report. Once he took in the letters from the evening postman,
and brought them to the top of the stairs with punctilious politeness.
After his next absence he came half-way up the stairs to make an
announcement.

"The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman. I've
had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see. Another time I
shall do better."

The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the evening postman,
gave way to clamorous grief.

"Remember that your mistress has a headache," said J. P. Huddle. (Miss
Huddle's headache was worse.)

Clovis hastened downstairs, and after a short visit to the library
returned with another message:

"The Bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache. He is
issuing orders that as far as possible no firearms shall be used near
the house; any killing that is necessary on the premises will be done
with cold steel. The Bishop does not see why a man should not be a
gentleman as well as a Christian."

That was the last they saw of Clovis; it was nearly seven o'clock, and
his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner. But, though he had
left them for ever, the lurking suggestion of his presence haunted the
lower regions of the house during the long hours of the wakeful night,
and every creak of the stairway, every rustle of wind through the
shrubbery, was fraught with horrible meaning. At about seven next
morning the gardener's boy and the early postman finally convinced the
watchers that the Twentieth Century was still unblotted.

"I don't suppose," mused Clovis, as an early train bore him townwards,
"that they will be in the least grateful for the Unrest-cure."

THE JESTING OF ARLINGTON STRINGHAM

Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin
House, and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon race
having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintentional,
but a fellow-member, who did not wish it to be supposed that he was
asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. One or two of the papers
noted "a laugh" in brackets, and another, which was notorious for the
carelessness of its political news, mentioned "laughter." Things often
begin in that way.

"Arlington made a joke in the House last night," said Eleanor Stringham
to her mother; "in all the years we've been married neither of us has
made jokes, and I don't like it now. I'm afraid it's the beginning of
the rift in the