Simon the Jester

stomed, I am little short of a lunatic. The question is: Does the recognition of lunacy in oneself tend to amusement or anger? I compromis

rld, a diner-out, a hardened jester at feminine wiles, a cynical student of philosophy, a man of birth, and, I believe, breeding with a cultivated taste in wine and food and furniture, one also who, but for a little pain inside, would soon become a Member of His Majesty's Government, and eventually drop the "Esquire" at the end of his name and stick "The Right Honourable" in front of it-in fact, a most superior, wise and important person; and I can also see perfectly well that Lola Brandt is an uneducated, lowly bred, vagabond female, with a taste, as I have remarked before, for wild beasts and tea-parti

que generally chase in Africa, it will tell me the station in Algeria or Tunisia which Captain Vauvenarde adorns. I can go straight to him as Madame Brandt's plenipotentiary, and if the unreasonable and fire-eating warrior does not run me through the body for impertinence before he has time to appreciate the delicacy of my mission, I may be able to convince him that a well-to-do wife is worth the respectable consideration of a hard-up captain of Chasseurs. I say I may be able to convince him; but I shrink from the impudence of the encounter. I am to accost a total stran

ier, when I saw her sailing across to me with questions hoisted in her eyes. Being particularly desirous not

rgent need of funds for something. With my usual wooden-headedness I

hoped, ousted the mothe

Cabmen and Omnibus Driv

hearing of the institut

Harrogate and are building a comfortable place, half hospital, half hotel, where they can be put up for a shilling a day an

ger to,"

ere and I'll tell

to her fairy-tale. She wrung my heart to such a pitc

e London cabby as my brother, and I'll post you a c

it had not fallen in with my general scheme of good works I should

o lure me into his web, but hitherto I have resisted. Being the possessor of a large fortune, he has been able to gratify a devouring passion for philanthropy, and has squandered most of his money on an institution-a kind of club, school, labour-bureau, dispensary, soup-kitchen, all rolled into one-in Lambeth; and there he lives himself, perfectly happy among a hungry, grubby, scarecrow, tatterdemalion crowd. At a loss for a defining

personal, imaginative, adventurous, anything with a touch of distinction, is a less easy matter. You wake up in the morning with the altruistic yearnings of a St. Francois de Sales, and yet somehow you go to bed in the evening with the craving u

atches in Sackville Street. She held out a shrivelled hand to me,

y of bringing unimagined gladness for a mon

o her hand and passed on. She r

stolen it, and I should be locked up. No one

misery, which did not aid the solution of the problem. It was manifestly impossible to take back the note; and yet if she retained it she would be subjected to scandalous indignities. What was t

that policeman

told the policeman and followed h

been doing, sir?"

"I have given her

r, sir?"

have given it her as a free gift, and she is afraid to present it anywhere lest she should be charged

n the breeze. Idlers paused and looked on. The policeman grew authoritative and bade them pass along. They crowded all the more. My position was becoming embarrassing. At last the boy, remembering the badge of honour on his cap, undertook to

ely on the fortuitous attendance of a boy and a policeman, or have a policeman and a boy permanentl

r of liabilities. How he is to repay me he does not know. He wishes he had not yielded to temptation and had allowed

the telephone this morning. "Wh

gasp at th

e not a mi

man reckons his capital as half a year's income, doubles it, and works out the ca

Lucy and the children, so that they needn't accompany you in your singing excur

he bade me not make a jest of his misery. I

years before she knew of your high existence; and if she had been a sensible woman she would have married me inst

English rose, to console me for the loss of my French fleur-de-lis, Clothilde. Or was it the other way about? One does get so mixed in these thin

the identical remark to Lucy Latimer a month or two ago. (She is a plump, kind, motherl

e say such a thing!" I

many more qualified tha

ose and looked her

said I, "you are nothing more

d as if I had paid h

life of me I can't remember. It was something ending in "-ine." We quarrelled because we held divergent views on Mr. Wilson Barrett. Then there was Clothilde, whose tragical story I have already unfolded; Lucy Crooks, who threw me over for this dear, amiable, wooden-headed stockjobbing Latimer; X, Y and Z-but here, let me remark, I was the hunted-mammas spread nets for me which by the grace of heaven and the ungraciousness of the damsels I escaped; and, lastly, my incomparable Eleanor Faversham. Now, I thought, am I safe in harbour? If ever a match could have been labelled "Pure heaven-made goods, warra

e. I attacked it bravely, however, hacking my way into it, paperknife in hand. But to my dismay, the more I hacked the less could I find of Captain Vauvenarde. I sought him in the Alphabetical Repertory of Colo

the hideous volume and the unwelcome

he said, with femini

in you have got the

is my o

orgetting. But how do you kn

n of Kopenick of the day, who had poured a

was quartered at Marseilles on special d

ly two alternatives. Either h

she wh

id I, "that he ha

and was alive. It's horrible to think that he may be dead. It alters everything, somehow. Unt

r husband, Madame

time without replying. She sto

d him," she said at last. "I t

d n

wistful and compelling; but on this occasion it was startling. They held mine for some seconds, and I caught in the

he is alive and I go to him, I'll try to think again that I love him. I

ur relations to Dale

ing of Dale," s

f I may ask witho

ndid frame away from the fireplace and walked backwards and forwards,

that he isn't. He can't be. I count on you to find him and ask him to meet me. It would be better than writing. I don't know what to say when I have a pen in my hand. You must find him and speak to him and send me a wire

she pins all her hopes of happiness on finding him. And why had her salvation from destruction nothing to do with Dale? There is obviously another range of emotions at work beneath it all; but what their nature is baffles me. Although I contemplate with equanimity my little corner in the Garden of Prosperpine, and with indifference this common lodging-house of earth, and although I view mundane affairs with the same

fore me wring

you goin

t of the Ministere de la Guerre in Paris," I replied after a moment's reflect

live. He

Captain Vauvenarde keeps the o

in search of

objected. "He may be in Dieppe, or he

find him," she sa

my wandering all over the surface of the planet in search of a lost cap

ou could stay here-and I could go on seein

her change of m

ect of your going on seeing

her shoulders and took up her

other frien

e's D

not th

ir Joshua

ged her s

I viewed her intrigue with Dale with profound distaste. Lola had become a habit. The chair I was sitting in was my chair. Adolphus was my dog. I hated the idea of Dale making him stand up and do sentry

o the paradoxical conclusion that I could pack her off without a pang to Kamtchatka and the embraces of her unknown husband, but could not h

aid, not stirri

into the life of a common woman like me without"-she hesitated for

I, "but even if I stay and send the private inquiry agent instead

y n

e scarcely

ount of

cise

. A weeping woman always makes me nervous. You never know what she is going to do next. Safety lies in checking the tears

our pudding and e

do you

Dale for your cavaliere servente, and myself for your

you advise me

vious. Giv

tween a sob and a laugh, and

u take hi

y dear lady, with one foot in the grave has no b

of constituting myself her amant en titre, but so as to dispossess the poor boy

your going in search of my husband," she

ny case. Doctor's orders. And I might just as well travel ab

she cried; and her

s I could; and the moment the word

ed look on me and se

that? Why haven

. If I had not regarded myself as the gentleman in the Greek Tragedy walking straight to my certain doom, and therefore holding myself aloof

n a ridiculous and compromising attitude, the door opened and Dale Kynnersley burst,