ies. The articles on foreign affairs were entirely his own
composition.

"Of course the whole thing had to be kept as quiet as possible; an
interim staff, pledged to secrecy, was appointed to keep the paper going
till the pining captives could be sought out, ransomed, and brought home,
in twos and threes to escape notice, and gradually things were put back
on their old footing. The articles on foreign affairs reverted to the
wonted traditions of the paper."

"But," interposed the nephew, "how on earth did the boy account to the
relatives all those months for the non-appearance--"

"That," said Sir Lulworth, "was the most brilliant stroke of all. To the
wife or nearest relative of each of the missing men he forwarded a
letter, copying the handwriting of the supposed writer as well as he
could, and making excuses about vile pens and ink; in each letter he told
the same story, varying only the locality, to the effect that the writer,
alone of the whole party, was unable to tear himself away from the wild
liberty and allurements of Eastern life, and was going to spend several
months roaming in some selected region. Many of the wives started off
immediately in pursuit of their errant husbands, and it took the
Government a considerable time and much trouble to reclaim them from
their fruitless quests along the banks of the Oxus, the Gobi Desert, the
Orenburg steppe, and other outlandish places. One of them, I believe, is
still lost somewhere in the Tigris Valley."

"And the boy?"

"Is still in journalism."

THE BYZANTINE OMELETTE

Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a
Chattel-Monkheim by marriage. The particular member of that wealthy
family whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives counted
riches. Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the
distribution of money: it was a pleasing and fortunate circumstance that
she also had the money. When she inveighed eloquently against the evils
of capitalism at drawing-room meetings and Fabian conferences she was
conscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all its
inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time. It is one of
the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcate
must live after them if it is to live at all.

On a certain spring evening, somewhere towards the dinner-hour, Sophie
sat tranquilly between her mirror and her maid, undergoing the process of
having her ha