In a moment he was at her
side, his hand upon her arm. His glance had in it all the compelling
strength of unadulterated, pristine manhood. She seemed to feel its
potency, and without remonstrance suffered him to lead her toward the
machine.

For a moment, for a single moment, Mr. Strumley was exhilaratingly
conscious of being borne aloft on a great wave of victorious gladness.
Then the waters of triumph let him down with a shock.

"Bettina!"

At the word they both pivoted like pieces of automata. Mr. Stokes, large
and severe, was standing between the portals of his financial
fortification.

"Bettina!" His voice was almost irresistible in the force of its
parental summons.

At the sound of it the primeval lover, newly renascent in Mr. Strumley's
breast, cowed before the power of genitorial insistency. Then it came
back into its own exultantly.

"Bettina, my darling, get in," he commanded.

She faltered, turned rebelliously, turned again and obeyed.

"Bettina!" The voice of the childless banker faded off in the distance,
its last echo drowned in the full-throated: "Bettina, we are going to be
married at once," that broke joyously from Mr. Strumley's lips. "I have
followed the example of the Romans, and taken me a wife from the
Sabines."

Bettina peeped up at him from beneath the dark screens of her lashes.
"Then I, like the wise Sabian ladies, shall save the day for peace and
for Rome," she smiled archly.

And the machine laughed "Chug-chug!"

XI

THE JAM GOD

A Tale of Nigeria

By H.M. EGBERT

LIEUTENANT PETERS, of the Royal Nigerian Service, was lying upon the
ground face downward, under a prickly tree. The sun was nearly vertical,
and the little round shadow in which he reclined was interlaced with
streaks of hot light. As the sun moved, Peters rolled into the shade
automatically. His eyes were shut, and he was in that hot borderland
which is the nearest approach to sleep at noontide in Nigeria.

The flies were pestering him, and he was thirsty--not with that thirst
of the mouth which may be quenched with a long draught, but with the
thirst of the throat that sands and sears. He felt thirsty all over. He
had been thirsty, like this, ever since he struck the bend of the Niger.
What made it worse, every night he dreamed of fruits that were snatched
away, like the food of Tantalus, as he approached to grasp them. Two
nights before he had been wandering knee-deep in English strawberry
beds;