for future protests. People yield more consideration to a mutilated

mealtime or a broken night's rest, than ever they would to a broken
heart."

"Oh, dry up," said Bertie crossly, inconsistently splashing Clovis
from head to foot as he plunged into the water.

It was a day or two after the conversation in the swimming-bath that
a letter addressed to Bertie Heasant slid into the letter-box at his

home, and thence into the hands of his mother. Mrs. Heasant was one
of those empty-minded individuals to whom other people's affairs are

perpetually interesting. The more private they are intended to be
the more acute is the interest they arouse. She would have opened

this particular letter in any case; the fact that it was marked
"private," and diffused a delicate but penetrating aroma merely

caused her to open it with headlong haste rather than matter-of-
course deliberation. The harvest of sensation that rewarded her was

beyond all expectations.
"Bertie, carissimo," it began, "I wonder if you will have the nerve

to do it: it will take some nerve, too. Don't forget the jewels.
They are a detail, but details interest me.

"Yours as ever, Clotilde."
"Your mother must not know of my existence. If questioned swear you

never heard of me."
For years Mrs. Heasant had searched Bertie's correspondence

diligently for traces of possible dissipation or youthful
entanglements, and at last the suspicions that had stimulated her

inquisitorial zeal were justified by this one splendid haul. That
any one wearing the exotic name "Clotilde" should write to Bertie

under the incriminating announcement "as ever" was sufficiently
electrifying, without the astounding allusion to the jewels. Mrs.

Heasant could recall novels and dramas wherein jewels played an
exciting and commanding role, and here, under her own roof, before

her very eyes as it were, her own son was carrying on an intrigue in
which jewels were merely an interesting detail. Bertie was not due

home for another hour, but his sisters were available for the
immediate unburdening of a scandal-laden mind.

"Bertie is in the toils of an adventuress," she screamed; "her name
is Clotilde," she added, as if she thought they had better know the

worst at once. There are occasions when more harm than good is done
by shielding young girls from a knowledge of the more deplorable

realities of life.
By the time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible

and improbableconjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited
themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather

than wicked.
"Who is Clotilde?" was the question that confronted Bertie almost

before he had got into the hall. His denial of any knowledge of
such a person was met with an outburst of bitter laughter.

"How well you have learned your lesson!" exclaimed Mrs. Heasant.
But satire gave way to furiousindignation when she realised that

Bertie did not intend to throw any further light on her discovery.
"You shan't have any dinner till you've confessed everything," she

stormed.
Bertie's reply took the form of hastily collecting material for an

impromptu banquet from the larder and locking himself into his
bedroom. His mother made frequent visits to the locked door and

shouted a succession of interrogations with the persistence of one
who thinks that if you ask a question often enough an answer will

eventually result. Bertie did nothing to encourage the supposition.
An hour had passed in fruitless one-sided palaver when another

letter addressed to Bertie and marked "private" made its appearance
in the letter-box. Mrs. Heasant pounced on it with the enthusiasm

of a cat that has missed its mouse and to whom a second has been
unexpectedly vouchsafed. If she hoped for further disclosures

assuredly she was not disappointed.
"So you have really done it!" the letter abruptly commenced; "Poor

Dagmar. Now she is done for I almost pity her. You did it very
well, you wicked boy, the servants all think it was suicide, and

there will be no fuss. Better not touch the jewels till after the
inquest.

"Clotilde."
Anything that Mrs. Heasant had previously done in the way of outcry

was easily surpassed as she raced upstairs and beat frantically at
her son's door.

"Miserable boy, what have you done to Dagmar?"
"It's Dagmar now, is it?" he snapped; "it will be Geraldine next."

"That it should come to this, after all my efforts to keep you at
home of an evening," sobbed Mrs. Heasant; "it's no use you trying to

hide things from me; Clotilde's letter betrays everything."
"Does it betray who she is?" asked Bertie; "I've heard so much about

her, I should like to know something about her home-life.
Seriously, if you go on like this I shall fetch a doctor; I've often

enough been preached at about nothing, but I've never had an
imaginary harem dragged into the discussion."

"Are these letters imaginary?" screamed Mrs. Heasant; "what about
the jewels, and Dagmar, and the theory of suicide?"

No solution of these problems was forthcoming through the bedroom
door, but the last post of the evening produced another letter for

Bertie, and its contents brought Mrs. Heasant that enlightenment
which had already dawned on her son.

"Dear Bertie," it ran; "I hope I haven't distracted your brain with
the spoof letters I've been sending in the name of a fictitious

Clotilde. You told me the other day that the servants, or somebody
at your home, tampered with your letters, so I thought I would give

any one that opened them something exciting to read. The shock
might do them good.

"Yours,
"Clovis Sangrail."

Mrs. Heasant knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It
was not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax.

In a chastened mood she rapped once more at Bertie's door.
"A letter from Mr. Sangrail. It's all been a stupid hoax. He wrote

those other letters. Why, where are you going?"
Bertie had opened the door; he had on his hat and overcoat.

"I'm going for a doctor to come and see if anything's the matter
with you. Of course it was all a hoax, but no person in his right

mind could have believed all that rubbish about murder and suicide
and jewels. You've been making enough noise to bring the house down

for the last hour or two."
"But what was I to think of those letters?" whimpered Mrs. Heasant.

"I should have known what to think of them," said Bertie; "if you
choose to excite yourself over other people's correspondence it's

your own fault. Anyhow, I'm going for a doctor."
It was Bertie's great opportunity, and he knew it. His mother was

conscious of the fact that she would look rather ridiculous if the
story got about. She was willing to pay hush-money.

"I'll never open your letters again," she promised. And Clovis has
no more devoted slave than Bertie Heasant.

THE SEVEN CREAM JUGS
"I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he

has become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money," observed
Mrs. Peter Pigeoncote regretfully to her husband.

"Well, we can hardly expect to," he replied, "seeing that we always
choked him off from coming to see us when he was a prospective

nobody. I don't think I've set eyes on him since he was a boy of
twelve."

"There was a reason for not wanting to encourage his
acquaintanceship," said Mrs. Peter. "With that notorious failing of

his he was not the sort of person one wanted in one's house."
"Well, the failing still exists, doesn't it?" said her husband; "or