10. THE COMPLETE LETTER-WRITER 146

11. A DAY OF REST 155

12. AGAINST TIME 169

13. A RESPITE 185

14. AN ERROR OF JUDGMENT 195

15. THE RUBICON 207

16. HARD PRESSED 221

17. A PERFIDIOUS ALLY 240

18. RUN TO EARTH 258

19. THE RECKONING 269

_PREFACE_

There is an old story of a punctiliously polite Greek, who, while
performing the funeral of an infant daughter, felt bound to make his
excuses to the spectators for "bringing out such a ridiculously small
corpse to so large a crowd."

The Author, although he trusts that the present production has more
vitality than the Greek gentleman's child, still feels that in these
days of philosophical fiction, metaphysical romance, and novels with a
purpose, some apology may perhaps be needed for a tale which has the
unambitious and frivolous aim of mere amusement.

However, he ventures to leave the tale to be its own apology, merely
contenting himself with the entreaty that his little fish may be spared
the rebuke that it is not a whale.

In submitting it with all possible respect to the Public, he conceives
that no form of words he could devise would appeal so simply and
powerfully to their feelings as that which he has ventured to adopt from
a certain Anglo-Portuguese Phrase-Book of deserved popularity.

Like the compilers of that work, he--"expects then who the little book,
for the care what he wrote him and her typographical corrections, will
commend itself to the--_British Paterfamilias_--at which he dedicates
him particularly."

1. _Black Monday_

"In England, where boys go to boarding schools, if the holidays
were not long there would be no opportunity for cultivating the
domestic affections."--_Letter of Lord Campbell's, 1835_.

On a certain Monday evening late in January, 1881, Paul Bultitude, Esq.
(of Mincing Lane, Colonial Produce Merchant), was sitting alone in his
dining-room at Westbourne Terrace after dinner.

The room was a long and lofty one, furnished in the stern uncompromising
style of the Mahogany Age, now supplanted by the later fashions of
decoration which, in their outset original and artistic, seem fairly on
the way to become as meaningless and conventional.

Here were no skilfully contrasted shades of grey