ly, following the spines of its curved prickles, and, having found
its leafy end, drew it meditatively through the trigger-guard of his gun.

The countryside scoffed at the finding of the coroner's jury that the last
heir of the a Cleeves had met his death by misadventure. Shortly after
the inquest Charley Hannaford disappeared with his family, and this lent
colour to their gossip. But Jim Burdon, who had been the first to arrive
on the scene, told his plain tale, and, for the rest, kept his counsel.
And so did Father Halloran and the Squire.

THE COLABORATORS.

OR, THE COMEDY THAT WROTE ITSELF AS RELATED BY G. A. RICHARDSON.

I.

How pleasant it is to have money, heigho!
How pleasant it is to have money!

Sings (I think) Clough. Well, I had money, and more of it than I felt
any desire to spend; which is as much as any reasonable man can want.
My age was five-and-twenty, my health good, my conscience moderately
clean, and my appetite excellent: I had fame in some degree, and a fair
prospect of adding to it: and I was unmarried. In later life a man may
seek marriage for its own sake, but at five-and-twenty he marries against
his will--because he has fallen in love with a woman; and this had not yet
happened to me. I was a bachelor, and content to remain one.

To come to smaller matters--The month was early June, the weather perfect,
the solitude of my own choosing, and my posture comfortable enough to
invite drowsiness. I had bathed and, stretched supine in the shade of a
high sand-bank, was smoking the day's first cigarette. Behind me lay
Ambleteuse; before me, the sea. On the edge of it, their shrill
challenges softened by the distance to music, a score of children played
with spades and buckets, innocently composing a hundred pretty groups of
brown legs, fluttered hair, bright frocks and jerseys, and innocently
conspiring with morning to put a spirit of youth into the whole picture.
Beyond them the blue sea flashed with its own smiles, and the blue heaven
over them with the glancing wings of gulls. On this showing it is evident
that I, George Anthony Richardson, ought to have been happy; whereas, in
fact, Richardson was cheerful enough, but George Anthony restless and
ill-content: by reason that Richardson, remembering the past, enjoyed by
contrast the present, and knew himself to be jolly well off; while George
Anthony, likewise remembering the past, felt gravely concerned for the