Three Men and a Maid

were old travellers, and their minds went back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when performers at ships' concerts had imitated whole strings of D

ature or scope of the imitation which this S. Marlowe proposed to inflict

Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to them something ominous in the man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner prod

ad watched him enter with a little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content with one

her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was

the matte

r had said, there was something dynamic. The daughter of an eminent explorer and big-game

he piano?" she whispe

do," said Billie. "His

t long ago. Poor little fel

and struck a crashing chord: and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight

e was a grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed

Ernest,"

ause expectantly, as th

e reigned i

o, Er

man on the stool had grown whiter still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked

ompletely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its curling smo

e and piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything

tricken field, might have felt something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be car

loon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, passed thro

rdinary measure the one quality which renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had

. He had fled for refuge to his stateroom and was lying