ent this would be for the great
author. The Sybarites, now selling by thousands, would increase its
sales to ten thousands. Ah, there was the rub. The clue to his remaining
in the cave was this very kink in the Celebrity's character. There
was nothing Bohemian in that character; it yearned after the eminently
respectable. Its very eccentricities were within the limits of good
form. The Celebrity shunned the biscuits and beer of the literary clubs,
and his books were bound for the boudoir. To have it proclaimed in the
sensational journals that the hands of this choice being had been locked
for grand larceny was a thought too horrible to entertain. His very
manservant would have cried aloud against it. Better a hundred nights in
a cave than one such experience!

Miss Trevor's behavior that evening was so unrestful as to lead me to
believe that she, too, was going through qualms of sympathy for the
victim. As we were breaking up for the evening she pulled my sleeve.

"Don't you think we have carried our joke a little too far, Mr.
Crocker?" she whispered uneasily. "I can't bear to think of him in that
terrible place."

"It will do him a world of good," I replied, assuming a gayety I did not
feel. It is not pleasant to reflect that some day one's own folly might
place one in alike situation. And the night was dismally cool and windy,
now that the fire had gone out. Miss Trevor began to philosophize.

"Such practical pleasantries as this," she said, "are like infernal
machines: they often blow up the people that start them. And they are
next to impossible to steer."

"Perhaps it is just as well not to assume we are the instruments of
Providence," I said.

Here we ran into Miss Thorn, who was carrying a lantern.

"I have been searching everywhere for you two mischief-makers," said
she. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Heaven only knows how this
little experiment will end. Here is Aunt Maria, usually serene, on the
verge of hysterics: she says he shouldn't stay in that damp cave another
minute. Here is your father, Irene, organizing relief parties and
walking the floor of his tent like a madman. And here is Uncle Fenelon
insane over the idea of getting the poor, innocent man into Canada. And
here is a detective saddled upon us, perhaps for days, and Uncle Fenelon
has gotten his boatman drunk. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,"
she repeated.

Miss Trevor laughed, in spite of the gravity of these things, and