o is that cove?' I asked.

'Him with the gardenia?' replied a friend, idiomatically. 'That is Sir
Runan Errand, the amateur showman--him that runs the Live Mermaid, the
Missing Link, and Koot Hoomi, the Mahatma of the Mountain.'

'What kind of man is he?'

'Just about the usual kind of man you see generally here. Just about
as hot as they make them. Mad about having a show of his own; crazed on
two-headed calves.'

'Is he married?'

'If every lady who calls herself Lady Errand had a legal title to do
so, the "Baronetage" would have to be extended to several supplementary
volumes.'

And this was Philippa's husband!

What was she among so many?

My impulse was to demand an explanation from the baronet, but for
reasons not wholly unconnected with my height and fighting weight, I
abstained.

I did better. I went to my hotel, called for the hotel book, and
registered an oath, which is, therefore, copyright. I swore that in
twenty-five years I would be even with him I hated. I prayed, rather
inconsistently, that honour and happiness might be the lot of her I had
lost. After that I felt better.

CHAPTER II.--A Villain's By-Blow.

PHILIPPA was another's! Life was no longer worth living. Hope was
evaluated; ambition was blunted. The interest which I had hitherto felt
in my profession vanished. All the spring, the elasticity seemed taken
out of my two Bounding Brothers from the Gutta Percha coast. For months
I did my work in a perfunctory manner. I added a Tattooed Man to my
exhibition and a Two-headed Snake, also a White-eyed Botocudo, who
played the guitar, and a pair of Siamese Twins, who were fired out of a
double-barrelled cannon, and then did the lofty trapeze business. They
drew, but success gave me no pleasure. So long as I made money enough
for my daily needs (and whisky was cheap), what recked I? My mood was
none of the sweetest. My friends fell off from me; ay, they fell like
nine-pins whenever I could get within reach of them. I was alone in the
world.

You will not be surprised to hear it; the wretched have no friends. So
things went on for a year. I became worse instead of better. My gloom
deepened, my liver grew more and more confirmed in its morbid inaction.
These are not lover's rhapsodies, they merely show the state of my body
and mind, and explain what purists may condemn. In this condition I
heard without hypocritical regret that a distant relative (a long-lost
uncle) had conveniently le