little joke sometimes," he added in a confidential tone. I fail to understand the connection of this last re- mark. I have been utterly unable to discover where in all this the joke comes in.

AN INDIGNANT TALE

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THE BRUTE

DODGING in from the rain-swept street, I exchanged a smile and a glance with Miss Blank in the bar of the Three Crows. This exchange was effected with ex- treme propriety. It is a shock to think that, if still alive, Miss Blank must be something over sixty now. How time passes! Noticing my gaze directed inquiringly at the parti- tion of glass and varnished wood, Miss Blank was good enough to say, encouragingly: "Only Mr. Jermyn and Mr. Stonor in the parlour with another gentleman I've never seen before." I moved towards the parlour door. A voice dis- coursing on the other side (it was but a matchboard partition), rose so loudly that the concluding words became quite plain in all their atrocity. "That fellow Wilmot fairly dashed her brains out, and a good job, too!" This inhuman sentiment, since there was nothing profane or improper in it, failed to do as much as to check the slight yawn Miss Blank was achieving behind her hand. And she remained gazing fixedly at the window-panes, which streamed with rain. As I opened the parlour door the same voice went on in the same cruel strain: "I was glad when I heard she got the knock from somebody at last. Sorry enough for poor Wilmot, though. That man and I used to be chums at one time. Of course that was the end of him. A clear

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case if there ever was one. No way out of it. None at all." The voice belonged to the gentleman Miss Blank had never seen before. He straddled his long legs on the hearthrug. Jermyn, leaning forward, held his pocket- handkerchief spread out before the grate. He looked back dismally over his shoulder, and as I slipped behind one of the little wooden tables, I nodded to him. On the other side of the fire, imposingly calm and large, sat Mr. Stonor, jammed tight into a capacious Windsor armchair. There was nothing small about him but his short, white side-whiskers. Yards and yards of extra superfine blue cloth (made up into an overcoat) reposed on a chair by his side. And he must just have brought some liner from sea, because another chair was smothered under his black waterproof, ample as a pall, and made of three-fold oiled silk, double-stitched throughout. A man's hand-bag of the usual size looked like a child's toy on the floor near his feet. I did not nod to him. He was too big to be nodded to in that parlour. He was a senior Trinity pilot and condescended to take his turn in the cutter only during the summer months. He had been many times in charge of royal yachts in and out of Port Victoria. Besides, it's no use nodding to a monument. And he was like one. He didn't speak, he didn't budge. He just sat there, holding his handsome old head up, immovable, and almost bigger than life. It was ex- tremely fine. Mr. Stonor's presence reduced poor old Jermyn to a mere shabby wisp of a man, and made the talkative stranger in tweeds on the hearthrug look absurdly boyish. The latter must have been a few years over thirty, and was certainly not the sort of individual that gets abashed at the sound of his own

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voice, because gathering me in, as it were, by a friendly glance, he kept it going without a check. "I was glad of it," he repeated, emphatically. "You may be surprised at it, but then you haven't gone through the experience I've had of her. I can tell you, it was something to remember. Of course, I got off scot free myself -- as you can see. She did her best to break up my pluck for me tho'. She jolly near drove as fine a fellow as ever lived into a madhouse. What do you say to that -- eh?" Not an eyelid twitched in Mr. Stonor's enormous face. Monumental! The speaker looked straight into my eyes. "It used to make me sick to think of her going about the world murdering people." Jermyn approached the handkerchief a little nearer to the grate and groaned. It was simply a habit he had. "I've seen her once," he declared, with mournful in- difference. "She had a house --" The stranger in tweeds turned to stare down at him, surprised. "She had three houses," he corrected, authoritatively. But Jermyn was not to be contradicted. "She had a house, I say," he repeated, with dismal obstinacy. "A great, big, ugly, white thing. You could see it from miles away -- sticking up." "So you could," assented the other readily. "It was old Colchester's notion, though he was always threaten- ing to give her up. He couldn't stand her racket any more, he declared; it was too much of a good thing for him; he would wash his hands of her, if he never got hold of another -- and so on. I daresay he would have chucked her, only -- it may surprise you -- his missus wouldn't hear of it. Funny, eh? But with women, you never know how they will take a thing, and Mrs.

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Colchester, with her moustaches and big eyebrows, set up for being as strong-minded as they make them. She used to walk about in a brown silk dress, with a great gold cable flopping about her bosom. You should have heard her snapping out: 'Rubbish!' or 'Stuff and non- sense!' I daresay she knew when she was well off. They had no children, and had never set up a home any- where. When in England she just made shift to hang out anyhow in some cheap hotel or boarding-house. I daresay she liked to get back to the comforts she was used to. She knew very well she couldn't gain by any change. And, moreover, Colchester, though a first- rate man, was not what you may call in his first youth, and, perhaps, she may have thought that he wouldn't be able to get hold of another (as he used to say) so easily. Anyhow, for one reason or another, it was 'Rubbish' and 'Stuff and nonsense' for the good lady. I overheard once young Mr. Apse himself say to her confidentially: 'I assure you, Mrs. Colchester, I am beginning to feel quite unhappy about the name she's getting for herself.' 'Oh,' says she, with her deep little hoarse laugh, 'if one took notice of all the silly talk,' and she showed Apse all her ugly false teeth at once. 'It would take more than that to make me lose my confidence in her, I assure you,' says she." At this point, without any change of facial expression, Mr. Stonor emitted a short, sardonic laugh. It was very impressive, but I didn't see the fun. I looked from one to another. The stranger on the hearthrug had an ugly smile. "And Mr. Apse shook both Mrs. Colchester's hands, he was so pleased to hear a good word said for their favourite. All these Apses, young and old you know, were perfectly infatuated with that abominable, dan- gerous --"

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"I beg your pardon," I interrupted, for he seemed to be addressing himself exclusively to me; "but who on earth are you talking about?" "I am talking of the Apse family," he answered, courteously. I nearly let out a damn at this. But just then the respected Miss Blank put her head in, and said that the cab was at the door, if Mr. Stonor wanted to catch the eleven three up. At once the senior pilot arose in his mighty bulk and began to struggle into his coat, with awe-inspiring up- heavals. The stranger and I hurried impulsively to his assistance, and directly we laid our hands on him he became perfectly quiescent. We had to raise our arms very high, and to make efforts. It was like caparisoning a docile elephant. With a "Thanks, gentlemen," he dived under and squeezed himself through the door in a great hurry. We smiled at each other in a friendly way. "I wonder how he manages to hoist himself up a ship's side-ladder," said the man in tweeds; and poor Jermyn, who was a mere North Sea pilot, without official status or recognition of any sort, pilot only by courtesy, groaned. "He makes eight hundred a year." "Are you a sailor?" I asked the stranger, who had gone back to his position on the rug. "I used to be till a couple of years ago, when I got married," answered this communicative individual. "I even went to sea first in that very ship we were speak- ing of when you came in." "What ship?" I asked, puzzled. "I never heard you mention a ship." "I've just told you her name, my dear sir," he replied. "The Apse Family. Surely you've heard of the great