that he was so openly and naively delighted with the view of the Thames obtainable from the bedroom window that Mrs. Seekon was emboldened to ask 25% more than she had intended.

She soon returned to her normal terms, however, when his friend Rocksdale called the next day to inspect the rooms, and overwhelmed her with a demonstration of their numerous shortcomings. He pointed out that their being on the ground floor was not an advantage but a disadvantage, since they were nearer the noises of the street. In fact, the house being a corner one, the noises of two streets. Rockstyle continued to exhibit the same finicking temperament in the petty details of the minage. His shirt fronts were never sufficiently starched, nor his boots sufficiently polished.

Tom Peters, having no regard for rigid linen, was always good-tempered and satisfied, and never acquired the respect of his landlady. He wore blue-check shirts and loose ties even on Sundays. It is true that he did not go to church, but slept on until Rockstall returned from morning service, and even then it was difficult to get him out of bed or to make him hurry up his toilet operations. Often the midday meal would be smoking on the table while Peters would be still reading in bed

and Roxdale, with his head thrust through the folding doors that separated the bedroom from the sitting, would be aduring the sluggard to arise and shake off his slumbers and threatening to sit down without him lest the dinner be spoiled. In revenge Tom was usually up first on weekdays, sometimes at such unearthly hours that Polly had not yet removed the boots from outside the bedroom door and would ball down to the kitchen for his shaving water.

For Tom, lazy and indolent as he was, shaved with the unfailing regularity of a man to whom shaving has become an instinct. If he had not kept fairly regular hours, Mrs. Seekin would have set him down as an actor, so clean-shaven was he. Roxdale did not shave. He wore a full beard, and, being a fine figure of a man to boot, no uneasy investor could look upon him without being reassured as to the stability of the bank he managed so successfully. And thus the two men lived in an economical comradeship, or the firmer perhaps, for their mutual incongruities. Chapter 2 A Woman's Instinct It was on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of October, ten days after Roxdoll had settled

in his new rooms, that Clara Newell paid her first visit to him there. She enjoyed a good deal of liberty and did not mind accepting his invitation to tea. The corn factor, himself indifferently educated, had an exaggerated sense of the value of culture. And so Clara, who had artistic tastes without much actual talent, had gone in for painting, and might be seen in pretty toilette copying pictures in the museum. At one time it looked as if she might be reduced to working seriously at her art, for Satan, who finds mischief still for idle hands. to do, had persuaded her father to embark the fruits of years of toil in bubble companies.

However, things turned out not so bad as they might have been, a little was saved from the wreck, and the appearance of a suitor, in the person of Everard G. Roxdall, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she had been entitled to expect. She had a good deal of affection for Everard, who was unmistakably a clever man, as well as a good-looking one. The prospect seemed fair and cloudless. Nothing presage the terrible storm that was about to break over these two lives. Nothing had ever, for a moment, come to vex their mutual contentment, till this Sunday afternoon. The October sky, blue and sunny, with an Indian summer sultriness, seemed an exact image

of her life, with its aftermath of a happiness that had once seemed blighted. Everard had always been so attentive, so solicitous, that she was as much surprised as chagrin to find that he he had apparently forgotten the appointment. Hearing her astonished interrogation of Polly in the passage, Tom shambled from the sitting room in his loose slippers and his blue cheque shirt, with his eternal clay pipe in his mouth, and informed her that Roxdall had gone out suddenly earlier in the afternoon. Gagga, gone out, stammered poor Clara, all confused, but he asked me to come to tea. Oh, you're Miss Newell, I suppose, said Tom. Yes, I am Miss Newell. He's told me a great deal about you, but I wasn't able, honestly, to congratulate him on his choice until now.

Clara blushed uneasily under the compliment, and under the ardor of his admiring gaze. Instinctively, she distrusted the man. The very first tones of his deep bass voice gave her a peculiar shudder, and then his impoliteness in smoking that vile clay was so gratuitous. "'Oh, then you must be Mr. Peters,' she said in return. He has often spoken to me of you. "'Ha, ha,' said Tom, laughingly, "'I suppose he's told you all my vices. "'That accounts for your not being surprised at my Sunday attire.' "'She smiled a little, showing a row of pearly teeth.

"'Everard ascribes to you all the virtues,' she said. "'Now that's what I call a friend,' he cried ecstatically. "'But won't you come in? "'He must be back in a moment. "'He surely would not break an appointment with you. "'The admiration latent in the accentuation of the last pronoun was almost offensive. she shook her head she had a just grievance against everard and would punish him by going away indignantly do let me give you a cup of tea tom pleaded you must be awfully thirsty this sultry weather there i will make a bargain with you if you will come in now i promise to clear out the moment everard returns and not spoil your tete-a-tete but clara was obstinate she did not at all relish this man's society and besides she was not going to throw away her grievance against everard i know everard will slang me dreadfully when he comes in if i let you go tom urged tell me at least where he can find you

I'm going to take the bus at Charing Cross and I'm going straight home, Clara announced determinedly. She put up her parasol in a pet and went up the street into the strand. Her cold shadow seemed to have fallen over all things. But just as she was getting into the bus, a handsome dashed down Trafalgar Square, and a well-known voice hailed her. The handsome stopped and Everard got out and held out his hand. I'm so glad you're a bit late, he said. I was called out unexpectedly and have been trying to rush back in time.

wouldn't have found me if you'd been punctual. But I thought, he added laughing, I could rely on you as a woman. I was punctual, Clara said angrily. I was not getting out of this bus, as you seem to imagine, but into it, and was going home. My darling, he cried remorsefully, a thousand apologies. The regret on his handsome face soothed her. He took the rose he was wearing in the buttonhole of his fashionably cut coat and gave it to her. Why were you so cruel, he murmured, as she nestled against him in the handsome. Think of my despair if I had come home to hear you had come and gone. Why didn't you wait a moment? A shudder traversed her frame. Not with that man, Peters, she murmured. Not with that man Peters, he echoed sharply. What is the matter with Peters? I don't know, she said.

I don't like him. Clara, he said, half sternly, half cajolingly, I thought you were above these feminine weaknesses. You are punctual, strive also to be reasonable. Tom is. Tom is my best friend. From boyhood we have always been together. There is nothing Tom would not do for me or I for Tom. You must like him, Clara. You must, if only for my sake. I'll try, Clara promised, and then he kissed her in gratitude and broad daylight. You'll be very nice to him at tea, won't you? He said anxiously, I shouldn't like you two to be bad friends. I don't want to be bad friends, Clara protested, only the moment I saw him a strange repulsion and mistrust came over me. "'You're quite wrong about him. Quite wrong,' he assured her earnestly.

"'When you know him better, you'll find him the best of fellows.' "'Oh, I know,' he said suddenly. "'I suppose he was very untidy, and you women go so much by appearances.' "'Not at all,' Clara retorted. "'Tis you men who go by appearances.' "'Yes, you do. That's why you care for me,' he said smilingly. "'She assured him it wasn't, and she didn't care for him so much as he plumed himself, but he smiled on.

his smile died away however when he entered his rooms and found tom nowhere i dare say you've made him run about hunting for me he grumbled perhaps he knew i'd come back and went away to leave us together she answered he said he would when you came and yet you don't like him she smiled reassuringly inwardly however she felt pleased at the man's absence chapter three polly receives a proposal if clara newell could have seen tom Peter's carrying on with Polly in the passage, she might have felt justified in her prejudice against him. It must be confessed, though, that Everard also carried on with Polly. Alas, it is to be fear that men are much of a muchness where women are concerned. Shabby men and smart men, bank managers and journalists, bachelors and semi-detached bachelors. Perhaps it was a mistake after all to say the chums had nothing patently in common. Everard, I'm afraid, kissed Polly rather more often than Clara, and although it was because he respected her less, the reason would perhaps not have been sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife. For Polly was pretty,

especially on alternate Sunday afternoons, and she liked to receive the homage of a real gentleman, setting her white cap at all indifferently. Thus, just before Clara knocked on that memorable Sunday afternoon, Polly, being confined to the house by the unwritten code regulating the lives of servants, was amusing herself by flirting with Peters. You are fond of me a little bit, the graceless Tom whispered, aren't you? You know I am, sir, Polly replied. You don't care for anyone else in the house. Oh no, sir, I wonder how it is, sir, Polly replied ingenuously. And that very evening when Clara was gone and Tom was still out, Polly turned without the faintest atom of scrupulosity or even jealousy to the more fascinating Rocks doll. If it would seem at first sight,

that Everard had less excuse for such frivolity than his friend, perhaps the seriousness he showed in this interview may throw a different light upon the complex character of the man. You're quite sure you don't care for anyone but me, he asked earnestly. Of course not, sir, Polly replied indignantly. How could I? But you care for that soldier I saw you out with last Sunday? Oh no, sir, he's only my young man, she said apologetically. Would you give him up? He hissed suddenly. Polly's pretty face took a look of terror.

I couldn't, sir. He'd kill me. He's such a jealous brute. You've no idea. Yes, but suppose I took you away from here, he whispered eagerly, somewhere where he couldn't find you. South America. Africa. Somewhere thousands of miles across the seas. Oh, sir, you frighten me, whispered Polly, cowering before his ardent eyes, which shone in the dimly lit passage. Would you come with me? he hissed. She did not answer. She shook herself free and ran into the kitchen trembling with a vague fear.

Chapter 4. The Crash One morning, earlier than his earliest hour of demanding his shaving water, Tom rang the bell violently, and asked the alarmed Polly what had become of Mr. Roxdale. How should I know, sir? she gasped. Ain't he been in, sir? Apparently not, Tom answered anxiously. He never remains out. We have been here three weeks now, and I can't recall.

a single night he hasn't been home before twelve. I can't make it out. All inquiries proved futile. Mrs. Seekin reminded him of the thick fog that had come on suddenly the night before. What fog? asked Tom. Lord, didn't you notice it, sir? No, I came in early, smoked, red, and went to bed about eleven. I never thought of looking out of the window. It began about ten, said Mrs. Seekin, and got thicker and thicker. I couldn't see the lights of the river from my bedroom. The poor gentleman has been and gone and walked into the water. She began to whimper. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense, said Tom, though his expression belied his words. At the worst, I should think he couldn't find his way home and couldn't get a cab, so put up for the night at some hotel. I dare say it will be all right.

He began to whistle as if in restored cheerfulness. At eight o'clock there came a letter from Rockstall, marked immediate. But as he did not turn up for breakfast, Tom went round personally to the city and suburban bank. He waited half an hour there, but the manager did not make his appearance. Then he left the letter with a cashier and went away with anxious countenance. That afternoon it was all over London that the manager of the city and suburban had disappeared and that many thousand pounds of gold and notes had disappeared with him. Scotland Yard opened the letter marked immediate and noted that there had been a delay in its delivery for the address had been obscure and an official alteration had been made. It was written in a

feminine hand and said, On second thoughts, I cannot accompany you. Do not try to see me again. Forget me. I shall never forget you. There was no signature. Clara Newell, distracted, disclaimed all knowledge of this letter. Polly deposed that the fugitive had proposed flight to her,

and the routes to Africa and South America were especially watched. Some months passed without result. Tom Peters went about overwhelmed with grief and astonishment. The police took possession of all the missing man. effects. Gradually the hue and cry dwindled, died. Chapter 5. Faith and unfaith. At last we meet, cried Tom Peters, while his face lit up in joy. How are you, dear Miss Newell? Clara greeted him coldly. Her face had an abiding pallor now. Her lover's flight and shame had prostrated her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the world

she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then too there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peters's voice accosting her, all her old repugnance resurged. It flushed upon her that this man, Rockstall's boon companion, must know far more than he had told to the police. She remembered how Everard had spoken of him, with what affection and confidence. Was it likely he was utterly ignorant of Everard's movements? Mastering her repugnance, she held out her hand. It might be well to keep in touch with him. He was possibly the clue to the mystery. She noticed he was dressed a shade more

trimly and was smoking a meerschaum. He walked along at her side, making no offer to put his pipe out. You have not heard from Everard, he asked. She flushed. Do you think I'm an accessory after to the fact, she cried. No, no, he said soothingly. Pardon me, I was thinking he might have written, giving no exact address, of course. Men do sometimes dare to write thus to women. But of course, he knows you too well. You would have put the police on his track. Certainly, she exclaimed indignantly, even if he is innocent, he must face the charge. Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence? I do, she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids drooped with a quiver. Don't you?

I have hoped against hope, he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion. Poor old Everard. But I am afraid there is no room for doubt. Oh, this wicked curse of money, tempting the noblest and the best of us. The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. From the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no reason to put faith in Everard.

his criminality, his faithlessness were too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of Peters. Remorse spread esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened into feelings so warm that when Tom gave free a vent to the love that had been visible to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him. It is only in books that love lives forever. Clara, so her father thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy affection and casting it from her heart.

He invited the new lover to his house, and took to him at once. Rockstall's somewhat supercilious manner had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn factor. With Tom the old man got on much better. While evidently quite as well informed and cultured as his Wilhelm friend, Tom knew how to impart his superior knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return. Those who are most conscious of defects of early education are most resentful of other people sharing their consciousness.

Moreover, Tom's bon-om-o-me was far more to the old fellow's liking than the studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole Tom made more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter. Nevertheless, Clara was by no means unresponsive to Tom's affection, and when, after one of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke of their happy turn the had taken and how for the second time in their lives things had mended when they seemed at their blackest, her heart swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she fell sobbing into her father's arms. Tom calculated that he had made a clear 500 a year by occasional

journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the marriage. It was fixed for Mayday, and the honeymoon was to be spent in Italy. Chapter 6. The Dream and the Awakening. But Clara was not destined to happiness. From the moment she had promised herself to her first love's friend, old memories began to rise up and reproach her. Strange thoughts stirred in the depths of her soul, and in the silent watches of the night, she seemed to hear Everard's accents, charged with grief and upbraiding.

Her uneasiness increased as her wedding day drew near. One night, after a pleasant afternoon spent in being row, by Tom among the upper reaches of the Thames, she retired to rest, full of vague forebodings, and she dreamt a terrible dream. The dripping form of Everard stood by her bedside, staring at her with ghastly eyes. Had he been drowned on the passage to his land of exile? Frozen with horror, she put the question. I have never left England, the vision answered. Her tongue clothed to the roof of her mouth. "'Never left England?' she repeated, in tones which did not seem to be hers.

The wraith stony eyes stared on, but there was silence. "'Where have you been, then?' she asked in her dream. "'Very near you,' came the answer. "'There has been foul play, then,' she shrieked. The phantom shook its head in doleful assent. "'I knew it she shrieked. "'Tom Peters! Tom Peters has done away with you. "'Is it not he? Speak!'

yes it is he tom peters whom i loved more than all the world even in the terrible oppression of the dream she could not resist saying womanlike did i not warn you against him the phantom stared on silently and made no reply but what was his motive she asked at length love of gold and you and you are giving yourself to him it said sternly no no everot i will not i will not i will not i swear it, forgive me. The spirit shook its head skeptically. You love him. Women are false, as false as men. She strove to protest again, but her tongue refused its office. If you marry him, I shall always be with you. Beware. The dripping figure vanished as suddenly as it came, and Clara awoke in a cold perspiration. Oh, it was horrible. The man she had learned to love, the murderer of the man she had learned to forget. How her original prejudice had been justified. Distracted, shaken to her depths, she would not take counsel even of her father, but inform the police of her suspicions.

A raid was made on Tom's rooms, and lo, the stolen notes were discovered in a huge bundle. It was found that he had several banking accounts, with a large, recently deposited amount in each bank. Tom was arrested. Attention was now concentrated on the corpses washed up by the river. it was not long before the body of rock stall came to shore the face distorted almost beyond recognition by long immersion but the clothes patently his and a pocket-book in the breast pocket removing the last doubt mrs seacan and polly and clara newell all identified the body both juries returned a verdict of murder against tom peters the recital of clara's dream producing a unique impression in the court and throughout the country especially in theological and theosophical circles. The theory of the prosecution was that Roxdahl had brought home the money, whether to fly alone or to divide it, or whether, even for some innocent purpose, as Clara believed, was immaterial.

That Peter's determined to have it all. That he had gone out for a walk with the deceased, and, taking advantage of the fog, had pushed him into the river, and that he was further impelled at the crime by love for Clara Newell, as was evident from his subsequent relations with her. The judge put on the black. cap. Tom Peters was duly hung by the neck till he was dead. Chapter 7. Brief resume of the culprit's confession. When you all read this, I shall be dead and laughing at you. I have been hung for my own murder.

I am Everard G. Rockstall. I am also Tom Peters. We two were one. When I was a young man, my moustache and beard wouldn't come. I bought false ones to his. improve my appearance. One day after I had become manager of the city and suburban bank, I took off my beard and moustache at home, and then the thought crossed my mind that nobody would know me without them. I was another man. Instantly, it flashed upon me that if I ran away from the bank, that other man could be left in London, while the police were scouring the world for a non-existent fugitive. But this was only the crude germ of the idea. Slowly I matured my plan. The man who was going to be left in London must be known to a circle of acquaintance beforehand. It would be easy enough to masquerade in the

evenings in my beardless condition, with other disguises of dress and voice, but this was not brilliant enough. I concede the idea of living with him. It was box and cocks reversed. We shared rooms at Mrs. Seekins. It was a great strain, but it was only for a few weeks. I had tricked clothes in my bedroom, like those of quick-change artistes. In a moment I could pass from Rockstall to Peters, and from Peters to Rockstall. Polly had to clean two pairs of boots a morning, cooked two dinners, etc, etc. She and Mrs. Seekin saw one or the other of us every moment.

It never dawned upon them that they never saw us both together. At meals I would not be interrupted, ate off two plates and conversed with my friend in loud tones. A slight ventriloqual gift enabled me to hold audible conversations with him when he was supposed to be in the bedroom. At other times we dined at different hours. On Sundays he was supposed to be asleep when I was in church. There is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would have occurred

that one man was troubling himself to be two, and to pay for two, including washing. I worked up the idea of Rockstall's flight, asked Polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that arrived on the morning of my disappearance. As Tom Peters, I mixed with a journalistic set. I had another room where I kept the gold and notes till I mistakenly thought the thing had blown over. Unfortunately, returning from here on the night of my disappearance, with Rockstall's clothes in a bundle I intended to drop into the river,

it was stolen from me in the fog, and the man into whose possession it ultimately came appears to have committed suicide, so that his body, dressed in my clothes, was taken for mine. What perhaps ruined me was my desire to keep Clara's love, and to transfer it to the survivor. Everard told her I was the best of fellows. Once married to her, I would not have had much to fear. Even if she had discovered the trick, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and often does not want to. I made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the Starangata. I might have told the judge he was an ass, but then I should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than death.

The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has committed murder or I suicide. What is certain is that I have cheated the gallows. End of cheating the gallows. Section 12 of Grotesques and Fantasies. This is a Libra Vox recording. All Libra Vox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer. here. Please visit Libravox.org.

Recording by Greg Giordano. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zingwill. Santa Claus, a story for the nursery. Although Bob was asleep on the doorstep, the children in the passage talked so loudly that they woke him up. They did not mean to do it, for they were nice, clean, handsome children. bob was always pretty dirty so nobody knew if he was pretty clean he was not a dog though you might think so from his name and the way he was treated nobody cared for bob except tommy whom he could fight one hand the lucky nice clean children had jammed to lick but bob had only tommy poor tommy bob sat up on his stony doorstep drawing his rags round him his toes were free

When you have no boots, it is awkward to stamp your feet. That is why they are so cold. Bob's idea of heaven was a place with a fire in it. He lived before free education, and his ideas were mixed. Bob heard the children inside talking about Santa Claus and the presents they expected. Bob gathered that he was a kind-hearted old gentleman, and he thought to himself, if I could find out Santa Claus' address, I'd go in Arksim for some presents, too. So he waited outside, shivering, till a pretty little girl and boy came out, when he said to them, Please, can you tell me where Santa Claus lives? The little girl and boy drew back when he spoke to them, because they had strict orders to keep their pinafores clean. But when they heard his strange question,

they looked at each other with large eyes. Then their pretty faces filled with smiling sunshine, and they said, He lives in the sky. He is a spirit. Bob's face fell. Oh, then I can't call upon him, he said. But how is it the eye never gets no presents like I ears your say's-y-dos? Perhaps you're not a good child, said the little girl gravely.

Yes, look how you've torn your clothes, said the little boy reprovingly. Well, but how is you going to get present? from the sky. We hang up our stockings tonight, just before Christmas, and in the night Santa Claus fills them, they explained, and just then the maid came out and led them away. Now Bob understood. He had never had any stockings in his life. He felt mad to think how much else he had missed through the want of a pair. If he could only get a pair of stockings to hang up, he might be a rich boy, and dine off bread and treacle. He wandered through the courts and alleys looking for stockings in the gutters and dust bins. They were not there. Old boots were to be found

in abundance, though not in couples, which was odd. But Bob soon discovered that people never throw away their stockings. At last, he plucked up courage and begged from house to house, but nobody had a pair to spare. What becomes of all the old stockings? Not everybody hoards treasure in them. Bob met plenty of kind hearts. They offered him bread when he asked for a stocking. At last, weary and foot-sore, he returned to his doorstep and pondered.

He wondered if he could cheat Santa Claus, by making a pair out of a piece of newspaper he had picked up. But perhaps Mr. Claus was particular about the mid-a-lawful. material, and admitted nothing under cotton. He thought of stepping deeply into the mud and kicking a pair, but then he could only remove them at night by brushing them off in little pieces. He feared they would stick too tight to come off whole. He also thought of painting his calves with stripes from wet paint, on the off chance that Mr. Claus would drop the presence carelessly down along his legs. But he concluded that if Mr. Claus lived in the sky, he could look down and see all

all he was doing. So he began to cry instead. What are you crying about? said a quavering voice, and Bob, startled, became aware of a wretched old creature dining on the doorstep at his side. I ain't got no stockings, he sobbed in answer. Well, I'll give you mine, said his neighbor. Bob hesitated. The poor old woman looked so broken down herself. It seemed mean to accept her offer. "'Won't you be cold?' he asked timidly. "'I shan't be warmer,' mumbled the old woman. "'But then you will.'

"'No, I won't have them. Thank you, kindly, Mum,' said Bob stoutly. "'Then I'll tell you what to do,' said the old woman, who was really a fairy, though she had lost both wings. They had been amputated in a surgical operation. It's easy enough to get stockings if you only know how. Run away now and pick out any person you meet and say, I wish that person's stockings were on my feet. You can only wish once, so be careful, especially not to wish for a pair of blue stockings,

as they won't suit you. She grinned and vanished. Bob jumped up and was about. to wish off the stockings of the first man he met, when a horrible thought struck him. The man had nice clothes and looked rich, but what proof was there he had stockings on? Bob really could not afford to risk wasting his wish. He walked about, and looked at all the people, the men with their long trousers, the women with their trailing skirts, and the more he walked, the more grew his doubt and his agony. A terrible skepticism of humanity seized him.

they looked very prim and demure without these men and women with their varnished boots and their satin gowns but what if they were all hypocrites walking about without stockings night came on half distracted by distrust of his kind he wandered on to the docks and there to his joy he saw people coming off a steamer by a narrow plank as they walked the ladies lifted up their skirts so as not to tumble over them, and he caught several glimpses of dainty stockings. At last, he selected the lady with very broad stockings, that looked as if they would hold lots of Mr. Claus's presence, and wished. Instantly, he felt very funny about the feet, and the lady wobbled about so in her big boots that she overbalanced herself, and fell into the water, and was drowned.

Bob ran back to his doorstep, and when it was dark, slipped off his stockings carefully, and hung them up on the knocker. And, sure enough, in the morning they were full of fine cigars and Spanish lace. Bob sold the lace for a penny, but he kept the cigars and smoked the first with his penneth of Christmas plum duff. Morrill, England expects every man to pay. his duty. End of Santa Claus, a story for the nursery. Recording by Greg Gierdano, Newport, Ritchie, Florida. A Rose of the ghetto. One day, it occurred to Lible, that he ought to get married. He went to Sugarman, the Shadkin, forthwith.

I have the very thing for you, said the great marriage broker. Is she pretty? asked Lible. Her father has a boot and shoe warehouse, replied Sugarman, enthusiastically. Then there ought to be a dowry with her, said Lible eagerly. Certainly a dowry, a fine man like you. How much do you think it would be? Of course it is not a large warehouse, but then you could get your boots at trade price,

and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the leather. When could I see her? I will arrange for you to call next Sabbath afternoon. You won't charge me more than a sovereign? Not a Groshen moor, such a pious maiden. I'm sure you will be happy. She has so much way of the country, breeding, and, of course, five percent on the dowry.

"'Hmm, well, I don't mind. Perhaps they won't give a dowry,' he thought, with a consolatory sense of outwitting the Shadkin. On the Saturday, Leibble went to see the damsel, and on the Sunday he went to see Sugarman, the Shadkin. "'But your maiden squints!' he cried resentfully. "'An excellent thing,' said Sugarman, "'a wife whose squints can never look her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. Who would quail before a woman with a squint?'

"'I could endure the squint,' went on Libel, dubiously, "'but she also stammers.' "'Well, what is better in the event of a quarrel? "'The difficulty she has in talking will keep her far more silent than most wives. "'You could best secure her while you have the chance.' "'But she halts on the left leg,' cried Libel, exasperated. "'Got in, Himmel, do you mean to say you do not see what's advantage it is to have a wife unable to accompany you in all your goings.

Lybul lost patience. Why the girl is a hunchback, he protested furiously. My dear libel, said the marriage broker, deprecatingly shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his palms. You can't expect perfection. Nevertheless, Lybul persisted in his unreasonable attitude. He accused Sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him. "'A fool of you?' echoed the Shadkin, indignantly.

"'When I give you a chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter, "'you will make a fool of yourself if you refuse. "'I dare say her dowry would be enough to set you up as a master tailor. "'At present you are compelled to slave away as a cutter for thirty shillings a week. "'It is most unjust. "'If you only had a few machines, you would be able to employ your own cutters, "'and they can be got so cheap nowadays.' "'This gave libel pause, and he depended.

without having definitely broken the negotiations. His whole week was befogged by doubt. His work became uncertain. His chalk marks lacked their usual decision, and he did not always cut his coat according to his cloth. His aberrations became so marked that Pretty Rose Green, the sweater's eldest daughter, who managed a machine in the same room,

divined, with all a woman's intuition, that he was in love. What is the matter? She said in rallying Yiddish, when they were taking their lunch of people. bread and cheese and ginger beer, amid the clatter of machines, whose serfs had not yet knocked off work. "'They are proposing me a match,' he answered sullenly.

"'A match?' ejaculated Rose. "'Thou!' She had worked by his side for years, and familiarity bred the second-person singular. Leibel nodded his head, and put a mouthful of Dutch cheese into it. "'With whom?' asked Rose. Somehow he felt ashamed. He gurgled the answer. into the stone ginger beer bottle, which he put to his thirsty lips.

With Leah Volkovich. Leah Volkovich! gasped Rose. Leah? The boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter. Leibel hung his head. He scarce knew why. He did not dare meet her gaze. His droop said, yes. There was a long pause. And why dost thou not have her? said Rose. It was more than an inquiry. There was contempt in it, and perhaps even peak. Leibald did not reply.

The embarrassing silence reigned again, and rained long. Rose broke his at last. Is it that thou likest me better? she asked. Leibel seemed to see a ball of lightning in the air. It burst, and he felt the electric current strike right through his heart. The shock threw his head up with a jerk, so that his eyes gazed into a face whose beauty and tenderness were revealed to him for the first time. The face of his old acquaintance had vanished.

This was a cajoling, coquettish, smiling face, suggesting undreamed-of things. No, yes, he replied without perceptible pause. No, good, she rejoined as quickly. And in the ecstasy of that moment of mutual understanding, Leibel forgot to wonder why he had never thought of Rose before. Afterwards he remembered that she had always been his social superior. The situation seemed too dreamlike for explanation to the room just yet. Leibble lovingly passed the bottle of ginger beer,

and Rose took a sip, with a beautiful air of plighting troth, understood only of those two. When Leibble quaffed the remnant, it intoxicated him. The relics of the bread and cheese were the ambrosia to this nectar. They did not dare kiss. The suddenness of it all left them bashful, and the smack of lips would have been like a cannon-peel announcing their engagement. There was a subtler sweetness in this sense of a secret.

Apart from the fact that neither cared to break the news to the master tailor, a stern little old man. Leibyl's chalk marks continued indecisive that afternoon, which shows how correctly Rose had connected them with love. Before he left that night, Rose said to him, Art thou sure thou wouldst not rather have, Leah Volkovich? Not for all the boots and shoes in the world, replied Leibble, fervently.

and i protested rose would rather go without my own than without thee the landing outside the workshop was so badly lighted that their lips came together in the darkness nay nay thou must not yet said rose thou art still courting leovolkovitch for aught thou knowest sugarman the shadken may have entangled thee beyond redemption not so asserted libel i have only seen the maiden once yes but sugarman has seen her father several times, persisted Rose. For so misshapen a maiden, his commission would be large. Thou must go to Sugarman to-night, and tell him that thou canst not find it in thy heart to go on with the match. Kiss me, and I will go, pleaded libel. Go, and I will kiss thee, said Rose resolutely. And when shall we tell thy father, he asked, pressing her hand as the next best thing to her lips. As soon as thou art free from Leah. But will he? He consent? He will not be glad, said Rose frankly. But after mother's death, peace be upon her,

the rule passed from her hands into mine. Ah, that is well, said Leibble. He was a superficial thinker. Leibble found Sugarman at supper. The great Shadkin offered him a chair, but nothing else. Hospitality was associated in his mind with special occasions only, and involved lemonade and stuffed monkeys. He was very put out, almost to the point of indigestion, to hear of Libel's final determination, and plied him with reproachful inquiries. You don't mean to say that you give up a boot and shoe manufacturer merely because his daughter has round shoulders, he exclaimed incredulously. It is more than round shoulders. It is a hump, cried Lible. And suppose, see how much better off you will be when you get your own machines. We do not

refused to let camels carry our burdens because they have humps. Ah, but a wife is not a camel, said Libel, with a sage air. And a cutter is not a master tailor, retorted Sugarman. Enough, enough, cried Libel. I tell you, I would not have her if she were a machine warehouse. There sticks something behind, persisted Sugarman, unconvinced. Leibble shook his head. Only her hump, he said, with a flash of humour.

"'Moses Mendelssohn had a hump,' expostulated Sugarman, reproachfully. "'Yes, but he was a heretic,' rejoined Libel, "'who was not without reading. "'And then he was a man. "'A man with two humps could find a wife for each, "'but a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in addition. "'Guard your tongue from evil.' "'Quoth the Shadkin, angrily.

"'If everybody were to talk like you, "'Lea Volkovich would never be married at all.' libel shrugged his shoulders and reminded him that hunched-back girls who stammered and squinted and halted on left legs were not usually led under the canopy nonsense stuff cried sugarman angrily that is because they do not come to me leah volkovitch has come to you said libel but she shall not come to me and he rose anxious to escape instantly sugarman gave a sigh of resignation be it so then i shall have to look at you out for another, that's all. No, I don't want any, replied Libel, quickly. Sugarman stopped eating. You don't want any, he cried, but you came to me for one.

I, I know, stammered Lible, but I've altered my mind. One needs Hillel's patience to deal with you, cried Sugarman. But I shall charge you all the same for my trouble. You cannot cancel an order like this in the middle? No, no, you can play fast and loose. with Leah Volkovich, but you shall not make a fool of me. But if I don't want one, said Leibyl, sullenly. Sugarman gazed at him with a cunning look of suspicion.

Didn't I say there was something sticking behind? Leibble felt guilty. But whom have you got in your eye? He inquired desperately. Perhaps you may have someone in yours, naively answered Sugarman. Leibald gave a hypocritechristic, long-drawn. I wonder if Rose Green, where I work, he said, and stopped. I fear not, said Sugarman.

She is on my list. Her father gave her to me some months ago, but he is hard to please. Even the maiden herself is not easy, being pretty. Perhaps she has waited for someone, suggested libel. Sugarman's keen ear caught the note of complacent triumph. You have been asking her your sister. "'He exclaimed, in horror-stricken accents. "'And if I have,' said Lible defiantly.

"'You have cheated me, and so has Elifaz Green. "'I always knew he was tricky. "'You have both defrauded me.' "'I did not mean to,' said Lible mildly. "'You did mean to. "'You had no business to take the matter out of my hands. "'What right had you to propose to Rose Green?' "'I did not,' cried Lible, excitedly.

"'Then you asked her father?' "'No, I have not asked her father yet.' "'Then how do you know she will have you?' "'I—I know,' stammered libel, feeling himself somehow a liar, as well as a thief. His brain was in a whirl. He could not remember how the thing had come about. Certainly he had not proposed, nor could he say that she had.

"'You know she will have you,' repeated Sugarman, reflectively. "'And does she know?' "'Yes, in fact,' he blurted out. "'We arranged it together.' "'Ah, you both know.' "'And does her father know?' "'Not yet.' "'Ah, then I must get his consent,' said Sugarman decisively.

"'I thought of speaking to him myself.' "'Yourself?' echoed Sugarman in horror. "'Are you unsound in the head? "'Why, that would be worse than the mistake you have already made?' "'What mistake?' asked libel, firing up. The mistake of asking the maiden herself. When you quarrel with her after your marriage,

she will always throw it in your teeth that you wish to marry her. Moreover, if you tell a maiden you love her, her father will think you ought to marry her as she stands. Still, what is done is done. And he sighed regretfully. And what more do I want? I love her. You piece of clay, cried Sugarman contemptuously. "'Love will not turn machines, much less by them.

"'You must have a dowry. "'Her father has a big stocking. "'He could well afford it.' "'Lybel's eyes lit up. "'There was really no reason why he should not have bread and cheese with his kisses. "'Now, if you went to her father,' pursued the Shadkin, "'the odds are that he would not even give you his daughter, "'to say nothing of the dowry.

"'After all, it is a cheek of you to aspire so high. "'As you told me from the first, you haven't saved a penny. even my commission you won't be able to pay till you get the dowry. But if I go, I do not despair of getting a substantial sum, to say nothing of the daughter. Yes, I think you had better go, said libel eagerly. But if I do this thing for you, I shall want a pound more, rejoined Sugarman. A pound more?

Echoed libel in dismay. Why? Because Rose Green's hump is of gold, replied Sugarman, oracularly. also she is fair to see and many men desire her but you have always your five per cent on the dowry it will be less than volkoviches explained sugarman you see green has other and less beautiful daughters yes but then it settles itself more easily say five shillings elefaz green is a hard man said the shadkin instead ten shillings is the most i will give twelve and sixpence is the least i will take elephaz Green haggles so terribly. They split the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented the predominance of Elifaz Green's stinginess over Volkovich's. The very next day, Sugarman invaded the green workroom. Rose bent over her seams, her heart fluttering.

Leibel had duly apprised her of the roundabout manner in which she would have to be won, and she had acquiesced in the comedy. At the least, it would save her the trouble of father-taming. Sugarman's entry was brusque and breathless. He was overwhelmed with joyous emotion. His blue bandana trailed agitatedly from his coat-tail. At last, he cried, addressing the little white-haired master tailor, I have the very man for you. Yes, grunted Elifaz, unimpressed.

The monosyllable was packed with emotion. It said, Have you really the face to come to me again with an ideal man? He has all the qualities. that you desire, began the Shadkin, in a tone that repudiated the implications of the monosyllable. He is young, strong, God-fearing. Has he any money? Grumpily interrupted Elifaz. He will have money, replied Sugarman, unhesitatingly, when he marries. Ah, the father's voice relaxed, and his foot lay limp on the treadle. He worked one of his machines

himself, and paid himself the wages so as to enjoy the profit. how much will he have i think he will have fifty pounds and the least you can do is to let him have fifty pounds replied sugarman with the same happy ambiguity eliphaz shook his head on principle yes you will said sugarman when you learn how fine a man he is the flush of confusion and trepidation already on libel's countenance became a rosy glow of modesty for he could not help overhearing what was being said owing to the lull of the master taylor's machine "'Tell me, then,' rejoined Elifaz. "'Tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy, hard-working, god-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a master tailor on his own account, "'and you know how profitable that is.' "'To a man like that,' said Elifaz, in a burst of enthusiasm,

"'I would give as much as twenty-seven pounds ten.' Sugarman groaned inwardly, but Libel's heart leaped with joy, to get four months wages at a stroke. With £27, £10, he could certainly procure several machines, especially on the instalment system. Out of the corners of his eyes, he shot a glance at Rose, who was beyond earshot. Unless you can promise thirty,

it is a waste of time mentioning his name, said Sugarman. Well, well, who is he? Sugarman bent down, lowering his voice into the father's ear. What? Libel! "'Cried Elifaz, outraged. "'Shh,' said Sugarman, "'or he will overhear your delight and ask more.

"'He has his nose high enough as it is.' "'But, but,' sputtered, the bewildered parent, "'I know libel myself. I see him every day. "'I don't want a Shadkin to find me a man I know, "'a mere hand in my own workshop.' "'Your talk has neither face nor figure,' answered Sugarman, sternly. "'It is just the people one sees every day. day that one knows least. I warrant that if I had not put it into your head, you would never

have dreamt of libel as a son-in-law. Come now. Confess. Elifaz grunted vaguely, and the Shadkin went on triumphantly. I thought as much. And yet where could you find a better man to keep your daughter? He ought to be content with her alone, grumbled her father. Sugarman saw the signs of weakening, and dashed in, full strength. It's a question whether he will have her at all. I have not been to him about her yet. I awaited your approval of the idea. Leibel admired the verbal accuracy of these statements, which he just caught. But I didn't know he would be having money, murmured Elifaz. Of course you didn't know. That's what the Shadkan is for, to point out the things that are under

your nose. But where will he be getting this money from? From you, said Sugarman frankly. From me? From who else? Are you not his employer? It has been put by for his marriage day. He has saved it? He has not spent it, said Sugarman impatiently.

But do you mean to say he has saved fifty pounds? If he could manage to save fifty pounds out of your wages, he would be indeed a treasure, said Sugarman. Perhaps it might be thirty. But you said fifty. "'Well, you came down to thirty,' retorted the Shadkin. "'You cannot expect him to have more than your daughter brings.' "'I never said thirty,' Elifaz reminded him.

"'Twenty-seven-ten was my last bid.' "'Very well. That will do as a basis of negotiations,' said Sugarman, resignedly. "'I will call upon him this evening. "'If I were to go over and speak to him now, "'he would perceive you were anxious and raise his terms, and that will never do. "'Of course, you will not mind allowing him, me a pound more, for finding you so economical a son-in-law. Not a penny more!

You need not fear, said Sugarman resentfully. It is not likely I shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law, so you will be none the worse for promising. Be it so, said Elifaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started his machine again. Twenty-seven pounds ten, remember? said Sugarman, above the were. Elifaz nodded his head, whirring his wheelwork louder, And paid before the wedding, mind? The machine took no notice.

Before the wedding mind, repeated Sugarman, before we go under the canopy. Go now, go now, grunted Elifaz, with a gesture of impatience. It shall be all well, and the white-haired head bowed immovably over its work. In the evening, Rose extracted from her father, the motive of Sugarman's visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking. But dost thou think he will have me, little father? She asked, with cajoling eyes. Anyone would have my rose.

Ah, but Libel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and said nothing. He had his work to think of. He is a good, saving youth. At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him. Not so? I suppose he will want much money. Be easy, my child, and he passed his discoloured hand over her hair.

Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that libel was unobtainable under £30, and Elifaz, weary of the contest, called over Libel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his scientific chalk marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first time. I am not a man to bargain, Elifaz said, and so he gave the young young. man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere, and work was suspended for five minutes, and the hands all drank amid surprised excitement. Sugarman's visits had prepared them to congratulate Rose, but Leibel was a shock. The formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at last the marriage day came. Lyble was resplendent in a diagonal

frock-coat, cut by his own hand, and Rose stepped from the cab a medley of flowers, fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two bridesmaids, her sisters, a trio that glorified the spectator's-room pavement outside the synagogue. Elifaz looked almost tall in his shiny, high hat and frilled shirt-front. Sugarman arrived on foot, carrying red-sock little Ebenezer tucked under his arm. Lible and Rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was the 33rd day of the Omer, a day fruitful in marriages. But at last their turn came. They did not, however, come in their turn, and their special friends among the audience wondered why they had lost their precedence. After several later marriages had taken place, a whisper began to circulate.

The rumour of a hitch gained ground steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. And indeed, the rose was not to be picked without a touch of the thorn. Gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran through the waiting synagogue. Elefaz had not paid up. At first he declared he would put down the money immediately after the ceremony. But the wary sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded its instant delivery on behalf of his other clients. Hard pressed, Elifaz produced ten sovereigns from his trousers' pocket and tended them on account. These sugarmen disdainfully refused, and the negotiations were suspended.

The bridegroom's party was encamped in one room, the brides in another, and after a painful delay, Elifaz sent an emissary to say that half the amount should be forthcoming. The extra five pounds in a bright new Bank of England note. Lible, instructed and encouraged by Sugarman, stood firm. And then arose a hubbub of voices, a chaos of suggestions. Friends rushed to and fro between the camps, some emerging from their seats in the synagogue, to add to the confusion. But Elifaz had taken his stand upon a rock. He had no more ready money. Tomorrow, the next day he would have some. And Libel, pale and dogged, clutched tighter at those machines that were slipping away momently from him. He had not yet seen his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared with the tangibility of those machines. Most of the other maidens were married women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. From the female camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and a bride that tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation. Elifaz sent word that he would give an IOU for the balance, but that he really could not muster any more current coin.

Sugarman instructed the ambassador to suggest that Elifaz should raise the money among his friends. And the short spring day slipped away. In vain, the minister, apprised of the block, lengthened out the form of the form. for the other pairs, and blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave off the libel green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the only orange-wreath spinster in the synagogue. And then there was a hush of solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble of babbling tongues,

as minutes succeeded minutes, and the final bridal party still failed to appear. The latest bulletin pictured the bride in a dead faint. The afternoon was waning. fast. The minister left his post near the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and came to add his white tie to the forces for compromise. But he fared no better than the others. Incensed at the obstinacy of the antagonists, he declared he would close the synagogue. He gave the couple ten minutes to marry in, or quit. Then chaos came, and pandemonium, a frantic

babble of suggestion and exhortation from the crowd. When five minutes had passed, a legate from Elifaz announced that his side had scraped together twenty pounds, and that this was their final bid. Leibble wavered. The long day's combat had told upon him. The reports of the bride's distress had weakened him. Even Sugarman had lost his cocksureness of victory. A few minutes more, and both commissions might slip through his fingers. Once the parties left the synagogue, it would not be easy to drive them there another day, but he cheered on his man still. One could always surrender at the tenth minute. At the eighth, the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed into a new key, so to speak. Through the gesticulating assembly, swept that murmur of expectation, which

crowds know when the procession is coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism, all were aware that the bride herself, the poor, hysteric bride, had left the paternal camp. was coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover. And as the glory of her and the flowers and the white draperies loomed upon libel's vision, his heart melted in worship, and he knew his citadel would crumble in ruins at her first glance, at her first touch.

Was it fair fighting? As his troubled vision cleared, and as she came nigh unto him, he saw, to his amazement, that she was speckless and composed. No trace of tears dimmed the, fairness of her face. There was no disarray in her bridal wreath. The clock showed the ninth minute. She put her hand appealingly on his arm, while a heavenly light came into her face,

the expression of a Joan of Arc animating her country. "'Do not give in, libel,' she said. "'Do not have me. Do not let them persuade thee. By my life thou must not. Go home.' So at the eleventh minute, the vanquished Elifaz produced the balance, and they all lived happily ever afterwards. End of a Rose of the Ghetto. Recording by Lucy Perry in Bath on January 11th, 2014. Section 14 of grotesques and fantasies.

This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Tsang Will A double-barreled ghost I was ruined The bank in which I had been a sleeping partner from my cradle smashed suddenly

And I was exempted from income tax at one fell blow It became necessary to dispose even of the family mansion And the hereditary furniture The shame of not contributing to my country's Escher cur spurred me to earnest reflection upon how to earn an income, and having mixed myself another lemon squash, I threw myself back on the canvas garden chair, and watched the white-scented wreaths of my cigar smoke hanging in the drowsy air, and provoking inexperienced bees to settle upon them. It was the sort of summer afternoon on which to eat lotus, and to sip the dew from the lips of amarylases,

But although I had an affianced Amarilis whose Christian name was Jenny Grant, I had not the heart to dally with her in view of my sunk fortunes. She loved me for myself, no doubt. But then I was not myself since the catastrophe, and although she had hastened to assure me of her unchanged regard, I was not at all certain whether I should be able to support a wife in addition to all my other misfortunes. so that I was not so comfortable that afternoon as I appeared to my perspiring ballet.

No rose in the garden had a pricklier thorn than I. The thought of my poverty weighed me down, and when the setting sun began flinging bars of gold among the clouds, the reminder of my past extravagance made my heart heavier still, and I broke down utterly. Swearing at the manufacturers of such collapsible garden chairs, I was struggling to rise when I perceived my rings of smoke comporting themselves strangely. They were widening and curving and flowing into definite outlines,

as though the finger of the wind were shaping them into a rough sketch of the human figure. Sprawling amid the ruins of my chair, I watched the nebulous contours grow clearer and clearer, till at last the agitation subsided, and a misty old gentleman clad in vapor of an 18th century cut stood plainly revealed upon the sun-flecked grass. Good afternoon, John, said the old gentleman, courteously removing his cocked hat. Good afternoon! I gasped. How do you know my name? Because I have not forgotten my own, he replied. I am John Halliwell, your great-grandfather. Don't you remember me? A flood of light burst upon my brain, of course. I ought to have

recognized him at once from the portrait by Sir John. Joshua Reynolds, just about to be sold by auction. The artist had gone to full length in painting him, and here he was, complete, from his white wig beautifully frizzled by the smoke, to his buckled shoes, from his knee breeches to the frills at his wrists. Oh, brave pardon my not having recognized you, I cried remorsefully. I have such a bad memory for faces. Won't you take a chair? Sir, I have not sat down for a century and a half, he said simply. pray be seated yourself thus reminded of my undignified position i gathered myself up and readjusting the complex apparatus confided myself again to its canvas caresses then grown conscious of my shirt-sleeves i murmured excuse my des chabellet i did not expect to see you

i am aware the season is inopportune he said apologetically but i did not care to put off my visit till christmas you see with us christmas is a kind of bank holiday and when there is a general excursion refined spirit prefers its own fireside moreover i am not as you may see very robust and i scarce like to risk exposing myself to such an extreme change of temperature your english christmas is so cold with the pyromator at three hundred and fifty it's heartily prudent to pass to thirty on a sultry day like this the contrast is less marked i understand i said sympathetically but i should hardly have ventured he went on to trespass upon you at this untimely season nearly out of deference to my own valetudinarian instincts the fact is i am a literator oh indeed i said vaguely i was not aware of it nobody was aware of it he replied sadly but my calling at this professional hour will perhaps go to substantiate my statement I looked at him blankly. Was he quite sane? All the apparitions I had ever heard of spoke with some approach to coherence, however imbecile their behavior. The statistics of insanity in the spiritual world have never been published, but I suspect the percentage of madness is high. Mere harmless idiocy is doubtless the prevalent form of dementia, judging by the way the poor unhappy spirits set about compassing their ends, but some of their actions can only be explained by the more violent species of mania. My great-grandfather seemed to read the suspicion in my eye, for he hastily continued, of course it is only the outside public who imagine that the spirits

of literature really appear at Christmas. It is the annuals that appear at Christmas, the real season at which we are active on earth is summer, as every journalist knows. By Christmas, the authors of our being have completely forgotten our existence, as a writer myself, and calling in connection with a literary matter, I thought it more professional to pay my visit during these dog days, especially as your being in trouble supplied me with an excuse for asking permission to go beyond bounds. You knew I was in trouble? I murmured, touched by this sympathy from an unexpected quarter. Certainly, and from a selfish point of view, I'm not sorry.

You have always been so inconsiderately happy that I could never find a scene. pretext to get out to see you. Is it only when your descendants are in trouble that you are allowed to visit them? I inquired. Even so, he answered. Of course, spirits whose births were tragic, who were murdered into existence, are allowed to supplement the inefficient police departments of the upper globe. And a similar charter is usually extended to those who have hidden treasures on their conscience.

But it is obvious that if all spirits, were courted what furloughs they pleased eschatology would become a farce sir you have no idea of the number of bogus criminal romances tendered daily by those wishing to enjoy the roving license of avenging spirits for the ex assassinated are the most enviable of immortals and cases of personation are of frequent occurrence our actresses too are always pretending to have lost jewels there is a no end to the excuses. The Christmas Bank holiday is naturally inadequate to our needs. Sir, I should have been far happier if my descendants had gone wrong, but in spite of the large fortune, I had accumulated both your father and your grandfather were of exemplary respectability and unruffled cheerfulness. The solitary outing I had was when your father attended a seance, and I was knocked up in the middle of the night.

but i did not enjoy my holiday in the least the indignity of having to move the furniture made the blood boil in my veins as in a spirit lamp and exposed me to the malicious abandonage of my circle on my return "'I protested that I did not care a rap. "'But I was mightily rejoiced when I learned that your father "'had denounced the proceedings as a swindle, "'and was resolved never to invite me to his table again. "'When you were born, I thought you were born to trouble "'as the sparks fly upwards from our dwelling place, "'but I was mistaken.

"'Up till now your life has been a long summer afternoon.' "'Yes, but now the shades are falling,' I said grimly. it looks as if my life henceforward will be a long holiday for you he shook his wig mournfully no i am only out on parole i have had to give my word of honor to try to set you on your legs again as soon as possible you couldn't have come at a more opportune moment i cried remembering how he had found me you are a good as well as a great grandfather and i am proud of my descent won't you have a cigar Thank you. I never smoke, on earth, said the spirit hurriedly, with a flavor of bitter in his accents. Let us to the point. You have been reduced to the painful necessity of earning your living. I nodded silently and took a sip of lemon squash. A strange sense of salvation lulled my soul. How do you propose to do it? asked my great-grandfather.

Oh, I leave that to you, I said confidingly. Well, what do you say to a literary career? A? What? I gasped. A literary career, he repeated. What makes you so astonished? Well, for one thing, it's exactly what Tom Adelstone, the leader-writer of the hurry graph, was recommending to me this morning. He said, John, my boy, if I had had your advantages ten years ago, I should have been spared many a headache and supplied with many a dinner.

It may turn out a lucky thing yet that you gravitate. so to literary society, and that so many pressmen had free passes to your suppers. Consider the number of men of letters you have mixed drinks with. Why, man, you can succeed in any branch of literature you please. My great-grandfather's face was radiant. Perhaps it was only the setting sun that torched it. A chip off the old block, he murmured. That was I in my young days, Johnson, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Burke, Hume, I knew them all.

Gay dogs, gay dogs, except that great hawking brute of a Johnson, he added with a sudden savage snarl that showed his white teeth. I told Adelstone that I had no literary ability whatever, and he scoffed at me for my simplicity. All the same, I think he was only poking fun at me. My friends might puff me out to bull size, but I am only a frog, and I should very soon burst. the public might be cajoled into buying one book. They could not be duped a second time. Don't you think I was right? I haven't any literary ability, have I?

Certainly not, certainly not, replied my great-grandfather with an alacrity and emphasis that would have seemed suspicious in a mere mortal. But it does seem a shame to waste so great an opportunity. The ball that Atlestone waited years for is at your foot, and it is grievous to think that there it must remain merely because you do not know how to kick it. Well, but what's a man to do? What's a man to do? repeated my great-grandfather contemptuously. Gets a ghost, of course. By Jove! I cried with a whistle. That's a good idea. Adelstone has a ghost to do his leaders for him when he's lazy. I've seen the young fellow myself. Tom pays him six guineas a dozen and gets three guineas.

he's a piece himself. But of course Tom has to live in much better style, and that makes it fair all around. You mean that I am to take advantage of my influence to get some other fellow work, and take a commission for the use of my name? That seems feasible enough, but where am I to find a ghost with the requisite talents? Here, said my great-grandfather. What? You? Yes, I, he replied calmly. but you couldn't write not now certainly not all i wrote now would be burnt then how the devil i began hush he interrupted nervously listen i will a tale unfold it is the learned pig i wrote it in my forty-fifth year and it is full of sketches from the life of all the more notable personages of my time from lord chesterfield to mrs threll from peg waffington to Adam Smith and the ingenious Mr. Dibden, I have painted the portrait of Sir Joshua quite as

faithfully as he has painted mine. Of course, much of the dialogue is real, taken from conversations preserved in my notebook. It is, I believe, a complete picture of the period, and being the only book I ever wrote or intended to write, I put my whole self into it as well as all my friends. It must be indeed your masterpiece, I cried enthusiastically, but why is it called the learned pig and how has it escaped publication? You shall hear. The learned pig is Dr. Johnson. He refused to take wine with me. I afterwards learned that he had given up strong liquors altogether. And I went to see him again, but he received me with epigrams. He is the pivot of my book. all the other characters revolving around him. Naturally, I did not care to publish during his lifetime, not entirely, I admit, out of consideration to his feelings,

but because foolish admirers had placed him on such a pedestal that he could damn any book he did not relish. I made sure of surviving him, so many and diverse were his distempers, whereas my manuscript survived me. In the moments of death I strove to tell your grandfather of the hiding-place, which I had bestowed it, but I could only make signs to which he had not the clue. You can imagine how it has embittered my spirit to have missed the aim of my life, and my due niche in the pantheon of letters.

In vain I strove to be registered among the hidden treasure-spirits, with the perambulatory privileges pertaining to the class. I was told that to recognize manuscripts under the head of treasures would be to open a fresh door to abuse. There being few but had scribbled in their time and had a good conceit of their compositions to boot. I could offer no proofs of the value of my work, not even printer's proofs,

and even the fact that the manuscript was concealed behind a sliding panel availed not to bring it into the coveted category. Moreover, not only did I have no other pretexts to call on my descendants, but both my son and grandson were too respectable to be willingly connected with letters and too flourishing to be enticed by the prospects of profit. To you, however, this book will prove the avenue to fresh fortune.

Do you mean I am to publish it under your name? No, under yours. But then where does the satisfaction come in? Your name is the same as my name. I see, but still, why not tell the truth about it in a preface, for instance? Who would believe it? In my own day, I could not credit the Macpherson spoke truly about the way ASEAN came into his possession, nor to judge from gossip I have had with the younger ghosted anyone attach credence to Sir Walter Scott's introductions.

True, I said musingly. It is a played-out dodge. but I am not certain whether an attack on Dr. Johnson would go down nowadays. We are aware that the man had port scene traits, but we have almost canonized him. The very reason why the book will be a success, he replied eagerly. I understand that in these days of yours the best way of attracting attention is to fly in the face of all received opinion, and so in the realm of history to whitewash the villains and tar and feather the saints. The sliding panel of which I spoke is just behind the picture of me.

Lose no time, go at once, even as I must. The shadowy contours of his form waved agitatedly in the wind. But how do you know anyone will bring it out? I said doubtfully, am I to haunt the publisher's offices till— No, no, I will do that, he interrupted in excitement. Promise me, you will help me. But I don't feel at all sure it stands a go. of a chance. I said growing colder in proportion as he grew more enthusiastic.

It is the only chance of a ghost, he pleaded. Come, give me your word. Any of your literary friends will get you a publisher, and where could you get a more promising ghost? Oh, nonsense, I said quietly, unconsciously quoting Ibsen, there must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. I was determined to put the matter on its proper footing, for I saw that under pretense of restoring my fortunes he was really trying to get me to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, and I resented the deceptive spirit that could put forward such tasks as favors. It was evident that he cherished a post-mortem grudge against the great lexicographer, as well as a posthumous craving for fame, and wished to use me as the instrument of his reputation and his revenge. but I was a man of the world, and I was not going to be rushed by a mere phantom. I don't deny that there are plenty of ghosts about, he answered, with insinuitive deference. Only will any of the others work for nothing? He saw he had scored a point, and his eyes twinkled.

Yes, but I don't know that I approve of black legs, I answered sternly. You are taking the bread and butter out of some honest ghost's mouth. The corners of his mouth drooped. His eyes grew misty. He looked fading away. Most true, he faltered. But be pitiful. Have you no great grand filial feelings?

No, I lost everything in the crash, I answered coldly. Suppose the book's a frost. I shan't mind, he said eagerly. No, I don't suppose you would mind a frost, I retorted witheringly. But look at the chaff you'd be letting me in for. Hadn't you better put off publication for a century or two? No, no, he cried wildly.

Our mansion will pass into strange hands. I shall not have the right of calling on the new proprietors. Phew, I whistled. Perhaps that's why you timed your visit now, you artful old codder. I have always heard appearances are deceptive, however. I have ever been a patron. of letters, and although I cannot approve of post-mundane malice, and think the dead past

should be let bury its dead. Still, if you are set upon it, I will try and use my influence to get your book published. Bless you, he cried tremulously with all the effusiveness natural to an author about to see himself in print, and trembled so violently that he dissipated himself away. I stood staring a moment at the spot where he had stood, pleased that having out maneuvered him. Then my chair gave way with another crash, and I picked myself up painfully, together with the dead stump of my cigar, and brushed the ash off of my trousers, and rubbed my eyes and wondered if I had been dreaming. But no, when I ran into the cheerless dining room with its pervading sense of imminent auction, I found the sliding panel behind the

portrait by Reynolds, which seemed to beam kindly encouragement upon me, and lo! The learned pig was there in a massive musty manuscript. As everybody knows, the book made a hit. The Acadium was unusually generous in its praise. A lively picture of the century of farthingales and stomacres marred only by the numerous anachronisms and that stilted air of faked-up archaeological knowledge, which is, we suppose, inevitable in historical novels.

The conversations are particularly artificial. still we can forgive Mr. Halliwell a good deal of inaccuracy, and, in acquaintance with the period, in view of the graphic picture of the literary dictator, from the novel point of view of a contemporary who is not among the worshippers. It is curious how the honest, sterling character of the man is brought out all the more clearly from the incapacity of the narrator to comprehend its greatness, to show this was a task that called for no little skill and subtlety. If it were only for this one ingenious idea, Mr. Halliwell's book would stand out from the mass of abortive attempts to resuscitate the past. He has failed to picture the times, but he has done what is better. He has given us human beings who are alive, instead of the futile shadows that split through the Walhalla of the average historical novel.

All the leading critics were at one as to the cleverness with which the great soul of Dr. Johnson was made to see. stand out on the background of detraction, and the public was universally agreed that this was the only readable historical novel published for many years, and that the anachronisms didn't matter a pin. I don't know what I had done to Tom Adelstone, but when everybody was talking about me, he went about saying that I kept a ghost. I was annoyed, for I did not keep one in any sense, and I openly defied the world to produce him. i never saw him again myself i believe he was too disgusted with the philip he had given dr johnson's reputation and did not even take advantage of the christmas bank holiday but addlestone's libel got to jenny grant's ears and she came to me indignantly and said i won't have it you must either give up me or the ghost

to give up you would be to give up the ghost darling i answered soothingly but you and you alone have a right to the truth it is not my ghost at all it is my great-grandfathers do you mean to say he bequeathed him to you it came to that i then told her the truth and showed how in any case the prophets of my ancestors book rightfully reverted backwards to me so we were married on them and you Jenny, fired by my success, tried her hand on a novel, and published it, truthfully enough, under the name of Jay Halliwell. She has written all my stories ever since, including this one, which, if it be necessarily false in the letter, is true in the spirit. End of a double-barreled ghost. Recording by John Van Stan, Savannah, Georgia. Section 15 of Grotesques and Fantasies This is a Libra of Ox recording.

All Libra of Ox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Greg Giordano. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill. Vegeries of a Viscount That every man has a romance in his life Has always been a pet theory of mine

So I was not surprised to find the immaculate dorking Smoking a clay pipe in Cable Street Late Ratcliffe Highway At half-past eight of a winter's morning Nor was I surprised to find myself there Because as a romancer I have a poetic license to go anywhere and see everything. Viscount Dorking had just come out of an old klosh-up, and it was got up like a sailor.

Under his arm was a bundle. He lurched against me without recognizing me, for I, too, was masquerading in my shabbiest and roughest attire, and the morning was bleak and foggy, the round red sun flaming in the forehead of the morning sky, like the eye of a cyclop but there could be no doubt it was dorking even if i had not been acquainted with the sedate viscount that paradox of the peerage whose treatise on pure mathematics were the joy of senior wranglers i should have suspected something shady from the whiteness of my sailor's hands dorking was a dapper little man almost dissociable from gloves and a chimney-pot The sight of him shambling along, like one of the crew of H.M.S. Pinafore gave me a pleasant thrill of excitement. I turned, and followed him along the narrow yellow street. He made towards the docks, turning down King David Lane.

He was apparently without any instrument of protection, though I, for my part, was glad to feel the grasp of the old umbrella that walks always with me, hand and knob. hard by the shadwell basin he came to a halt before a frowsy coffee-house reflectively removed his pipe from his mouth and whistled a bar of a once popular air in a peculiar manner then he pushed open the bleared glass door and was lost to view after an instant's hesitation i pulled my sombrero over my eyes and strode in after him plunging into a wave of musty warmth not entirely disagreeable after the frigid street. The boxes were full of queer waterside characters, among whom flitted a young woman, robustly beautiful. The Viscount was already smiling at her when I entered. Bring us the usual, he said, in a rough accent. Come along, Jenny, pint and one, impatiently growled a weather-beaten old ruffian in a pilot's cap.

"'Pon your face,' murmured Jenny, turning to me with an inquiring, air. Pyneton won, I said boldly, and as husky a tone as I could squeeze out. Several battered visages, evidently belonging to habitus of the place, were bent suspiciously in my direction. Perhaps because my rig-out, though rough, had no flavor of sea-salt or river mud, for no one took the least notice of dorking, except the comely attendant. I waited with some curiosity for my fare, which turned out to be nothing more mysterious than a pint of coffee in one thick slice of bread and butter. Not to appear ignorant of the price's ruling, I tendered Jenny a sixpence, whereupon she returned me fourpence halfpenny. This appeared to me so ridiculously cheap that I had not the courage to offer her the change as I had intended,

nor did she seem to expect it. The pint of coffee was served in one great hulking cup, such as gargantua might have quaffed. I took a sip and found it of the flavor of Chaleybeat Springs, but it was hot, and I made an own breakfast table. I grew impatient for him to have done, and beguiled the time by studying a placard on the wall, offering a reward for information as to the whereabouts of a certain ship's cook, who was wanted for knifing human flesh. And presently, curiously enough, in comes a police. sergeant on this very matter, and out goes dorking. Rather hastily, I thought, with me at his heels. No sooner had he got round a corner than he started running at a rate that gave me a stitch in the side.

He did not stop till he reached a cab rank. There was only one vehicle on it, and the coughing, red-nosed driver, unpleasantly suggesting a mixture of grog and fog, was climbing to his seat when I came cautiously and breathlessly up, and Dorking was returning to his trousers' pocket, a jingling mass of gold and silver coins, which he had evidently been exhibiting to the skeptical cabman. He seemed to walk these regions with the fearlessness of Una in the enchanted forest. I had no resource but to hang on to the rear, despite the alarms of whipped behind, raised by envious and inconsiderate urchins. And in this manner, defiantly dodging the capital.

who several times struck me unfairly behind his back i drove through a labyrinth of sordid streets to the bethnal green museum here we alighted and the vicar'd strolled about outside the iron railings from time to time anxiously scrutinizing the church clock and looking towards the fountain which only performs in the summer and was then wearing its winter nightcap at last as if weary of waiting he walked with sudden precipitation towards the turnstine and was lost to view within. After a moment I followed him, but was stopped by the janitor, who, with an air of astonishment, informed me there was sixpence to pay, it being a Wednesday.

I understood at once why the Viscount had selected this day, for there was no one to be seen inside, and it was five minutes ere I discovered him. He was in the National Portrait Gallery, before one of Sir Peter Lely's insipid beauties, which, to my surprise, he was copying in pencil. Evidently he was trying to while away the time. At eleven o'clock to the second,

he scribbled something underneath the sketch, folded it up carefully, picked up his bundle, and walked unhesitatingly downstairs into the second gallery, where, after glancing about to assure himself that the policeman's head was turned away, he deposited the paper between two bottles of tapeworms, and stole out through the paper,

back door. Feverously seizing the sketch, I followed him, but the policeman's eye was now upon me, and I had to walk with dignified slowness. Though I was in agonies lest I should lose my man, my anxiety was justified. When I reached the grounds, the Viscount was nowhere to be seen. I ran hither and thither like a madman, along the back street and about the grounds, hacking my shins against a perambulator, and at last sank upon a frigid garden seat, breathless and exhausted. I now be thought me of the paper clenched in my fist, and smoothing it out, deciphered these words faintly penciled beneath a character of the court beauty. Not my fault you missed me. If you are still set on your folly, you will find me lunching at the

Chingford Hotel. I sprang up exultant, new fire in my veins. True, the mystery was darkening, but it was the darkness that precedes the dawn. "'Shirese le Fem,' I muttered, in darting down three Colts Lane, I reached the junction, only to find the barrier dashed in my face. But half a crown drove it back, and I sprang into the guard's van on his very heels. A shilling stifled the oath on his lips, and transferred it to mine when I discovered I had jumped into the Enfield fast. Before I really got to Chinkford, it was long past noon, but I found him. The Viscount was toying with a charteroose in the dining room. The waiters eyed me suspiciously,

for I was shabby and dusty and haggard-looking. To my surprise, Dorking had doffed the sailor and wore a loud Czech suit. He looked up as I entered, but did not appear to recognize me. There was no one with him. Still I had. found him, that was the prime thing. Becoming conscious I was faint with hunger, I took up the menu, went to my vexation I saw the Viscount pay his bill, and done an overcoat in a billy-cock, an air I could snatch bite or sup, I was striding along the slimy forest paths, among the gaunt, fog-wrapped trees, following the Viscount by his footprints, whenever I lost him for a moment among the avenues.

Dorking marched with quick, decisive steps. in the heart of the forest by a great oak whose roots sprawled in every direction he came to a standstill hidden behind some brushwood i awaited the sequel with beating heart The Viscount took out a great colored handkerchief and spread it carefully over the roots of the oak. Then he sat down on the handkerchief and whistled the same bar of the same once popular air he had whistled outside the coffee house. Immediately a broken-nosed man emerged from behind a bush and addressed the Viscount. I strained my ears, but could not catch their conversation. But I heard Dorking laugh heartily as he sprang up and clapped the man on the vicar. shoulder. They walked off together. I was now excited to the wildest degree. I forgot the pangs of

baffled appetite. My whole being was strung to find a key to the strange proceedings of the mathematical Viscount. Tracking their double footsteps through the mist, I found them hob-nobbing in the public house on the forest border. After peeping in, I ran round to another door and stood in adjoining bar, where, without being seen, I could have a snack of bread and cheese and hear all. "'Could you bring her round to my house to-night?' said Dorking, and a horse whisper. "'You shall have the money down.' "'Right, sir,' said the man, and then their pewters clinked. To my chagrin, this was all the conversation.

The Viscount strode out alone, except for my company. The fog had grown deeper, and I was glad to be conducted. to the station. This time we went to Liverpool Street. Dorking lingered at the bookstall, and at last inquired if they had yesterday's times. Receiving a reply in the negative, he clucked his tongue impatiently. Then, as with a sudden thought, he ran up to the North London Railway bookstall, only to be again disappointed. He took out the great colored handkerchief and wiped his forehead, then he entered into confidential conversation with an undistinguished stranger, fat and foreign, who had been looking eagerly up and down at the extreme end of the platform.

Reed descending into the street, he jumped into a Sharing Cross bus. As he went inside, I had no option but to go outside, though the air was yellow, and I felt chilled to the bone. A lightning at Sharing Cross, he went into the telegraph office and rode a time. The composition seemed to cause him great difficulty. Standing outside the door, I saw him discard two half-begun forms. When he came out, I made a swift calculation of the chances, and determined to secure the two forms, even at the risk of losing him. Neither had an address. One read, If you are still on your foe, the other, come to-night if you are still.

Bolting out with these precious scraps of evidence that only added fuel to the flame of curiosity that was consuming me, I turned cold to find the Viscount swallowed up in the crowd. After an instant's agonized hesitation, I held a handsome, and drove to his flat in Victoria Street. The valet told me the Viscount was ill in bed, and could not see me. I read in his face that it was a lie. I resolved to loiter outside the building till Dorking's return. I had not long to wait. In less than ten minutes a handsome discharge to him at my feet. Had I not been prepared for anything, I should not have recognized him again in his red whiskers,

white hat, and blue spectacles. He rang the bell, and inquired of his own valet, if Viscount Dorking was at home. The man said he was ill in bed. Oh, we'll soon put him on his legs again, interrupted Dorking with a professional air, and pushed his valet aside. In that moment the solution dawned upon me. Dorking was mad. Nothing but insanity would account for his day's vagaries. I felt it was my duty as a fellow-creature to look to him. I followed him to the open-eyed consternation of the valet. Suddenly he turned upon me, and seized me savagely by the throat. I felt choking.

My worst fear was confirmed. No further, my man, he cried, flinging me back. Now go, and tell her ladyship how you have earned your fee. Dorking, are you mad? I gasped. Don't you remember me? Mr. Pry, from the bachelor's club. Great heavens, Paul, he cried.

then he fell back on an ottoman and laughed till the whiskers ran down his sides. He always had a sense of humor, I remembered. We explained the situation to each other. Dorking had an eccentric aunt who wished to leave her money to him. Suddenly Dorking learned from his valet, who was betrothed to her ladyship's maid, that she had taken into her head he could not be so virtuous and so devoted to pure mathematics as he appeared.

And so she had commissioned a private deed. detective agency to watch her nephew, and discover how deep the still waters ran. Incensed at the suspicion, he had that day started a course of action, calculated to bamboozled the agency, and having no other meaning whatever. When he caught sight of me gazing at him so curiously he mistook me for one of his minions, and determined to lead me a dance, the mistake was confirmed by my patient obedience to his piping. The broken-nosed man was an accident, anticipating his value is a beautiful false clue. Dorking laughed uproariously at the sight of him, and readily agreed to buy a French poodle. End of Vageries of a Viscount.

Recording by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida. Section 16 of Grotesques and Fantasies. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Lucy Perry Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwell The Queen's Triplets

A nursery tale for the Old Once upon a time there was a queen who unexpectedly gave birth to three princes They were also exactly alike That after a moment or two It was impossible to remember Which was the eldest or which was the youngest.

Any two of them, sought them how you pleased, were always twins. They all cried in the same key, and with the same comic grimaces. In short, there was not a hair's breadth of difference between them. Not that they had a hair's breadth between them, for, like most babies, they were prematurely bald. The king was very much put out. He did not mind the expense of keeping three heir-apparents, for that fell on the country, and was defrayed by an impost called the Queen's Tax.

But it was the consecrated custom of the kingdom that the crown should pass over to the eldest son, and the absence of accurate knowledge upon this point was perplexing. A triumvirate was out of the question. The multiplication of monarchs would be vexation to the people, and the rule of three would drive them mad. The queen was just as annoyed, though on different grounds. She felt it hard enough to be the one mother in the realm

who could not get the queen's bounty, without having to suffer the king's reproaches. Her heart was broken. and she died soon after of laryngitis. To distinguish the triplets, when it was too late, they were always dressed one in green, one in blue, and one in black, the colours of the national standard, and naturally got to be popularly known by the sobriquets of the green prints,

the blue prints, and the black prince. Every year they got older and older, till at last they became young men. And every year the king got older and older, till at last he became an old man, and the fear crept into his heart, that he might be restored to his wife, and leave the kingdom embroiled in civil feud, unless he settled straight away who should be the heir. But, being human, notwithstanding his court laureates, he put off the disagreeable duty from day to day, and might have died without an heir, if the envoys from Paphlogonia had not aroused him to the necessity of a decision. for they announced that the princess of Paphligonia, being suddenly orphaned,

would be sent to him in the 12th moon, that she might marry his eldest son, as covenanted by ancient treaty. This was the last straw. But I don't know who is my eldest son, yelled the king, who had a vast respect for covenants and the constitution. In great perturbation, he repaired to a famous oracle, at that time worked by a priestess with her hair let down her back, The king asked her a plain question,

Which is my eldest son? After foaming at the mouth like an open champagne bottle, she replied, The eldest is he that the princess shall wed. The king said he knew that already, and was curtly told that if the replies did not give satisfaction, he could go elsewhere. So he went to the wise men and the magicians,

and held a levy of them, and they gave him such goodly counsel that the chief magician was henceforth honoured with the privilege of holding the green, black and blue trickula over the king's head at meal times. Soon after, it being the 12th moon, the king set forward with a little retinue to meet the princess of Paphligonia,

whose coming had got abroad, but returned two days later with the news that the princess was confined to her room and would not arrive in the city till next year. On the last day of the year, the king summoned the three princes to the presence chamber, and they came, the green prince and the blue prints and the black prince, and made obeisance to the monarch, who sat in noir antique robes on the old gold throne, with his courtiers all around him. My sons, he said, ye are aware that, according to the immemorial laws of the realm,

one of you is to be my heir, only I know not which of you he is. The difficulty is complicated By the fact that I have covenanted To espouse him to the Princess of Paphagonia Of whose imminent arrival ye have heard In this dilemma There are those who would set the sovereignty of the state Upon the hazard of a die

But not by such undignified methods Do I deem it prudent to extort the designs of the gods There are ways alike more honourable to you and to me Of ascertaining the intentions of the fates And first, the wise men and the magicians recommend that he be all three sent forth upon an arduous emprys. As all men know, somewhere in the great seas that engirdle admonion, somewhere beyond the ultimate thule, there rangeth a vast monster, intolerable, not to be born.

Every ninth moon this creature approaches our coasts, deluging the land with an inky vomit. This plagy serpent cannot be slain, for the soothsayers a ver it beareth a charmed life. but it were a mighty achievement, if for only one year, the realm could be relieved of its oppression. Are ye willing to set forth separately upon this nightly quest? Then the three princes made enthusiastic answer, entreating to be sped on the journey forthwith, and a great gladness ran through the presence chamber, for all had suffered much from the annual incursions of the monster, and the king's heart was fain of the gallant spirit of the princes. "'Tis well,' said he,

to-morrow at the first dawn of the new year shall ye fare forth together when ye reach the river ye shall part and for eight moons shall ye wander whither ye will only when the ninth moon rises shall ye return and tell me how ye have fared hasten now therefore and equip yourselves as ye desire and if there be aught that will help you in the task he have but to ask for it then answering quickly before his brothers could speak the black Prince cried, Sire, I would crave the magic boat which saileth under the sea and destroyeth mighty armaments. It is thine, replied the king. Then the green prince said, Sire, grant me the magic car which saileth through the air over the great seas. The black prince started and frowned, but the king answered, it is granted. Then, turning to the blue prince, who seemed lost in meditation, the king said, Why art thou silent, my son. Is there nothing I can give thee?

Thanks, I will take a little pigeon, answered the blue prince, abstractedly. The courtiers stared and giggled, and the black prince chuckled, but the blue prince was seemingly too proud to back out of his request. So at sunrise on the morrow, the three princes set forth, journeying together till they came to the river where they had agreed to park company. Here the magic boat was floating at anchor, while the magic car was tied to the trunk of a plain tree, upon the bank, and the little pigeon, fastened by a thread, was fluttering among the branches. Now, when the green prince saw the puny pigeon, he was like to die of laughing. "'Dest thou think to feed the serpent with thy pigeon?' he sneered. "'I fear me thou wilt not choke him off thus.'

"'And what hast thou to laugh at?' retorted the black prince, interposing. "'Dest thou think to find the serpent of the sea in the air?' "'He is always in the air,' murmured the blue-poured the blue-pourned. Prince, inaudibly. Nay, said the Green Prince, scratching his head dubiously, but thou didst so hastily annex the magic boat, I had to take the next best thing. Dost thou accuse me of unfairness? cried the Black Prince, in a pained voice. Sooner than thou shouldst say that, I would change with thee. Wouldst thou, indeed? inquired the Green Prince, eagerly.

Aye, that I would, said the Black Prince indignantly. Take the magic boat, And may the gods speed thee. So saying, he jumped briskly into the magic car, cut the rope, and sailed aloft. Then, looking down contemptuously upon the blue prince, he shouted, Come, mount thy pigeon and be off in search of the monster. But the blue prince replied, I will await you here.

Then the green prince pushed off his boat, chuckling louder than ever. Does thou expect to keep the creature off our coasts by guarding the head of the river? He scoffed. But the blue prince replied. I will await you both here till the ninth moon. No sooner were his brother's gone than the blue prince set about building a hut. Here he lived happily, fishing his meals out of the river, or snaring them out of the sky. The pigeon was never for a moment in danger of being eaten.

It was employed more agreeably to itself and its master, in operations which will appear anon. Most of the time the blueprints lay on his back among the wildflowers, watching the river rippling to the sea, or counting the, the passing of the eight moons that alternately swelled and dwindled, now showing like the orb of black prince's car, now like the green prince's boat. Sometimes he read scraps of papyrus, and his face shone. One lovely starry night, as the blue prince was watching the heavens, it seemed to him as if the eighth moon, in dying, had dropped out of the firmament and was falling upon him. But it was only the black prince come back. His garments were powdered with

snow, his brows were knitted gloomily, he had a dejected, despondent aspect. "'Thou here?' he snapped. "'Of course,' said the blue prince cheerfully, though he seemed a little embarrassed all the same. "'Haven't I been here all the time? But go into my hut, I've kept supper hot for thee.' "'Has the green prince had his?' "'No, I haven't seen anything of him. Hasst thou scotch the serpent?' "'No, I haven't seen anything of him,' growled the black print. I've passed backwards and forwards over the entire face of the ocean,

but nowhere have I caught the slightest glimpse of him. What a fool I was to give up the magic boat! He never seems to come to the surface. All this while the Blue Prince was dragging his brother, with suspicious solicitude towards the hut, where he sat him down to his own supper of waterlands and oysters. But the host had no sooner run outside again, on the pretext of seeing if the Green Prince was coming,

than there was a disturbance and eddying in the stream, as of a rally of water-rats, and the magic boat shot up like a catapult, and the green prince stepped on deck, all dry and dusty, and with the air of a draggled dragonfly. Good evening! Hast thou, er, scotch the serpent? Stammered the blue prince, taken aback. No, I haven't even seen anything of him, growled the green prince. I have skimmed along the entire surface of the ocean, and sailed every inch beneath it, but nowhere have I caught the slightest glimpse of him.

What a fool I was to give up the magic car. From a height, I could have commanded an ampler area of ocean. Perhaps he was up the river. No, I haven't seen anything of him, replied the blueprints hastily. But go into my hut, thy supper must be getting quite cold. He hurried his verdant brother into the hut, and gave him some chestnuts out of the oven. It was the best he could do for him, and then rushed outside again, on the plea of seeing if the serpent was coming.

But he seemed to expect him to come. from the sky. For leaning against the trunk of the plain tree by the river, he resumed his anxious scrutiny of the constellations. Presently there was a gentle whirring in the air, and a white bird became visible, flying rapidly downwards in his direction. Almost at the same instant, he felt himself pinioned by a rope to the tree trunk, and saw the legs of the alighting pigeon, neatly prison in the black prince's fist. Aha! croaked the black prince triumphantly. Now we shall see through thy little schemes.

He detached the slip of papyrus, which dangled from the pigeon's neck. How darest thou read my letters? gasped the blueprints. If I dare to rob the mail, I should certainly not hesitate to read the letters, answered the black prince coolly, and went on to enunciate slowly, for the light was bad. The following lines. Heart sick! I watched the old. moon's lingering death, and long upon my face to feel thy breath, I burn to see its final flicker die, and greet our moon of honey in the sky.

What is all this moonshine? He concluded in bewilderment. Now the blue prince was the soul of Kandor, and seeing that nothing could now be lost by telling the truth, he answered. This is the letter from a damsel, who resided in the Tower of Telefonia, on the outskirts of the capital. engaged. No doubt the language seemeth to thee a little overdone, but wait till thy turn cometh. And so thou hast employed this pigeon as a carrier between thee and this suburban young person, cried the black prince, feeling vaguely boiling over with rage. Even so, answered his brother, but guard thy tongue, the lady of whom thou speakest so disrespectfully, is none other than

the princess of Paphagonia. Eh, what? gasped the black prince. She hath resided there, since the twelfth moon of last year. The king received her the first time he set out to meet her. Dost thou dare say the king hath spoken untruth? Nay, nay, the king is a wise man. Wise men never mean what they say. The king said she was confined to her room. It is true, for he had confined her in the tower with her maidens,

for fear she should fall in love with the wrong prince, or the reverse, before the rightful heir was discovered. The king said she would not arrive in the city till. next year. This is also true. As thou did striitely observe, the Tower of Telephonia is situated in the suburbs. The king did not bargain for my discovering that a beautiful woman lived in its topmost turret. Nay, how couldst thou discover that? The king did not lend thee the magic car, and thou certainly couldst not see her at that height, without the magic glass. I have not seen her, but through the embrasure I often saw the sunlight flashing and leaping like a thing of life, and I knew it was

what the children call a Johnny Noddy. Now a Johnny Noddy argue with a mirror, and a mirror argueth a woman, and frequent use thereof argue with a beautiful woman. So when in the presence chamber the king told us of his dilemma, asked of the hand of the princess of Paphligonia, it instantly dawned upon me who the beautiful woman was, and why the king was keeping her hidden away, and why he had hidden away his meaning also. Wherefore straight away I asked for a pigeon, knowing that the pigeons of the town roost on the Tower of Telephonia, so that I had but to fly my bird at the end of a long string like a kite, to establish communication between

me and the fair captive. In time my little messenger grew so used to the journey, to and fro, that I could dispense with the string. Our courtship has been most satisfactory. We love each other ardently, and—' But you have never seen each other, interrupted the black prince. "'Thou forgettest we are both royal personages,' said the blue prince, in astonished reproof. "'But this is gross treachery. What right hadst thou to make these underhand advances in our absence? Thou forgettest I had to scotch the serpent, said the blue prince, in astonished reproof. Thou forgettest also that she can only marry the heir to the throne.

Ah, true, said the black prince, considerably relieved, and as thou hast chosen to fritter away the time in making love to her, thou hast taken the best way to lose her. Thou forgettest I shall have to marry her, said the blue prince, in astonished reproof. not only because I have given my word to a lady, but because I have promised the king to do my best to scotch the serpent of the sea. Really, thou seemest terribly dull to-day. Let me put the matter in a nutshell. If he who scotches the sea-servant is to marry the princess, then would I scotch the sea-serpent by marrying the princess, and marry the princess to scotch the sea-serpent? Thou hast searched the face of the sea, and our brother has dragged its depths, and nowhere have ye seen the sea-serpent.

yet in the ninth moon he will surely come, and the land will be covered with an inky vomit, as in former years. But if I marry the princess of Paphligonia in the ninth moon, the royal wedding will ward off the sea serpent, and not a scribe will shed ink to tell of his advent. Therefore, instead of ranging through the earth, I stayed at home and paid my addresses to the—' Yes, yes, what a fool I was! interrupted the black prince, smiting his brow with his palm, so that the pigeon escaped from between his fingers. and winged its way back to the Tower of Telephonia, as if to carry his words to the princess. "'Thou forgettest thou art a fool still,' said the blue prince, in astonished reproof.

"'Prithee, and bind me forthwith. Nay, I am a fool no longer, for it is I that shall wed the princes of Paphlogonia and scotch the sea-serpent. It is I that have sent the pigeon to and fro, and unless thou makest me thine oath to be silent on the matter, I will slay thee, and cast thy body into the river.' "'Thou forgettest our brother, the green prince,' said the blue prince, in astonished reproof. "'Bah, he hath eyes for naught, but the odd autterlands and oysters I sacrificed, "'that he might gorge himself with all, while I spied out thy secret. "'He shall be told that I return to exchange my car for thy pigeon, even as I exchanged my boat

"'for his car. Come, thineoth, or thou diest.' And a jewelled scimitar shimmered in the starlight. The blue prince reflected that though life without love was hardly worth living, death was quite useless. So he swore and went into supper. When he found that the green prince had not spared even a baked chestnut before he fell asleep, he swore again. And on the morrow, when the princes approached the Tower of Telephonia, with its flashing Johnny Noddy, they met a courier from the king, who, having informed himself of the black prince's success, ran ahead. with the rumour thereof.

And lo, when the princes passed through the city gate, they found the whole population abroad, clad in all their bravery, and flags flying, and bells ringing, and roses showering from the balconies, and merry music swelling in all the streets, for joy of the prospect of the sea serpent's absence.

And when the new moon rose, the three princes, escorted by flute-players, hide them to the presence chamber, and the king embraced his sons, And the Black Prince stood forward, and explained that if a prince were married in the Ninth Moon, it would prevent the monster's annual visit. Then the King fell upon the Black Prince's neck, and wept and said, My son, my son, my pet, my baby, my Tutsicums, my poopsie-wopsie.

And then, recovering himself, and addressing the courtiers, he said, The gods have enabled me to discover my youngest son. If they will only now continue as propitious, so that I may discover the elder of the other two, I shall die not all unhappy. But the black prince could repress his astonishment no longer. Am I dreaming, sire? he cried. Surely I have proved myself the eldest, not the youngest. Thou forgettest that thou hast come off successful, replied the king, in astonished reproof.

Or art thou so ignorant of history, or of the sacred narratives, handed down to us by our ancestors, that thou art unaware that when three brothers set out on the same quest, it is always the youngest brother that emerges triumphant, such is the will of the gods. Cease, therefore, thy blasphemous talk, lest they overhear thee, and be put out. A low ominous murmur from the courtiers emphasized the king's warning. But the princess, she at least is mine, protested the unhappy prince. We love each other. We are engaged.

Thou forgettest, she can only marry the heir, replied the king, in astonished reproof. Wouldst thou have us repudiate our solemn treaty? But I wasn't really the first to hit on the idea at all, cried the black prince desperately. Ask the blue prince, he never telleth untruth. Thou forgettest, I have taken an oath of silence on the matter, replied the blue prince, in astonished reproof. The black prince it was. that first hit on the idea,

volunteered the Green Prince. He exchanged his boat for the car, and the car for the pigeon. So the three princes were dismissed, while the King took counsel with the magicians and the wise men who never mean what they say. And the court Chamberlain,

wearing the orchid of office in his buttonhole, was sent to interview the princess, and returned, saying that she refused to marry anyone but the proprietor of the pigeon, and that she still had his letters as evidence in case of his marrying anyone else. "'Bah,' said the king,

"'she shall obey the treaty. "'Six feet of parchment are not to be put aside "'for the whim of a girl five foot eight. "'The only real difficulty remaining "'is to decide whether the blue-prince "'or the green prince is the elder. "'Let me see,' what was it the oracle said. "'Perhaps it will be clearer now.

"'The eldest is he that the princess shall wed.' "'No, it still seems merely to avoid stating, anything new. Pardon me, sire, replied the chief magician. It seems perfectly plain now. Obviously, thou art to let the princess choose her husband,

and the oracle guarantees that, other things being equal, she shall select the eldest. If thou hadst let her have the pick from among the three, she would have selected the one with whom she was in love, the black prince, to wit,

and that would have interfered with the oracle's arrangements. But now that we know with whom she is in love, we can remove that one, and then, there being no reason why she should choose the green prince rather than the blueprints, the deities of the realm undertake to inspire her to go by age only. Thou hast spoken well, said the king, Let the princess of Paphlogonia be brought, and let the two princes return. So, after a space, the beautiful princess, preceded by trumpeters, was conducted to the palace, blinking her eyes at the unaccustomed splendour of the lights.

And the king, and all the courtiers blink their eyes, dazzled by her loveliness. She was clad in white somite, and on her shoulder was perched a pet pigeon. The king sat in his noir robes on the old gold throne, and the blue prince stood on his right hand, and the green prince on his left. left. The black prince, as the youngest, having been sent to bed early. The princess, curtsied three times, the third time so low that the pigeon was flustered and flew off her shoulder, and, after circling about, alighted on the head of the blue prince. It is the crown, said the chief magician, in an awe-struck voice.

Then the princess's eyes looked around in search of the pigeon, and when they lighted on the prince's head, they kindled as the grey sea kindles at sunrise. An answering radiance shone in the blue prince's eyes, as, taking the pigeon that nestled in his hair, he let it fly towards the princess. But the princess, her bosom heaving, as if another pigeon fluttered beneath the white somite, caught it and set it free again, and again it made for the blue prince. Three times the birds bed to and fro, then the princess ran. her humid eyes heavenward, and from her sweet lips, rippled like music the verse,

Last night I watched its final flicker die, and the blueprints answered, Now greet our moon of honey in the sky. Half fainting with rapture, the princess fell into his arms, and from all sides of the great hall arose the cries. The air, the air, long live our future king, the eldest born, the orific.

So, such was the origin of lawn tennis, which began with people tossing pigeons to each other in imitation of the prince and princess in the palace hall. And this is why love plays so great a part in the game, and that is how the match was arranged between the blue prince and the princess of Paphligonia. End of the Queen's Triplets, recording by Lucy Perry in Bath on January 11, 2014. Grotesques and fantasies. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Greg Giardano.

Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill. A successful operation. robert came home anxious and perturbed for the first time since his return from their honeymoon he crossed the threshold of the tiny house without a grateful sense of blessedness what is it robert panted mary her sweet lips cold from his perfunctory kiss he is going blind he said in low tones not your father she murmured dazed yes my father i thought it was nothing or rather i scarcely thought about it at all the doctor at the eye hospital merely asked him to bring some one with him next time naturally he came to me there was a touch of bitterness about the final phrase oh how terrible said mary her pretty face looked almost wan i don't see that you're called upon to distress yourself So much dear, said Robert, a little resentfully. He hasn't even been a friend to you.

Oh, Robert, how can you think of all that now? If he did try to keep you from marrying a penniless, friendless girl, if he did force you to work long years for me, was it not all for the best, now that his fortune has been swept away? Where would you be without money or occupation? Where would Providence be without its women defecutive? vendors, murmured Robert. You don't understand finance, dear. He might easily have provided for me long before the crash came. Never mind, Robert. Are we not all the happier for having waited for each other?

And in the spiritual ecstasy of her glance, he forgot for a while his latest trouble. Robert's father lived in a little room on a small allowance made him by his outcast son. Broken by age and misfortune, he potted about chess-rooms and debating forms, garrulous and dogmatic, and given to tippling. But now the consciousness of his coming infirmity crushed him, and he sat for days on his bed brooding, waiting in terror for the darkness, and glad when day after day ended, only in the shadows of Eve. Sometimes, instead of the dreaded darkness,

sunlight came. That was when Mary dropped in to cheer him up, and to repeat to him that the hospital took a most hopeful view of his case, was only waiting for the darkness to be thickest to bring back the dawn. It took four months before the light faded utterly, and then another month before the film was opaque enough to allow the cataract to be couched. The old man was to go into the hospital for the operation. Robert hired, a lad to be with him during the month of waiting, and sometimes sat with him in the evenings, after business, and now and then the landlady looked in, and told him her troubles, and the attendant was faithful, and went out frequently to buy him gin. But it was only Mary who could really soothe him now, for the poor old creature's soul groped blindly amid new apprehensions. A nervous dread of the chloroforming, the puncturing, the strange sounds of voices. of the great blank hospital, where he felt confusedly he would be lost in an ocean of unfathomable night, incapable even of divining from past experience, the walls about him, or the ceiling

over his head, and with all a paralyzing foreboding, that the operation would be a failure, that he would live out the rest of his days with the earth prematurely over his eyes. I am very glad to see you, my dear. say when Mary came, and then he fell a-mondering, self-pitifully. Mary went home one day and said, "'Rober, dear, I have been thinking.' "'Yes, my pet,' he said encouragingly, for she looked timid and hesitant.

Couldn't we have the operation performed here? He was startled, protested, pointed out the impossibility, but she had answers for all his objections. they could give up their own bedroom for a fortnight but only be a fortnight or three weeks at most turn their sitting-room into a bedroom for themselves what if infinite care would be necessary in regulating the dark room surely they could be as careful as the indifferent hospital nurses if they were only told what to do and as for the trouble that wasn't worth considering but you forget my foolish little girl he said at last if he comes here we shall have to pay the expenses of the operation ourselves well would that be much she asked innocently only fifty guineas or so i should think he replied crushingly what with the operating fee and the nurse and the subsequent medical attendance but mary was not altogether crushed It wouldn't be all our savings, she murmured.

Are you forgetting what we shall be needing our savings for, he said with gentle reproach, as he stroked her soft hair. She blushed angelically. No, but surely there will be enough left, and I shall be making all his things myself, and by that time we shall have put by a little more. In the end she conquered, the old man. to whom no faintest glimmer now penetrated, was installed in the best bedroom, which was darkened by double blinds and strips of cloth over every chink and a screen before the door,

and a nurse sat on guard lest any ray or twinkle should find its way into the pitchy gloom. The great specialist came with two assistants, and departed in an odor of chloroform, conscious of another dexterous deed, to return only when the first one, the critical moment of raising the bandage should have arrived. During the fortnight of suspense, an assistant replaced him, and the old man lay quiet and hopeful, rousing himself to talk dogmatically to his visitors. Mary gave him such time as she could spare from household duties, and he always kissed her on the forehead, so that his bandage just grazed her hair, remarking he was very glad to see her.

It was a strange experience these conversations carried on in absolute darkness, and they gave her a feeling of kinship with the blind. She discovered that smiles were futile, and that laughter alone availed in this uncanny intercourse. For compensation, her face could wear an anxious expression without alarming the patient. But it rarely did, for her spirits mounted with his. Before the operation, she had been terribly, anxious, wondering at the last moment if it would not have been performed more safely at the hospital,

and ready to take upon her shoulders the responsibility for a failure. But as day after day went by, and all seemed going well, her thoughts veered round, she felt sure they would not have been so careful at the hospital. It was owing to this new confidence that one fatal night, carrying her candle, She walked mechanically into her bedroom, forgetting it was not hers. The nurse sprang up instantly, rushed forward, and blew out the light. Mary screamed. The screen fell with a clatter. The blind old man awoke and streaked nervously. It was a terrible moment. After that, Mary went through agonies of apprehension and remorse. Fortunately, the end of the operation was very near now.

In a day or two the great specialist came to remove the bandage, while the nurse carefully admitted a feeble illumination. If the patient could see now, the rest was a mere matter of time, of cautious gradation of light in the sick chamber, so that there might be no relapse. Mary dared not remain in the room at the instant of supreme crisis. She lingered outside overwrought. slowly, with infinite solicitude, the bandage was raised. Can you see anything? burst from Robert's lips.

Yes, but what makes the window look red? grumbled the old man. I congratulate you, said the great specialist and loud, hearty accents. Thank God, sobbed Mary's voice outside. When her child was born, It was blind. End of a successful operation. Recording by Greg Giordano. Newport Ritchie, Florida.

Section number 18 of Grotesques and Fantasies. This is a Libravox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recording by Matthew Nuer. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zengville. Flutter Duck, a ghetto grotesque. Chapter 1. Flutter duck in feather.

So sitting, served by man and maid, she felt her heart go prouder. Tinnison, the goose. Although everyone calls her Flutter Duck now, there was a time when the inventor had exclusive rights to the nickname, and used it only in the privacy of his own apartment. That time did not last long, for the inventor was Flutter Duck's husband, and his apartment was a public workroom among other things. He gave her the name in Yiddish, Flatarkatchki, a descriptive music in syllables, full of the flutter and quack of the farmyard. It expressed his dissatisfaction with her airy, flighty propensities, her love of gaiety and gadding. She was a butterfly,

irresponsible, off to balls and parties almost once a month, and he, a self-conscious aunt, resented her. From the point of view of piety, she was also sadly to seek, rejecting women, in favor of the fringe. In the weak moments of early love, her husband had acquiesced in the profanity, but later all the gain to her soft prettiness did not compensate for the twinges of his conscience. Flutterduck's husband was a furrier, a master furrier, for did he not run a workshop? This workshop was also his living room, and this living room was also his bedroom. It was a large front room on the first floor, over a Chandler shop in an old-fashioned house in Montague Street, Whitechapel. It shape was peculiar, an oblong stretching streetwards interrupted in one of the longer walls by a square

projection that might have been accounted a room in itself by the landlord, and was, indeed, used as a kitchen. That the fireplace had been built in this corner was thus an advantage. Entering through the door on the grand staircase, you found yourself nearest the window with the bulk of the room on your left in the square recess at the other end of your wall, so that you could not see it at first. At the window, which of course gave on Montague Street, was the bare wooden table at the wall. And the square wooden table which the hands, man, woman, and boy, sat and stitched. The finished work, a confusion of fur caps, boas, tippets, and trimmings, hung over the dirty wainscot between the door and the recess. The middle of the room was quite bare, to give the workers' freedom of movement, but the wall

facing you was a background for luxurious furniture. First, nearest the window, came a sofa, on which even in the first years of marriage Flutterduck's husband sometimes lay prone, too unwell to do more than superintend the operations, for he was of a consumptive habit. Over the sofa hung a large gilt-frame mirror, the guilt protected by muslin drappings, in the corners of which fly-blown paper flowers grew. Next to the sofa was a high chest of drawers

crowned with dusty decanters, and after an interval filled up with the Sabbath clothes hanging on pegs and covered by a white sheet. The bed used up the rest of the space, its head in one side touching the walls, and its foot stretching towards the kitchen fire. On the wall above this fire hung another mirror, small and narrow and full of wavering watery reflections, also framed in muslin, though this time the muslin served to conceal

dirt not to protect guilt. The kitchen dresser, decorated with pink needlework paper, was at right angles to the fireplace, and it faced the kitchen table at which flutter duck cleaned fish, peeled potatoes, and made meat kosher by salting and soaking it, as rabbinic law demanded. By the foot of the bed, in the narrow wall opposite the window, was a door leading to a tiny inner room. For years this door remained locked. Another family lived on the other side, and the furrier had neither the means nor the need for an extra bedroom. It was a room made for escapades and romances, connected with the backyard by a steep ladder, up and down which

the family might be seen going, and from which you could tumble into a broken-headed waterbutt, or, by a dexterous backfall, arrive in a dust-bin. Jacob's Ladder, the neighbors called it, though the family name was Isaac's. And over everything was the train. of the fur. The air was full of a fine fluff. A million little hairs floated about the room covering everything, insulating themselves everywhere, getting down the backs of the workers and tickling them, getting into their lungs and making them cough, getting into their food and drank and sickening them till they learnt callousness. They awoke with furred tongues, and they went to bed with them. The irritating filaments gathered on their clothes, on their faces, on the crockery,

on the sofa, on the mirrors big and little, on the bed, on the the decanters, on the sheet that hid the Sabbath clothes, an impalpable down overlaying everything, penetrating even to the drinking water in the board-covered zinc bucket, and covering Rabetson, the household cat, with foreign fur. And in this room, drawing such breath of life, they sat, man, woman, boy, bending over boas, bewitching young ladies would shake in, stitch, stitch, from eight till two and from three till eight, with occasional overtime that ran on now and again, far into the next day, till their eyelids would not keep open any longer, and they couched on the floor on a heap of finished work. Stitch, stitch, winter and summer, all day long,

swallowing haresuit, bread, and butter at nine in the morning, and pausing at tea time for five o'clock fur. And when twilight fell, the gas was lit in the crowded room, thickening still further the clogged atmosphere, charged with human breaths and street odors, and wafts from the kitchen corner and the leathery smell of the dyed skins. And at times the yellow fog would steal in to contribute its clammy vapors. And often a winter's morning, the fog arrived early, and the gas that had lighted the first hours of work would burn on all day in the thick air, flaring on the oriental figures with that strange glamour of gaslight and fog, and throwing heavy shadows on the bare boards, glazing with satin sheen the pendant snakes of fur, alluming the bowed heads of the

workers and the master's sickly face under the tasseled smoking cap, and touching up the faded fineries of flutter duck, as she flitted about, chattering and cooking. Into such an atmosphere, Flutter Duck one day introduced a daughter, the hands getting the afternoon off, in honor not of the occasion, but of decency. After that, the crying of an infant became a feature of existence in the Furier's workshop. Gradually it got rare as little Rachel grew up and reconciled herself to life. But the fountain of tears never quite ran dry.

Rachel was a passionate child and did not enjoy the best of parents. Every morning Flutter Duck, who felt very grateful to heaven for this crowning boon, at one time bitterly dubious, made the child say her prayers. Flutterduck said them word by word, and Rachel repeated them. They were in Hebrew, and neither Flutterduck nor Rachel had the least idea what they meant. For years these prayers perluded stormy scenes. Mediani, Flutterduck would begin. Mediami, little Rachel would lisp in her piping voice.

It was two words, but Flutterduck imagined it was one. She gave the syllables and recitation, the Ani just two notes higher than the Medi, and she accented them quite wrongly. When Rachel first grew articulate, Flutter Duck was so overjoyed to hear the little girl echoing her, that she would often turn to her husband with an exclamation of, Thou dearest Louis Love? And he, impatiently, knee, knee, I hear. Flutter Duck, thus recalled from the pleasures of maternity to its duties,

would recommence the prayer. Mediani, which little Rachel would silently ignore. Mediani! Flutterduck's tone would now be imperative and ill-tempered. Then little Rachel would turn to her father querulously. she they thit again mediani father and flutter duck outraged by this childish insolence would exclaim thou hearest louis love and incontinently fall to clouting the child and the father annoyed by the shrill ululation consequent upon the clouting knee i hear too much rachel's refusal to be coerced into giving devotional overmeasure was not merely due to her sense of equity her appetite counted for more prayers were the avenue to breakfast and to pamper her feather-headed mother in repetitions was to put back the meal flutter duck was quite capable of breaking down even in the middle if her attention was distracted for a moment and of trying back from the very beginning she would for example get as far as here my daughter the instruction of thy mother giving out the words one by one in the sacred language which was to her abracadabra.

And little Rachel, equally in the dark, would repeat obediently. Here, my daughter, in the instruction of thy mother, then the kettle would boil, or flutter duck would overhear a remark made by one of the hands and interject, yes, I'd give him, or a fat lot she knows about it, or some phrase of that sort, after which she would grope for the lost thread of the prayer, and end by ejaculating desperately, Mediani, and the child sternly setting her face against this flippancy, there would be slapping and screaming, and if the father protested, Flutterduck would toss her head and rejoin in her most dignified English, If I been a mother, I been a mother.

To the logical adult, it would be obvious that the little girl's obstinacy put the breakfast still further back, but then, obstinate little girls are not logical, and when Rachel had been beaten, she would eat no breakfast at all. She sat sullenly in the corner, her pretty face swollen by weeping, and her great black eyes suffused with tears. Only her father could coax her then. He would go so far as to allow her to nurse Rebetson without reminding her that the creature's touch would make her forget all she knew, and convert her to a cat's head. And certainly Rachel always forgot not to touch the cat. Possibly the basis of her father's psychological superstition was the fact that the cat is an unclean animal, not to be handled, for he would not

touch puss himself, though her pious title of Rebetson or rabbi's wife, was the invention of this master of nicknames. But for such flashes, no one would have suspected the stern little man of humor. But he had it, dry. He called the cat Rabetson ever since the day she refused to drink milk after meat. Perhaps she was gorged with the meat. But he insisted that the cat had caught religion through living in a Jewish family, and he developed a theory that she would not eat meat till it was kosher, so that in its earlier stages it might be exposed without risk of feline larceny. Cats are soothing to infants, but they cease to satisfy Rachel when she grew up. Her education, while it gratified her majesty's inspectors, was not calculated

to eradicate the domestic rebel in her. At school she learned of the existence of two Hebrew words called Modua Ani, but it was not until sometime after that it flashed upon her that they were closely related to Mediani, and the discovery did not improve her opinion of her mother. She was a bonny child, who promised to be a beautiful girl, and her teachers petted her. They dressed well these teachers, and Rachel ceased to consider Flutterduck's Sabbath shawl the standard of taste in splendor. Air she was in her teen she grumbled at her home surroundings and even fell foul of the all-pervading fur, thereby quarreling with her bread and butter in more senses than one. She would open the window, strangely fastidious, to eat her bread and butter off the broad ledge outside the room, but often the

fur only came flying the faster to the spot as if in search of air. And in the winter her pretentious queasiness set everybody remonstrating and shivering in the sudden draught. Her objection to fir did not, however, embrace the preparation of it. For after school hours the little girl sat patiently stitching till late at night, by way of apprenticeship to her future, buoyed up by her earnings, and adding strip to strip with the hair going all the same way, till she had made a great black snake. Of course, she did not get anything near three halfpence for twelve yards, like the real hands, but whatever she earned went towards her festival frocks, which she would have got in any

case. Not knowing this, she was happy to deserve the pretty dresses she loved, and was least impatient of her mother's chatter when Flutter Duck dinned into her ears how pretty she looked in them. Alas, it was to be feared Lewis was right that Flutter Duck was a rattlebrain indeed. And the years which brought Flutter Duck prosperity, which emancipated her from personal participation in the sewing, and gave Rachel the little bedroom to herself, did not bring wisdom. When Flutter Duck's felicity culminated in a maid-servant, if only one who slept out, She was like a child with a monkey on a stick. She gave the servant orders merely to see her arms and legs moving.

She also lay late in bed to enjoy the spectacle of the factotum making the nine o'clock coffee. It had been for so many years her own duty to prepare for the hands. How sweetly the waft of chicory came to her nostrils. At first her husband remonstrated, It is not beautiful, he said. You ought to get up before the hands come. Flutter duck flushed resentfully. If I've been a missus, I've been a missus, she said with dignity.

it became one of her formulae. When the servant developed insolence, as under Flutterduck's fostering familiarity she did, Flutterduck would resume her dignity with a jerk. If I been a missus, she would say, tossing her flighty head haughtily, I've been a missus. End of Flutterduck, Chapter 1, Flooderduck in Feather. Section number 19 of grotesques and fantasies.

This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Matthew Nurger. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangville.

Flooder Duck, Chapter 2, A Migratory Bird. There strode a stranger to the door, and it was windy weather, Tennyson, the goose. One day, when Rachel was 19, there came to the workshop a handsome young man. He had been brought by a placard in the window of the Chandler's shop and was found to answer perfectly to its once. He took his place

at the work table and soon came to the front as a wayjourner, wielding a dexterous needle that rarely snapped, even in white fur. His name was Emmanuel Lefcovic, and his seat was next to Rachel's. For Rachel had long since entered into her career, and the beauty of her early blossoming womanhood was bent day after day over strips of rabbit skin, which she made into seal-skin jackets. For compensation to her youth, Rachel walked out on the Sabbath elegantly attired in the latest fashion. She ordered her own frocks now, having a banking account of her own, in a tin box that was hidden away in her little bedroom. Her father honorably paid her a wage as large as she would have got elsewhere, otherwise she would have gone there. Her Sabbath walks extended as far as Hyde Park, and she loved to watch the fine ladies cantering in the row or lolling in luxurious carriages.

Sometimes she even peeped into fashionable restaurants. She became the admiring disciple of a girl who worked at a Jewish furriers in Regent Street and whose occidental habitat gave her a halo of aristocracy. Even on Friday nights, Rachel would disappear from the sacred domesticity of the Sabbath hearth, and Flutter Duck suspected that she went to the Cambridge Music Hall in Spittlefields. This led to dramatic scenes, for Rachel's frowardness had not decreased with age. If she had only gone out with some accredited young man, Flutter Duck could have borne the scandal in view of the joyous prospect of becoming a grandmother.

But no. Rachel tolerated no matrimonial advances, not even from the most seductive of Shad Shamin, though her voluptuous figure and rosy lips marked her out for the marriage broker's eye. Her father had grown sterner with the growth of his malady, and though at the bottom of his heart he loved and was proud of his beautiful, Rachel, The words that rose to his lips were often as harsh and bitter as fluttered oxone, so that the girl would withdraw sullenly into herself and hold no converse with her parents for days.

Nevertheless, there were plenty of halcyon intervals, especially in the busy season, when the extra shillings made the whole workroom brisk and happy, and the furriers gossipped of this and that, and told stories more droll than decorous, and then, too, every day was a delightfully inevitable sweep towards the Sabbath, and every Sabbath was a spoke in the great revolving wheel that brought round to them picturesque festivals or solemn fasts, scarcely less enjoyable. And so there was an undercurrent of poetry below the sordid prose of daily life, and rifts in the gray fog, through which they caught glimpses of the reserve vastness

overarching the world. In the advent of Emmanuel of Koldevich distinctly lightened the atmosphere. His handsome face, his gay spirits were like an influx of ozone. rachel was perceptibly the brighter for his presence she was gentler to everybody even to her parents and chatted vivaciously and walked with an airier step the sickly master furrier's face lit up with pleasure as from his sofa he watched emmanuel's assiduous attentions to his girl in the way of picking up scissors and threading needles and he frowned when flutter duck hovered about the young man chattering and monopolizing his conversation but one fine morning some months after emmanuel's arrival a change came over the spirit of this the scene. There was a knock at the door, and an ugly, shabby woman in a green tartan shawl entered. She scrutinized the room sharply, then uttered a joyful cry of, Emmanuel, my love! And threw herself upon the handsome young man with an affectionate embrace.

Emmanuel, flushed and paralyzed, was a ludicrous figure, and the workers tittered, not unfamiliar with marital contrimps. Let me be, he said sullenly at last, as he entwined her dogged arms, I tell you I won't have anything to do with you. It's no use. Oh, Emmanuel, love, don't say that. Not after all these months. Go away, cried Emmanuel hoarsely. Be not so obstinate, she persisted in wheedling accents, stroking his flaming cheaps, kiss little Joshua and little marry him. Here the spectators became aware of two Wobigon infants dragged at her skirts. Go away, repeated Emmanuel passionately,

and pushed her from him with violence. The ugly, shabby woman burst into hysterical tears. My own husband, dear people, she sobbed, addressing the room. My own husband, married to me in Poland five years ago. See, I have the sesaba. She half drew the marriage parchment from her bosom. And he won't live with me. Every time he runs away from me.

Last time I saw him was in Liverpool, on the eve of tabernacles. And before that, I had to go and find him in Newcastle. And he promised me never to go away again. Yes, you did, you know you did, Emmanuel Love, and here have I been looking weeks for you at all the furriers and tailors without bread and salt for the children, and the board of guardians won't believe me, and blame me for coming to London. Oh, Emmanuel love, God shall forgive you. Her dress was disheveled, her wig or eye, big tears streamed down her cheeks. How can I live with a witch like that? asked Emmanuel in brutal self-defense.

There are worse than me in the world, rejoined the world. woman meekly. Knee, roughly interposed the master furrier, who had risen from his sofa in the excitement of the scene. It is beautiful not to live with one's wife. He paused to cough. You must not put her to shame. It is she who puts me to shame, Emmanuel turned to Rachel, who had let her work slip to the floor, and whose face had grown white and stern, and continued deprecatingly. I never wanted her. They caught me by a trick. Don't talk to me, snapped Rachel, turning her back on him. The woman looked at her suspiciously. The girl's beauty seemed to burst upon her face for the first time. He is my husband, she repeated, and made as if she would draw out the kesaba again.

Knee, knee enough, said the master for your curtly. You're wasting our time. Your husband shall live with you, or he shall not work with me. You have deceived us, you rogue, put in fluttered up shrilly. Did I ever say I was a single man? retorted Emmanuel, shrugging his shoulders. There, he confess it. There, he confesses it, cried his wife in glee. Come, Emmanuel Love, as she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately. Do not be obstinate. I can't come now, he said, with sulky facetiousness.

Where are you living? She told him, and he said he would come when work was over. On your faith? she asked, with another uneasy glance at racial. On my faith, he answered. She moved towards the door, with her drag. tale of infants. As she was vanishing, he called shamefacedly to the departing children. Well, Joshua, well, Miriam, is this the way one treats a father? A nice way your mother has brought you up. They came back to him dubiously, with unwashed pathetic faces, and he kissed them.

Rachel bent down to pick up her rabbit skin. Work was resumed in dead silence. End of Flutter Duck, Chapter 2. Section number 20 of Grotesques and Fetka fantasies. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Matthew Nurgar. Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zongville. Flooderduck. Chapter 3. Flight The goose flew this way and flew that and filled the house with clamor. Tinnison, the goose. Flutter Duck could not resist rushing in to show the gorgeous goose she had bought from a man in the street, a most wonderful bargain. Although it was only a Wednesday, why should they not have a goose?

They were at the thick of the busy season, and the winner promised to be bitter, so they could afford it. Neen, there are enough festivals in our religion already, grumbled her husband, who, despite his hacking cough, had been driven to the work table by the plentifulness of work and the scarcity of hands. Almost as big a goose as herself, whispered Emmanuel Lefkevich to his circle. He had made his peace with his wife, and was again become the center of the workroom's gaiety. What a bargain, he said aloud, clucking his tongue with admiration, and Flutter Duck, consoled for her husband's criticism, scurried out again to have her bargain killed by the official slaughterer. When she returned, doleful and indignant, with the goose still in her basket, and the news that the functionary had refused at Jewish execution and pronounced it

chrippa, unclean, for some minute ritual reason, she broke off her denunciation of the vendor from a sudden perception that some graver misfortune had happened in her absence. Neen, said Lewis, when she stopped her chatter. Decidedly, God will not have us make festival today. Even you must work. Me, gasped Flutterduck. Then she learned that Emmanuel Lefcovich, whom she had left so gay, had been taken with acute pains and had had to go home, and worked pressed, and Flutterduck must understudy him in all her spare moments. She was terribly vexed.

She had arranged to go and see an old crony's daughter married in the synagogue that afternoon, and she would have to give that up, if indeed her husband did not even expect her to give up the ball in the evening. She temporarily tethered the goose's leg to a bedpost by a long string, so that for the rest of the day the big bird waddled pompously around the floor and under the bed, unconscious to what or whom it owed its life, and blissfully unaware that it was trippah.

Neen-nie, sniggered Lewis, as Flutter duck savagely kicked the cat out of her way. don't be alarmed, Rabetskin won't attack it. Rabetson is a better judge of Tripas than you. It was another cat, but it was the same joke. Flutter duck began to clean the fish with an intensified viciousness. She had bought them as a substitute for the goose, and they were a constant reminder of her complex ill-hap. Very soon she cut her finger and scored the walls vainly in search of Cabo obligature.

Bitter was her plaint of the servants' mismanagement. When she herself had looked after the house, there had been no lack of cobwebs in the corners. Nor was this the end of Flutterduck's misfortunes. When, in the course of the afternoon, she sent up to Mrs. Levy on the second floor to remind her that she would be wanting her embroidered petticoat for the evening. Answer came back that it was the anniversary of Mrs. Levy's mother's death, and she could not permit even her petticoat to go to a wedding. Finally, the gloves that Flutter Duck borrowed from the Chandler's wife were split at the thumbs, and so the servant was kept running to and fro, spoiling the neighbors for greater glory of Flutterduck.

it was only at the eleventh hour that an embroidered petticoat was obtained altogether there was electricity in the air and emmanuel was not present to divert it down the road of jocularity the furrier stitched sullenly with a pre-sentiment of storm but it held over all day and there was hoped the currents would pass harmlessly away With the rising of Flutter Duck from the work table, however, the first rumblings began. Lewis did not attempt to restrain her from her society dissipation, but he fumed inwardly throughout her toilet. More than ever he realized, as he sat coughing and bending over the earmine, he was tufting with black spots, the incompatibility of this union between ant and butterfly, and occasionally his thought would shoot out in dry sarcasm. But Flutter Duck had passed beyond the plain in which Lewis existed as her husband. all day she had talked freely, if a wit condescendingly, to her fellow furriers, lamenting the mischances of the day.

But in proportion as she began to get clean and beautiful, as the muslins of the great mirror became a frame for a gorgeous picture of a lady, flutter duck grew more and more aloof from workaday interests, felt herself born into a higher world of radiance and elegance, into a rarefied atmosphere of gentility that froze her to statue-like frigidity. She was not flutter duck then. and when she was quite dressed for the wedding and had put on the earrings with the colored stones

and the crowning glory of the shignan of false plates, stuck over with little artificial white flowers, the female neighbors came crowding into the workroom bordeur to see how she looked, and she revolved silently for their inspection like a dressmaker's figure, at most acknowledging their compliments with monosyllables. She had invited them to come and admire her appearance,

but by the time they came, she had grown too proud to speak to them. Even the women of whom's finery she wore fragments, and who had contributed to her splendor, seemed to her poor dingy creatures, whose contact would sully her embroidered petticoat. In grotesque contrast with her peacock-like stateliness, the big triffa goose began to get lively, cackling and flapping about within its radius, as if the soul of Flutterduck had passed into its body. The moment of departure had come. The cab stood at the street door, and a composite crowd stood round the cab. In the ghetto, a cab has special significance, and Flutter Duck would have to pass to hers through an avenue of polygot commentators.

At the last moment, adjusting her fleecy wrap over her head, like any grande, from whom she differed only in the modesty of her high bodice and her full sleeves, Flutter Duck discovered that there was a great rent in one part of the rap and a great stain in another. She uttered an exclamation of dismay. This seemed to her the climax of the day's misfortunes. What shall I do? What shall I do? she cried, her dignity almost melting in tears. The bystanders made sympathetic but profitless noises. Oh, double it another way, jerked Rachel from the worktable. Come here, I'll do it for you. Are you too lazy to come here? replied Flutter Duck irritably.

Rachel Rosen went towards her and rearranged the rap. Oh, no, that won't do, complained Flutter Duck, attitude. adrenizing before the glass. It shows as bad as ever. Oh, what shall I do? Do you know what I'll tell you? said her husband meditatively. Don't go. Flutter duck threw him a fiery look. Oh, well, said Rachel, shrugging her shoulders and thrusting forward her lip contipuously. It'll have to do. No, it won't. Let me your pink one. I'm not going to have my pink one dirty too, grumbled Rachel. Do you hear what I say? exclaimed Flutterduck, with increasing wrath. give me the pink rap when the mother says is said and she looked around the group of spectators

in search of sympathy with her trials and admiration for her maternal dignity i can never keep anything for myself said rachel sullenly you never take care of anything i took care of you screamed flutter duck goaded beyond endurance by the thought that her neighbors were witnessing this filial disrespect and a fat lot of good it's done me yes much care you take of me you only think of enjoying yourself It's young girls who ought to go out, not old women. You impudent face! And with an irresistible impulse of savagery, a reversion to the days of Mediani,

Flutter-Duck swung round her arm and struck Rachel violently on the cheek with her white-gloved hand. The sound of the slap rang hollow and awful through the room. The workers looked up and paused. The neighbors held their breath. There was a dread silence, broken only by the hissings of the excited goose, and the half-involuntary apologetic murmurings of Flutterduck's lips. If I've been a mother, I've been a mother. For an instant, Rachel's face was a white mask,

on which five fingers stood out in fire. The next it was one burning mass of angry blood. She clenched her fist, as if about to strike her mother, then let the fingers relax. Half from a relic of filial all, half from respect for the finery. There was a peculiar light in her eyes, without a word she turned slowly on her heel

and walked into her little room, emerging, after an instant of general suspense, with a pink wrap in her hand. She gave it to her mother, without looking at her, and walked back to her work, and poor foolish Flutterduck, relieved, triumphant, and with an irreproachable headwrap, passed majestically from the room,

amid the buzz of the neighbors, who accompanied her downstairs with valedictory brushings of fur fluff from her shoulders, through the avenue of polygot commentators, into the waiting cab. All this time Flutter Duck's husband had sat petrified, but now a great burst of coughing shook him.

He did not know what to say or do, and prolonged the coughed artificially to cover his embarrassment. Then he opened his mouth several times, but shut it indecisively. At last he said soothingly, with kindly clumsiness, "'Ne, knee, shouldn't irritate the mother, Rachel, you know what she is.' Rachel's needle plodded on, and the uneasy silence resumed its way. Presently Rachel rose, put down her piece of work finished, and without a word passed back to her bedroom, her beautiful figure erect and haughty. Lewis heard her key turn in the lock. The hours passed, and she did not return. Her father did not

like to appear anxious before the hands, but he had a discomforting vision of her lying on her bed in a dumb agony of shame and rage. At last eight o'clock struck, and, backwards as the work was, Lewis did not suggest overtime. He even dismissed the servant an hour before her time. He was in a fever of impatience, but delicacy had kept him from intruding on his daughter's grief before strangers. Now he hastened to her door and knocked timidly, then loudly. Knee, knee, Rachel, he cried, with sympathetic sternness, enough. But a chill silence alone answered him. He burst open the rickety door and saw a dark mass huddled up in the shadow on the bed.

A nearer glance showed him it was only close. He opened the door that led on to Jacob's ladder and called her name. Then, by the light streaming in from the other apartment, he hastily examined the room. It was obvious that she had put on her best clothes and gone. out. Half relieved, he returned to the sitting room, leaving the door ajar, and recited his evening prayer. Then he began to prepare a little meal for himself, telling himself that she had gone for a walk after her manner, perhaps was shaking off her depression at the Cambridge Music Hall. Supper over and Grace said, he started doing the overwork, and then, when sheer weariness forced him

to stop, he drew his comfortless wooden chair to the kitchen fire and studied rabbinical lore from a minutely printed folio. The Whitechapel Church clock, suddenly booming midnight, awoke him from these sacred subtleties with a start of alarm. Rachel had not returned. The fire burnt low. He shivered and threw on some coal. Half an hour more he waited, listening for her footstep. Surely the musical must be closed by now. He crept down the stairs and wandered vaguely into the cold starless night,

jostled by leering females, and returned forlorn and coughing. Then the thought flashed upon him that his girl had gone to her mother, had gone to fetch her from the wedding ball, and to make it up with her. Yes, that would be it. Hence the best clothes. It could be nothing else. He must not let any other thought get a hold on his mind. He would have to run round to the festive scene,

only he did not know precisely where it was, and it was too late to ask the neighbors. One o'clock, a mournful monotone, stern in its absoluteness, like the clanging of a gate shutting out a lost soul. One more hour of aching suspense, scarcely doled by the task of making hot coffee, and cutting bread and butter for his returning well,

woman kind. Then Fluttertuck came back, alone. Came back in her cab, her fading features flushed with the joy of life, with the artificial flowers in her falchion and the pink wrap over her head. Where is Rachel? gasped poor Lewis, meeting her at the street door. Rachel? Isn't she here? I left her with you, answered Flutter duck, half sobered. Merciful God! ejaculated her husband, and put his hand to his breast, pierced by a shooting pain. I left her with you, repeated Flutterd duck with white lips. Why did you let her go out? Why didn't you look after her? Silence, you sinful mother, cried Lewis. You shamed her before strangers, and she has gone out. To drown herself. What do I know? Flutter duck burst into hysterical sobbing.

You take her part against me. You always make me out wrong. Restrain yourself, he whispered imperiously. Do you wish to have the neighbors hear you again? I dare say she's only hiding somewhere, salking, as she did when a child, said Flutter duck. Have you looked under the bed? Foolish as he knew her words were. They gave him a gleam of hope. He led the way upstairs without answering, and taking a candle examined her bedroom again with ludicrous minuteness.

This time the sight of her old clothes was comforting. If she had wanted to drown herself, she would not, he reasoned with perhaps too masculine a logic, have taken her best clothes to spoil. With a sudden thought he displaced the hearthstone. He had early discovered where she kept her savings, though he had neither tampered with them nor betrayed his knowledge. The tin box was brought,

broken open, empty, in the drawers there was not a single article of her jewelry. Rachel had evidently left home. She had gone by way of Jacob's ladder, secretly. Prostrated by the discovery, the parents sat down in helpless silence. Then Flutter Duck began to wring her white-gloved hands, and to babble incoherent suggestions and reproaches and protestations that she was not to blame. The hot coffee cooled untasted. The pink wrap lay crumpled on the floor. Lewis revolved the situation rapidly. What could be done? Evidently nothing, for that night at least. Even the police could do nothing till the morning, and to call them in at all would be to publish the scandal to the whole world.

Rachel had gone to some lodging. There could be no doubt about that. And yet he could not go to bed. His heart still expected her, though his brain had given up hope. He walked about restlessly, racked by fits of coughing, then he'd drop back into a seat before the decaying fire. And Flutter Duck, frightened into silence at last, sat on the sofa, days. in her trappings and gougas with the white flowers glistening in her false hair and her pallid cheeks stained with tears and so they waited in the uncouth room in the solemn watches of the night pricking up their ears at a rare footstep in the street and hastening to peep out the window waiting for the knock that came not and the dawn that was distance the silence lay upon them like a pall suddenly in the weird stillness they heard a fluttering and a scurrying and looking up they saw a great white thing floating through the room fluttered up uttered a terrible cry. Hero Israel! She shrieked, knee, knee, said Lewis reassuringly, though scarcely less startled,

it is only the trif a goose got loose. Nay, nay, it's the devil, hoarsely whispered Flutterduck, who would cover her face with her hands and was shaking as with palsy. Her terror communicated itself to her husband. Hush, hush, talk not so, he said, shivering with indefinable awe. Say palms, say palms, panted Flutterduck, drive him out. out. Lewis opened the window, but the unclean burn showed no desire to flip. It was evidently the not-good one himself. "'Hear-israel!' wailed Flutter-Duck. Since he came in this morning,

everything has been upside down!' The goose chuckled. Lewis was seized with a fell tear that gave him a mad courage. Murmuring a holy phrase, he grabbed at the goose, which alluded him, and fluttered flappingly hither and thither. Lewis gave chase, his lips praying mechanically. At last he caught it by a wing, hailed it, hissing and struggling and uttering rasping cries to the window, flung it without, and closed the sash with a bang. Then he fell impotent against the work table and spat out a mouthful of blood. God be praised, said flutter duck, slowly uncovering her eyes, now Rachel will come back. And with renewed hope they waited on, and the deathly silence again possessed the room. All at once they heard a light step under the window. The father threw it open and saw a female

form outlined in the darkness. There was a rat-tat-tat at the door. Ah, there she is! hysterically ejaculated Flutter-Duck, starting up. The Holy One be blessed, cried Lewis, rushing down the stairs. A strange figure, the head covered by a green tartan shawl, greeted him. A cold og passed over his lips. Thank God, it's all right, cried Miss Lefkevich. I see from your light you're still working. But isn't it time my Emanuel left off? You're Emanuel? gasped Lewis. With terrible suspicion, he went home early in the day.

He was taken ill. Flutter duck, who had crept at his heels bearing a candle, cried out, God, in Israel! She has flown away with Emmanuel. Hush, you piece of folly, whispered Lewis furiously. Yes, it was already arranged, and you blame me, gasped Flutterduck, with the last instinct of self-defense air consciousness left her, and she fell forward. Silence, Lewis began, but there was an awful desolation his heart, and the salt of blood was in his mouth as he caught the falling form. The candlestick

rolled to the ground, and the group was left in the heavy shadows of the staircase, and the cold blast from the open door. God have mercy on me and the poor children! I knew all long it would come to that, wailed Emmanuel's wife. And I advanced him his week's money on Monday, Lewis remembered in the agony of the moment. End of Flutter Duck, Chapter 3. Section 21 of Grotesquist. and fantasies. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Grotesque and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill. Flutter Duck, Chapter 4. Poor Flutter Duck. Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, and a whirlwind cleared the lauder. from Tennyson, the goose. It was New Year's Eve, in the ghetto where the evening and the morning are one day,

New Year's Eve is at its height at noon. The muddy marketplaces roar and the joyous melody of squeezing humanity moved slowly through the crush of mongers, pickpockets, and beggars. It was one of those festival occasions, on which even those who have migrated from the ghetto gravitate back to purchase those dainties,

whereof the heathen have not the secret, and to look again upon the old familiar scene. There is a stir of goodwill and gaiety, a reconciliation of old feuds in view of the solemn season of repentance, and the washing down of enmities in rum. At the point where the two main market streets met, a grey-haired elderly woman stood and begged. Poor flutter duck! Her husband dead after a protracted illness that frittered away, her savings, her daughter lost, her home a mattress in the corner of a strange family's garret, her faded prettiness turned to ugliness, her figure thin and wasted, her yellow wrinkled face

framed in a frowsy shawl, her clothes tattered and flimsy, Flutterduck stood and snored. But Flutter duck did not do well. Her featherhead was not equal to the demands of her profession. she had selected what was ostensibly the coin of most vantage. Forgetting that, though everybody in the market must pass her station, they would already have been mulcted in the one street or the other. But she held out her hand pertinaciously, appealing to every passer-by of importance, and throwing audible curses after those that ignored her.

The cold of the bleak autumn day and the apathy of the public chilled her to the bone. The tears came into her eyes as she thought of all her misery and of the happy time only a couple of years ago when New Year meant new dresses. Only a grey fringe, the last vanity of pauperdom remained of all her fashionableness. No more the plated chignon, the silk gown, the triple necklace, the dazzling exterior that made her too proud to speak to admiring neighbours. Only hunger and cold and mockery and loneliness. No plumes could she borrow, now that she really needed them to cover her nakedness. She who had reigned over a workroom, who had owned a husband and a marriageable daughter,

who had commanded a maid-servant who had driven in shilling cabs. Oh, if she could only find her daughter, that lost creature by whose wedding canopy she should have stood, radiant the envy of Montague Street. But this was not a thought of today. It was at the bottom of all her thoughts always, ever since that fatal night. During the first year she was always on the lookout, peering into every woman's face,

running after every young couple that looked like Emanuel and Rachel. But repeated disappointment dulled her. She had no energy for anything except begging, and yet the hope of finding Rachel, was the gleam of idealism that kept her soul alive. The hours went by, but the streams of motley pedestrians and the babble of vociferous vendors and chattering buyers did not slacken. Females were in the great majority. Housewives from

far and near foraging for festival supplies. In vain Flutterduck wished them a good ceiling. It seemed as if her own festival would be as black and bitter as the feast of Abbe. but she continued to hold out her bloodless hands. Towards three o'clock a fine English lady in a bonnet, passed by, carrying a leather bag. Grant me a half-penny lady, dear. May you be written down for a good year. The beautiful lady paused, startled,

and then Flutter-Duck's heart gave a great leap of joy. The impossible had happened at last. Behind the veil shone the face of Rachel, a face of astonishment and horror. "'Rachel!' she shrieked, tottering. "'Mother!' cried Rachel, catching her by the arm. "'What are you doing here? What has happened?' "'Do not touch me, sinful girl,' answered Flutter-duck,

shaking her off with a tragic passion that gave dignity to the grotesque figure. Now that Rachel was there in the flesh, the remembrance of her shame surged up, drowning everything. You have disgraced the mother who bore you and the father who gave you life.' The fine English lady, her whole soul full of sudden remorse at the sight of her mother's incredible poverty, shrank before the blazing eyes. The passers-by imagined Rachel had refused the beggar woman arms. What have I done? she faltered. Where is Emmanuel? Emmanuel, repeated Rachel, puzzled. Emmanuel Lefcovic, that you ran away with. Mother, are you mad? I have never seen

him. I am married. Married, gasped Flutterduck ecstatically. And then a new dread rose to her mind, to a Christian? Me, marry a Christian? The idea. Flutterduck fell a sobbing on the fine lady's fur jacket, and you never ran away with Lefkiewicz? Me, take another woman's leavings? Well, upon my word. Oh, sobbed Flutterduck. Oh, if your father could only have lived to know the truth. Rachel's remorse became heart-rending. Is father dead? She murmured with white lips. And after a while, she drew her mother out of the babble,

and giving her the bag to carry to save appearances, she walked slowly towards Liverpool Street and took train with her for her pretty little cottage near Epping Forest. Rachel's story was as simple as her mother's. After the showing up of Emmanuel's duplicity, home had no longer the least attraction for her. Her nascent love for the migratory husband changed to a loathing that embraced the whole ghetto in which such things were possible.

Weary of flutter-duck's follies, indifferent to her father, she had long meditated joining her West End girlfriend in the fir establishment in Regent Street. But the blow precipitated matters. She felt she could not remain a night more under her mother's roof, and her father's clumsy comment was but salt on her wound. her heart was hard against both. Month after month passed before her passionate, sullen nature would let her dwell on the thought of their trouble, and even then she felt that the motive of her flight was so plain that they would feel only remorse, not anxiety. They knew she could always earn her living, just as she knew they could always earn theirs. Living in and going out but rarely, and then in the fashionable districts, she never must have been.

at any drift from the ghetto, and the busy life of the populous establishment soon effaced the old, which faded to a forgotten dream. One day the chief provincial traveler of the house saw her, fell in love, married her, and took her about the country for six months. He was coming back to her that very evening for the new year. She had gone back to the ghetto that day to buy New Year honey, and, soften by time and happy. rather hoped to stumble across her mother in the marketplace, and so save the submission of a call. She never dreamed of death and poverty. She would not blame herself for her father's death. He had always been consumptive. But since death was come at last, it was lucky she could offer

her mother a home. Her husband would be delighted to find a companion for his wife during his country rounds. And so you see, Mother, everything is for the best. flutter duck listened in a delicious days what was everything then to end happily after all was she the shabby old starveling to be restored to comfort and fine clothes her brain seemed bursting with a thought of so much happiness as the train flew along past green grass and autumn-tinted foliage she strove to articulate a prayer of gratitude to heaven but she only mumbled mediani and lapsed into silence, and then suddenly remembering she had started a prayer and must finish it, she murmured again Mediani. When they came to the grand house with a front garden, and were admitted by a surprised maid-servant, infinitely natier than any flutter-duck had ever ruled over,

the poor creature was palsy with excess of bliss. The fire was blazing merrily in the luxurious parlor. Could this haven of peace and pump? these armchairs, those vases, and that sideboard be really for her? Was she to spend her New Year's night, surrounded by love and luxury, instead of huddling in the corner of a cold garret? And as soon as Rachel had got her mother installed in a wonderful easy chair, she hastened with all the eagerness of maternal pride, with all the enthusiasm of remorse, to throw open the folding doors that led to her bedroom, so as to give Flutter Duck the crowning surprise,

the secret titpid that she had reserved for the grand climax. "'There's a fine boy,' she cried. And as Flutter Duck caught sight of the little red face, peeping out from the snowy draperies of the cradle, a rapture too great to bear seemed almost to snap something within her foolish, overwrought brain. "'I have already a grandchild,' she shrieked, With a great sob of ecstasy, and running to the cradle-side, she fell on her knees and covered the little red face with frantic kisses, repeating, Lewis-love, Lewis-love, till the babe screamed, and Rachel had to tear the babbling creature away. You may see her almost any day walking in the ghetto marketplace, a meagre old figure, with a sharp-featured face and a plated chignon.

on. She dresses richly in silk, and her golden earrings are set with colored stones, and her bonnet is of the latest fashion. She lives near Epping Forest, and almost always goes home to tea. Sometimes she stands still at the point where the two market streets meet, extending vacantly a gloved hand, but for the most part she wanders about the by-streets and alleys of Whitechapel, with an anxious countenance, peering at every woman she meets, and following, every young couple. If I could only find her, she thinks yearningly. Nobody knows whom she is looking for, but everybody knows she is only, Flutter Duck. End of Flutterduck. And the end of grotesques and fantasies by Israel Zangwill.