It was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness of
winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys
bulbs and sees to the registration of one's vote, believing perpetually
in spring and a change of Government.

Morton Crosby sat on a bench in a secluded corner of Hyde Park, lazily
enjoying a cigarette and watching the slow grazing promenade of a pair of
snow-geese, the male looking rather like an albino edition of the russet-
hued female.  Out of the corner of his eye Crosby also noted with some
interest the hesitating hoverings of a human figure, which had passed and
repassed his seat two or three times at shortening intervals, like a wary
crow about to alight near some possibly edible morsel.  Inevitably the
figure came to an anchorage on the bench, within easy talking distance of
its original occupant.  The uncared-for clothes, the aggressive, grizzled
beard, and the furtive, evasive eye of the new-comer bespoke the
professional cadger, the man who would undergo hours of humiliating tale-
spinning and rebuff rather than adventure on half a day's decent work.

For a while the new-comer fixed his eyes straight in front of him in a
strenuous, unseeing gaze; then his voice broke out with the insinuating
inflection of one who has a story to retail well worth any loiterer's
while to listen to.

"It's a strange world," he said.

As the statement met with no response he altered it to the form of a
question.

"I daresay you've found it to be a strange world, mister?"

"As far as I am concerned," said Crosby, "the strangeness has worn off in
the course of thirty-six years."

"Ah," said the greybeard, "I could tell you things that you'd hardly
believe.  Marvellous things that have really happened to me."

"Nowadays there is no demand for marvellous things that have really
happened," said Crosby discouragingly; "the professional writers of
fiction turn these things out so much better.  For instance, my
neighbours tell me wonderful, incredible things that their Aberdeens and
chows and borzois have done; I never listen to them.  On the other hand,
I have read 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' three times."

The greybeard moved uneasily in his seat; then he opened up new country.

"I take it that you are a professing Christian," he observed.

"I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of the
Mussulman community of Eastern Persia," said Crosby, making an excursion
himself into the realms of fiction.

The greybeard was obviously disconcerted at this new check to
introductory conversation, but the defeat was only momentary.

"Persia.  I should never have taken you for a Persian," he remarked, with
a somewhat aggrieved air.

"I am not," said Crosby; "my father was an Afghan."

"An Afghan!" said the other, smitten into bewildered silence for a
moment.  Then he recovered himself and renewed his attack.

"Afghanistan.  Ah!  We've had some wars with that country; now, I
daresay, instead of fighting it we might have learned something from it.
A very wealthy country, I believe.  No real poverty there."

He raised his voice on the word "poverty" with a suggestion of intense
feeling.  Crosby saw the opening and avoided it.

"It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingenious
beggars," he said; "if I had not spoken so disparagingly of marvellous
things that have really happened I would tell you the story of Ibrahim
and the eleven camel-loads of blotting-paper.  Also I have forgotten
exactly how it ended."

"My own life-story is a curious one," said the stranger, apparently
stifling all desire to hear the history of Ibrahim; "I was not always as
you see me now."

"We are supposed to undergo complete change in the course of every seven
years," said Crosby, as an explanation of the foregoing announcement.

"I mean I was not always in such distressing circumstances as I am at
present," pursued the stranger doggedly.

"That sounds rather rude," said Crosby stiffly, "considering that you are
at present talking to a man reputed to be one of the most gifted
conversationalists of the Afghan border."

"I don't mean in that way," said the greybeard hastily; "I've been very
much interested in your conversation.  I was alluding to my unfortunate
financial situation.  You mayn't hardly believe it, but at the present
moment I am absolutely without a farthing.  Don't see any prospect of
getting any money, either, for the next few days.  I don't suppose you've
ever found yourself in such a position," he added.

"In the town of Yom," said Crosby, "which is in Southern Afghanistan, and
which also happens to be my birthplace, there was a Chinese philosopher
who used to say that one of the three chiefest human blessings was to be
absolutely without money.  I forget what the other two were."

"Ah, I daresay," said the stranger, in a tone that betrayed no enthusiasm
for the philosopher's memory; "and did he practise what he preached?
That's the test."

"He lived happily with very little money or resources," said Crosby.

"Then I expect he had friends who would help him liberally whenever he
was in difficulties, such as I am in at present."

"In Yom," said Crosby, "it is not necessary to have friends in order to
obtain help.  Any citizen of Yom would help a stranger as a matter of
course."

The greybeard was now genuinely interested.

The conversation had at last taken a favourable turn.

"If someone, like me, for instance, who was in undeserved difficulties,
asked a citizen of that town you speak of for a small loan to tide over a
few days' impecuniosity--five shillings, or perhaps a rather larger
sum--would it be given to him as a matter of course?"

"There would be a certain preliminary," said Crosby; "one would take him
to a wine-shop and treat him to a measure of wine, and then, after a
little high-flown conversation, one would put the desired sum in his hand
and wish him good-day.  It is a roundabout way of performing a simple
transaction, but in the East all ways are roundabout."

The listener's eyes were glittering.

"Ah," he exclaimed, with a thin sneer ringing meaningly through his
words, "I suppose you've given up all those generous customs since you
left your town.  Don't practise them now, I expect."

"No one who has lived in Yom," said Crosby fervently, "and remembers its
green hills covered with apricot and almond trees, and the cold water
that rushes down like a caress from the upland snows and dashes under the
little wooden bridges, no one who remembers these things and treasures
the memory of them would ever give up a single one of its unwritten laws
and customs.  To me they are as binding as though I still lived in that
hallowed home of my youth."

"Then if I was to ask you for a small loan--" began the greybeard
fawningly, edging nearer on the seat and hurriedly wondering how large he
might safely make his request, "if I was to ask you for, say--"

"At any other time, certainly," said Crosby; "in the months of November
and December, however, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone of our race
to give or receive loans or gifts; in fact, one does not willingly speak
of them.  It is considered unlucky.  We will therefore close this
discussion."

"But it is still October!" exclaimed the adventurer with an eager, angry
whine, as Crosby rose from his seat; "wants eight days to the end of the
month!"

"The Afghan November began yesterday," said Crosby severely, and in
another moment he was striding across the Park, leaving his recent
companion scowling and muttering furiously on the seat.

"I don't believe a word of his story," he chattered to himself; "pack of
nasty lies from beginning to end.  Wish I'd told him so to his face.
Calling himself an Afghan!"

The snorts and snarls that escaped from him for the next quarter of an
hour went far to support the truth of the old saying that two of a trade
never agree.

The great galleon lay in semi-retirement under the sand and weed and
water of the northern bay where the fortune of war and weather had long
ago ensconced it.  Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the day
when it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a fighting
squadron--precisely which squadron the learned were not agreed.  The
galleon had brought nothing into the world, but it had, according to
tradition and report, taken much out of it.  But how much?  There again
the learned were in disagreement.  Some were as generous in their
estimate as an income-tax assessor, others applied a species of higher
criticism to the submerged treasure chests, and debased their contents to
the currency of goblin gold.  Of the former school was Lulu, Duchess of
Dulverton.

The Duchess was not only a believer in the existence of a sunken treasure
of alluring proportions; she also believed that she knew of a method by
which the said treasure might be precisely located and cheaply
disembedded.  An aunt on her mother's side of the family had been Maid of
Honour at the Court of Monaco, and had taken a respectful interest in the
deep-sea researches in which the Throne of that country, impatient
perhaps of its terrestrial restrictions, was wont to immerse itself.  It
was through the instrumentality of this relative that the Duchess learned
of an invention, perfected and very nearly patented by a Monegaskan
savant, by means of which the home-life of the Mediterranean sardine
might be studied at a depth of many fathoms in a cold white light of more
than ball-room brilliancy.  Implicated in this invention (and, in the
Duchess's eyes, the most attractive part of it) was an electric suction
dredge, specially designed for dragging to the surface such objects of
interest and value as might be found in the more accessible levels of the
ocean-bed.  The rights of the invention were to be acquired for a matter
of eighteen hundred francs, and the apparatus for a few thousand more.
The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth; she
nursed the hope, of being one day rich at her own computation.  Companies
had been formed and efforts had been made again and again during the
course of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of the
interesting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered that
she might go to work on the wreck privately and independently.  After
all, one of her ancestors on her mother's side was descended from Medina
Sidonia, so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasure
as anyone.  She acquired the invention and bought the apparatus.

Among other family ties and encumbrances, Lulu possessed a nephew, Vasco
Honiton, a young gentleman who was blessed with a small income and a
large circle of relatives, and lived impartially and precariously on
both.  The name Vasco had been given him possibly in the hope that he
might live up to its adventurous tradition, but he limited himself
strictly to the home industry of adventurer, preferring to exploit the
assured rather than to explore the unknown.  Lulu's intercourse with him
had been restricted of recent years to the negative processes of being
out of town when he called on her, and short of money when he wrote to
her.  Now, however, she bethought herself of his eminent suitability for
the direction of a treasure-seeking experiment; if anyone could extract
gold from an unpromising situation it would certainly be Vasco--of
course, under the necessary safeguards in the way of supervision.  Where
money was in question Vasco's conscience was liable to fits of obstinate
silence.

Somewhere on the west coast of Ireland the Dulverton property included a
few acres of shingle, rock, and heather, too barren to support even an
agrarian outrage, but embracing a small and fairly deep bay where the
lobster yield was good in most seasons.  There was a bleak little house
on the property, and for those who liked lobsters and solitude, and were
able to accept an Irish cook's ideas as to what might be perpetrated in
the name of mayonnaise, Innisgluther was a tolerable exile during the
summer months.  Lulu seldom went there herself, but she lent the house
lavishly to friends and relations.  She put it now at Vasco's disposal.

"It will be the very place to practise and experiment with the salvage
apparatus," she said; "the bay is quite deep in places, and you will be
able to test everything thoroughly before starting on the treasure hunt."

In less than three weeks Vasco turned up in town to report progress.

"The apparatus works beautifully," he informed his aunt; "the deeper one
got the clearer everything grew.  We found something in the way of a
sunken wreck to operate on, too!"

"A wreck in Innisgluther Bay!" exclaimed Lulu.

"A submerged motor-boat, the _Sub-Rosa_," said Vasco.

"No! really?" said Lulu; "poor Billy Yuttley's boat.  I remember it went
down somewhere off that coast some three years ago.  His body was washed
ashore at the Point.  People said at the time that the boat was capsized
intentionally--a case of suicide, you know.  People always say that sort
of thing when anything tragic happens."

"In this case they were right," said Vasco.

"What do you mean?" asked the Duchess hurriedly.  "What makes you think
so?"

"I know," said Vasco simply.

"Know?  How can you know?  How can anyone know?  The thing happened three
years ago."

"In a locker of the _Sub-Rosa_ I found a water-tight strong-box.  It
contained papers."  Vasco paused with dramatic effect and searched for a
moment in the inner breast-pocket of his coat.  He drew out a folded slip
of paper.  The Duchess snatched at it in almost indecent haste and moved
appreciably nearer the fireplace.

"Was this in the _Sub-Rosa's_ strong-box?" she asked.

"Oh no," said Vasco carelessly, "that is a list of the well-known people
who would be involved in a very disagreeable scandal if the _Sub-Rosa's_
papers were made public.  I've put you at the head of it, otherwise it
follows alphabetical order."

The Duchess gazed helplessly at the string of names, which seemed for the
moment to include nearly every one she knew.  As a matter of fact, her
own name at the head of the list exercised an almost paralysing effect on
her thinking faculties.

"Of course you have destroyed the papers?" she asked, when she had
somewhat recovered herself.  She was conscious that she made the remark
with an entire lack of conviction.

Vasco shook his head.

"But you should have," said Lulu angrily; "if, as you say, they are
highly compromising--"

"Oh, they are, I assure you of that," interposed the young man.

"Then you should put them out of harm's way at once.  Supposing anything
should leak out, think of all these poor, unfortunate people who would be
involved in the disclosures," and Lulu tapped the list with an agitated
gesture.

"Unfortunate, perhaps, but not poor," corrected Vasco; "if you read the
list carefully you'll notice that I haven't troubled to include anyone
whose financial standing isn't above question."

Lulu glared at her nephew for some moments in silence.  Then she asked
hoarsely: "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing--for the remainder of my life," he answered meaningly.  "A
little hunting, perhaps," he continued, "and I shall have a villa at
Florence.  The Villa Sub-Rosa would sound rather quaint and picturesque,
don't you think, and quite a lot of people would be able to attach a
meaning to the name.  And I suppose I must have a hobby; I shall probably
collect Raeburns."

Lulu's relative, who lived at the Court of Monaco, got quite a snappish
answer when she wrote recommending some further invention in the realm of
marine research.

"Dora Bittholz is coming on Thursday," said Mrs. Sangrail.

"This next Thursday?" asked Clovis

His mother nodded.

"You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled; "Jane Martlet has only
been here five days, and she never stays less than a fortnight, even when
she's asked definitely for a week.  You'll never get her out of the house
by Thursday."

"Why should I?" asked Mrs. Sangrail; "she and Dora are good friends,
aren't they?  They used to be, as far as I remember."

"They used to be; that's what makes them all the more bitter now.  Each
feels that she has nursed a viper in her bosom.  Nothing fans the flame
of human resentment so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been
utilised as a snake sanatorium."

"But what has happened?  Has some one been making mischief?"

"Not exactly," said Clovis; "a hen came between them."

"A hen?  What hen?"

"It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed, and Dora sold it to
Jane at a rather exotic price.  They both go in for prize poultry, you
know, and Jane thought she was going to get her money back in a large
family of pedigree chickens.  The bird turned out to be an abstainer from
the egg habit, and I'm told that the letters which passed between the two
women were a revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a
sheet of notepaper."

"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Sangrail.  "Couldn't some of their friends
compose the quarrel?"

"People tried," said Clovis, "but it must have been rather like composing
the storm music of the 'Fliegende Hollander.'  Jane was willing to take
back some of her most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen,
but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong, and you know
she'd as soon think of owning slum property in Whitechapel as do that."

"It's a most awkward situation," said Mrs. Sangrail.  "Do you suppose
they won't speak to one another?"

"On the contrary, the difficulty will be to get them to leave off.  Their
remarks on each other's conduct and character have hitherto been governed
by the fact that only four ounces of plain speaking can be sent through
the post for a penny."

"I can't put Dora off," said Mrs. Sangrail.  "I've already postponed her
visit once, and nothing short of a miracle would make Jane leave before
her self-allotted fortnight is over."

"Miracles are rather in my line," said Clovis.  "I don't pretend to be
very hopeful in this case but I'll do my best."

"As long as you don't drag me into it--" stipulated his mother.

* * * * *

"Servants are a bit of a nuisance," muttered Clovis, as he sat in the
smoking-room after lunch, talking fitfully to Jane Martlet in the
intervals of putting together the materials of a cocktail, which he had
irreverently patented under the name of an Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  It was
partly compounded of old brandy and partly of curacoa; there were other
ingredients, but they were never indiscriminately revealed.

"Servants a nuisance!" exclaimed Jane, bounding into the topic with the
exuberant plunge of a hunter when it leaves the high road and feels turf
under its hoofs; "I should think they were!  The trouble I've had in
getting suited this year you would hardly believe.  But I don't see what
you have to complain of--your mother is so wonderfully lucky in her
servants.  Sturridge, for instance--he's been with you for years, and I'm
sure he's a paragon as butlers go."

"That's just the trouble," said Clovis.  "It's when servants have been
with you for years that they become a really serious nuisance.  The 'here
to-day and gone to-morrow' sort don't matter--you've simply got to
replace them; it's the stayers and the paragons that are the real worry."

"But if they give satisfaction--"

"That doesn't prevent them from giving trouble.  Now, you've mentioned
Sturridge--it was Sturridge I was particularly thinking of when I made
the observation about servants being a nuisance."

"The excellent Sturridge a nuisance!  I can't believe it."

"I know he's excellent, and we just couldn't get along without him; he's
the one reliable element in this rather haphazard household.  But his
very orderliness has had an effect on him.  Have you ever considered what
it must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in the
correct manner in the same surroundings for the greater part of a
lifetime?  To know and ordain and superintend exactly what silver and
glass and table linen shall be used and set out on what occasions, to
have cellar and pantry and plate-cupboard under a minutely devised and
undeviating administration, to be noiseless, impalpable, omnipresent,
and, as far as your own department is concerned, omniscient?"

"I should go mad," said Jane with conviction.

"Exactly," said Clovis thoughtfully, swallowing his completed Ella
Wheeler Wilcox.

"But Sturridge hasn't gone mad," said Jane with a flutter of inquiry in
her voice.

"On most points he's thoroughly sane and reliable," said Clovis, "but at
times he is subject to the most obstinate delusions, and on those
occasions he becomes not merely a nuisance but a decided embarrassment."

"What sort of delusions?"

"Unfortunately they usually centre round one of the guests of the house
party, and that is where the awkwardness comes in.  For instance, he took
it into his head that Matilda Sheringham was the Prophet Elijah, and as
all that he remembered about Elijah's history was the episode of the
ravens in the wilderness he absolutely declined to interfere with what he
imagined to be Matilda's private catering arrangements, wouldn't allow
any tea to be sent up to her in the morning, and if he was waiting at
table he passed her over altogether in handing round the dishes."

"How very unpleasant.  Whatever did you do about it?"

"Oh, Matilda got fed, after a fashion, but it was judged to be best for
her to cut her visit short.  It was really the only thing to be done,"
said Clovis with some emphasis.

"I shouldn't have done that," said Jane, "I should have humoured him in
some way.  I certainly shouldn't have gone away."

Clovis frowned.

"It is not always wise to humour people when they get these ideas into
their heads.  There's no knowing to what lengths they may go if you
encourage them."

"You don't mean to say he might be dangerous, do you?" asked Jane with
some anxiety.

"One can never be certain," said Clovis; "now and then he gets some idea
about a guest which might take an unfortunate turn.  That is precisely
what is worrying me at the present moment."

"What, has he taken a fancy about some one here now?" asked Jane
excitedly; "how thrilling!  Do tell me who it is."

"You," said Clovis briefly.

"Me?"

Clovis nodded.

"Who on earth does he think I am?"

"Queen Anne," was the unexpected answer.

"Queen Anne!  What an idea.  But, anyhow, there's nothing dangerous about
her; she's such a colourless personality."

"What does posterity chiefly say about Queen Anne?" asked Clovis rather
sternly.

"The only thing that I can remember about her," said Jane, "is the saying
'Queen Anne's dead.'"

"Exactly," said Clovis, staring at the glass that had held the Ella
Wheeler Wilcox, "dead."

"Do you mean he takes me for the ghost of Queen Anne?" asked Jane.

"Ghost?  Dear no.  No one ever heard of a ghost that came down to
breakfast and ate kidneys and toast and honey with a healthy appetite.
No, it's the fact of you being so very much alive and flourishing that
perplexes and annoys him.  All his life he has been accustomed to look on
Queen Anne as the personification of everything that is dead and done
with, 'as dead as Queen Anne,' you know; and now he has to fill your
glass at lunch and dinner and listen to your accounts of the gay time you
had at the Dublin Horse Show, and naturally he feels that something's
very wrong with you."

"But he wouldn't be downright hostile to me on that account, would he?"
Jane asked anxiously.

"I didn't get really alarmed about it till lunch to-day," said Clovis; "I
caught him glowering at you with a very sinister look and muttering:
'Ought to be dead long ago, she ought, and some one should see to it.'
That's why I mentioned the matter to you."

"This is awful," said Jane; "your mother must be told about it at once."

"My mother mustn't hear a word about it," said Clovis earnestly; "it
would upset her dreadfully.  She relies on Sturridge for everything."

"But he might kill me at any moment," protested Jane.

"Not at any moment; he's busy with the silver all the afternoon."

"You'll have to keep a sharp look-out all the time and be on your guard
to frustrate any murderous attack," said Jane, adding in a tone of weak
obstinacy: "It's a dreadful situation to be in, with a mad butler
dangling over you like the sword of What's-his-name, but I'm certainly
not going to cut my visit short."

Clovis swore horribly under his breath; the miracle was an obvious
misfire.

It was in the hall the next morning after a late breakfast that Clovis
had his final inspiration as he stood engaged in coaxing rust spots from
an old putter.

"Where is Miss Martlet?" he asked the butler, who was at that moment
crossing the hall.

"Writing letters in the morning-room, sir," said Sturridge, announcing a
fact of which his questioner was already aware.

"She wants to copy the inscription on that old basket-hilted sabre," said
Clovis, pointing to a venerable weapon hanging on the wall.  "I wish
you'd take it to her; my hands are all over oil.  Take it without the
sheath, it will be less trouble."

The butler drew the blade, still keen and bright in its well-cared for
old age, and carried it into the morning-room.  There was a door near the
writing-table leading to a back stairway; Jane vanished through it with
such lightning rapidity that the butler doubted whether she had seen him
come in.  Half an hour later Clovis was driving her and her
hastily-packed luggage to the station.

"Mother will be awfully vexed when she comes back from her ride and finds
you have gone," he observed to the departing guest, "but I'll make up
some story about an urgent wire having called you away.  It wouldn't do
to alarm her unnecessarily about Sturridge."

Jane sniffed slightly at Clovis' ideas of unnecessary alarm, and was
almost rude to the young man who came round with thoughtful inquiries as
to luncheon-baskets.

The miracle lost some of its usefulness from the fact that Dora wrote the
same day postponing the date of her visit, but, at any rate, Clovis holds
the record as the only human being who ever hustled Jane Martlet out of
the time-table of her migrations.