ehalf, now that he was thrown
absolutely unattended upon the inhospitable shores of Africa, was not
lessened by a fourth circumstance, which, indeed, worried her far
more than all the others put together. This was Mr. Greyne's prolonged
absence from her side. Precisely one calendar month had now elapsed
since he had buried his face in her prune bonnet strings at Victoria
Station, and there seemed no prospect of his return. He wrote to her,
indeed, frequently, and his letters were full of wistful regret and
longing to be once more safe in the old homestead in Belgrave Square,
drinking barley water, and pasting Romeike & Curtice notices into the
new album which lay, gaping for him, upon the table of his sanctum. But
he did not come; nay, more, he wrote plainly that there was no prospect
of his coming for the present. It seemed that the wickedness of Africa
was very difficult to come at. It did not lie upon the surface, but was
hidden far down in depths to which the ordinary tourist found it almost
impossible to penetrate. In his numerous letters Mr. Greyne described
his heroic and unremitting exertions to fill the Merrin's note-books
with matter that would be suitable for the purging of humanity. He set
out in full his interview with Alphonso at the office of Rook, and
his definite rejection by that cosmopolitan official. According to
the letters, after this event he had spent no less than a fortnight
searching in vain for any sign of wickedness in the Algerian capital. He
had frequented the cafes, the public bars, the theatres, the churches.
He had been to the Velodrome. He had sat by the hour in the Jardin
d'Essai. At night he had strolled in the fairs and hung about the
circus. Yet nowhere had he been able to perceive anything but the
most innocent pleasure, the simple merriment of a gay and guileless
population to whom the idea of crime seemed as foreign as the idea of
singing the English national anthem.

During the third week it was true that matters--always according to Mr.
Greyne's letters home--slightly improved. While walking near the quay,
in active search for nautical outrage, he saw an Arab dock labourer,
who had been over-smoking kief, run amuck, and knock down a couple of
respectable snake-charmers who were on the point of embarkation for
Tunis with their reptiles. This incident had filed up a half-score of
pages in exercise-book number one, and had flooded Mr. Greyne with hope
and aspiration. But it was fo