rly disinherited him. At Quimper I
could stand it no longer, and when his back was turned, I quietly put
it up the chimney. There it no doubt still remains, unless it has
suffered martyrdom in the flames, in return for the martyrdom it had
inflicted upon others. But I am dating forward.

This horrible apparition he left in the rack of the first compartment. I
saw the omission, and was delighted to think that we had at last got rid
of the encumbrance. Had I only remembered the tale of the Eastern
Slippers I might have taken warning. The train went off; he took a
sketch of the priest, and then hastily looked round.

"My umbrella!" he exclaimed in an agony. "Where is it? You have not
thrown it out of window?"

My will had been good to do it many a time, as the familiar saying runs;
but he carried a stick as well as an umbrella, and he was five times as
strong as I.

"You may have left it at Morlaix," I suggested. "Now I come to think of
it--"

"The next compartment," he interrupted. "I distinctly remember putting
it up in the rack, and thinking how quaint and pretty the crane's head
looked as it gaped through the netting."

It is always so. The fateful crossness of events pursues us through the
world. The only time when he should have been absent-minded and
oblivious, his memory served him well. At the next station he got out
for his umbrella, and returned after quite a long interval, not looking
exactly triumphant; rather flushed and uncomfortable; but in proud
possession of the horror.

"I had quite a difficulty in getting it back," he said. "They had
actually put it up and were sitting under its shade. He complained of
the glare of the sunshine. You see, although these are first-class
compartments, there are no blinds to the windows. So very public."

"But the morning is grey," I observed. "There is no sunshine."

H.C. looked out; he had not observed the absence of sunlight.

"Oh, well," he returned, doubtfully, "perhaps it was the draught they
complained of. You know I am rather dull at French, and have to make a
shot at a good deal that's said. Any way," he added, with a frank look
of innocence, "I am sure they are only an engaged couple, not married.
Married people wouldn't sit in a railway carriage under one umbrella.
She's very pretty--I wonder whether she's very fond of him? It looks
like it. One compartment--one umbrella. It was _my_ umbrella--then _I_
ought to have had his place," he added dreamily,