cursed and swore. I thrashed him while he
cried for help, and then yelled with pain and whined for mercy. I
thrashed him under the eyes of his ancestors, the mad, bad race he came
from, and, him the biggest blackguard of them all. And then I flung him
to the ground, bruised in every bone, and his hunting-crop after him.

"I hear you're going to court for an Act of Divorce," I said. "Pity you
can't take something to back you, so take that, and say I gave it you."

I was turning towards the door when I heard a low, whining cry, like
that of a captured she-bear. It was from the woman. The wretched
creature was on her knees at the farthest corner of the room, apparently
mumbling prayers, as if in terror that her own turn might be coming
next.

In her sobbing fear I thought she looked more than ever like a poisonous
snake, and I will not say that the old impulse to put my foot on it did
not come back for a moment. But I only said as I passed, pointing to the
writhing worm on the floor:

"Look at him, madame. I wish you joy of your nobleman, and him of you."

Then I opened the door, and notwithstanding the grim business I had been
going through, I could have laughed at the scene outside.

There was old Tommy with his back to the dining-room door, his Glengarry
awry on his tousled head, and his bandy legs stretched firmly apart,
flourishing his big-headed blackthorn before the faces of the three
powdered footmen, and inviting them to "come on."

"Come on, now, you bleating ould billy-goats, come on, come on!"

I was in no hurry to get away, but lit a cigar in front of the house
while the chauffeur was starting the motor and Tommy was wiping his
steaming forehead on the sleeve of his coat.

All the way home the old man talked without ceasing, sometimes to me,
and sometimes to the world in general.

"You gave him a piece of your mind, didn't you?" he asked, with a wink
of his "starboard eye."

"I believe I did," I answered.

"I allus said you would. 'Wait till himself is after coming home, and
it'll be the devil sit up for some of them,' says I."

There was only one limitation to Tommy's satisfaction over our day's
expedition--that he had not cracked the powdered skulls of "some o' them
riddiclus dunkeys."

[END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM]

ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH CHAPTER

Another month passed, and then began the last and most important phase
of my too changeful story.

Every week Martin had been