not them," he said at last.

But he knew better.

After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white
horse.

As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some
reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived
feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs
they fled.

Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry
them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could
do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came
too near. Once, where a number ran together over a bare place, he was
minded to dismount and trample them with his boots, but this impulse he
overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the
smoke.

"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, well.... The
next time I must spin a web."

4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT

He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see
him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me
with an expression.

It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it.

Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told
long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his
ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who
would believe me if I did tell?

Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman
in London.

He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire,
stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him biting
at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound
him!--with his eyes on me!

That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL
behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your
embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft.
The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making
my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid appeal,
with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks.

And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?

Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth!

Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very
smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was
sitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly
he ca