from the lodge-children, but the lodge-mother, who was

hard of hearing, was for the moment immersed in the
preoccupation of her washtub.

After an apprehensive glance in the direction of the
lodge (the good woman was gifted with the highly militant

temper which is sometimes the privilege of deafness) Mrs.
Quabarl flew indignantly to the rescue of the struggling

captives.
"Wilfrid! Claude! Let those children go at once.

Miss Hope, what on earth is the meaning of this scene?"
"Early Roman history; the Sabine Women, don't you

know? It's the Schartz-Metterklume method to make
children understand history by acting it themselves;

fixes it in their memory, you know. Of course, if,
thanks to your interference, your boys go through life

thinking that the Sabine women ultimately escaped, I
really cannot be held responsible."

"You may be very clever and modern, Miss Hope," said
Mrs. Quabarl firmly, "but I should like you to leave here

by the next train. Your luggage will be sent after you
as soon as it arrives."

"I'm not certain exactly where I shall be for the
next few days," said the dismissed instructress of youth;

"you might keep my luggage till I wire my address. There
are only a couple of trunks and some golf-clubs and a

leopard cub."
"A leopard cub!" gasped Mrs. Quabarl. Even in her

departure this extraordinary person seemed destined to
leave a trail of embarrassment behind her.

"Well, it's rather left off being a cub; it's more
than half-grown, you know. A fowl every day and a rabbit

on Sundays is what it usually gets. Raw beef makes it
too excitable. Don't trouble about getting the car for

me, I'm rather inclined for a walk."
And Lady Carlotta strode out of the Quabarl horizon.

The advent of the genuine Miss Hope, who had made a
mistake as to the day on which she was due to arrive,

caused a turmoil which that good lady was quite unused to
inspiring. Obviously the Quabarl family had been

woefully befooled, but a certain amount of relief came
with the knowledge.

"How tiresome for you, dear Carlotta," said her
hostess, when the overdue guest ultimately arrived; "how

very tiresome losing your train and having to stop
overnight in a strange place."

"Oh dear, no," said Lady Carlotta; "not at all
tiresome - for me."

THE SEVENTH PULLET
"IT'S not the daily grind that I complain of," said

Blenkinthrope resentfully; "it's the dull grey sameness
of my life outside of office hours. Nothing of interest

comes my way, nothing remarkable or out of the common.
Even the little things that I do try to find some

interest in don't seem to interest other people. Things
in my garden, for instance."

"The potato that weighed just over two pounds," said
his friend Gorworth.

"Did I tell you about that?" said Blenkinthrope; "I
was telling the others in the train this morning. I

forgot if I'd told you."
"To be exact you told me that it weighed just under

two pounds, but I took into account the fact that
abnormal vegetables and freshwater fish have an after-

life, in which growth is not arrested."
"You're just like the others," said Blenkinthrope

sadly, "you only make fun of it."
"The fault is with the potato, not with us," said

Gorworth; "we are not in the least interested in it
because it is not in the least interesting. The men you

go up in the train with every day are just in the same
case as yourself; their lives are commonplace and not

very interesting to themselves, and they certainly are
not going to wax enthusiastic over the commonplace events

in other men's lives. Tell them something startling,
dramatic, piquant that has happened to yourself or to

someone in your family, and you will capture their
interest at once. They will talk about you with a

certain personal pride to all their acquaintances. 'Man
I know intimately, fellow called Blenkinthrope, lives

down my way, had two of his fingers clawed clean off by a
lobster he was carrying home to supper. Doctor says

entire hand may have to come off.' Now that is
conversation of a very high order. But imagine walking

into a tennis club with the remark: 'I know a man who has
grown a potato weighing two and a quarter pounds.'"

"But hang it all, my dear fellow," said
Blenkinthrope impatiently, "haven't I just told you that

nothing of a remarkable nature ever happens to me?"
"Invent something," said Gorworth. Since winning a

prize for excellence in Scriptural knowledge at a
preparatory school he had felt licensed to be a little

more unscrupulous than the circle he moved in. Much
might surely be excused to one who in early life could

give a list of seventeen trees mentioned in the Old
Testament.

"What sort of thing?"asked Blenkinthrope, somewhat
snappishly.

"A snake got into your hen-run yesterday morning and
killed six out of seven pullets, first mesmerising them

with its eyes and then biting them as they stood
helpless. The seventh pullet was one of that French

sort, with feathers all over its eyes, so it escaped the
mesmeric snare, and just flew at what it could see of the

snake and pecked it to pieces."
"Thank you," said Blenkinthrope stiffly; "it's a

very clever invention. If such a thing had really
happened in my poultry-run I admit I should have been

proud and interested to tell people about it. But I'd
rather stick to fact, even if it is plain fact." All the

same his mind dwelt wistfully on the story of the Seventh
Pullet. He could picture himself telling it in the train

amid the absorbed interest of his fellow-passengers.
Unconsciously all sorts of little details and

improvements began to suggest themselves.
Wistfulness was still his dominant mood when he took

his seat in the railway carriage the next morning.
Opposite him sat Stevenham, who had attained to a

recognised brevet of importance through the fact of an
uncle having dropped dead in the act of voting at a

Parliamentary election. That had happened three years
ago, but Stevenham was still deferred to on all questions

of home and foreign politics.
"Hullo, how's the giant mushroom, or whatever it

was?" was all the notice Blenkinthrope got from his
fellow travellers.