ll I have stopped it and
I'll tell you." He stops it somehow with the aid of a miraculous little
morocco affair, scarcely bigger than a card-case. He never leaves home
without it. Then he looks up at the anxious, beautiful face of the girl
who stoops close by, holding a dog back. "He is not dead," says he.
"That is all I can say. He must be moved as little as possible, but got
to a bed--somewhere. Is that his dog?"

"Yes. This is Achilles."

"How do you know it is Achilles?"

"I'll tell you directly. _He_ told me his name yesterday." She nods
towards the motionless figure on the turf. It is not a corpse yet; that
is all that can be said, so far.

CHAPTER XI

THE HON. PERCIVAL PELLEW AND MISS CONSTANCE SMITH-DICKENSON, WHOSE
BLOOM HAD GONE OFF. OLD MAIDS WERE TWENTY-EIGHT, THENADAYS. HOW THE
TRAGEDY CAME OUT, AND MR. PELLEW TALKED IT OVER WITH MISS
SMITH-DICKENSON, ALTHOUGH HER BLOOM REMAINED OFF. WHO THE SHOT MAN
WAS. OF MR. PELLEW's CAUTION, AND A DARK GREEN FRITILLARY. WHAT YOU
CAN DO AND CAN'T DO, WHEN YOU ARE A LADY AND GENTLEMAN

At the Towers, in those days, there was always breakfast, but very few
people came down to it. In saying this the story accepts the phraseology
of the household, which must have known. Norbury the butler, for
instance, who used the expression to the Hon. Percival Pellew, a guest
who at half-past nine o'clock that morning expressed surprise at finding
himself the only respondent to The Bell. It was the Mr. Pellew mentioned
before, a Member of Parliament whose humorous speeches always commanded
a hearing, even when he knew nothing about the subject under discussion;
which, indeed, was very frequently the case.

Perhaps it was to keep his hand in that he adopted a tone of serious
chaff to Mr. Norbury, such as some people think a well-chosen one
towards children, to their great embarrassment. He replied to that most
responsible of butlers with some pomposity of manner. "The question
before the house," said he--and paused to enjoy a perversion of
speech--"the question before the house comes down to breakfast I take to
be this:--Is it breakfast at all till somebody has eaten it?"

"I could not say, sir." Mr. Norbury's manner is dignified, deferential,
and dry. More serious than need be perhaps.

The Hon. Percival is not good at insight, and sees nothing of this. "It
certainly appears to me," he says, taking his time over it, "that until
breakfast