Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich

, in which she held those fashionable entertainments which have made the

rinking five dollar champagne), she answered that the facade was cinquecentisti, but that it reproduced also the Saracenic mullioned window of the Siennese School. But if the guest said later in the evening to Mr. R

exactly the sort of people

the early years of their married life, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, her husband had been a drag on her by being in the coal and wood business. It is hard for a woman to have to realize that her husband is making a fortune out of coal and wood and that people know it. It ties one down. What a woman wants most of all-this, of course, is merely a quotati

had passed to some extent, or were, at a

drag r

usband who owned a coal mine and who bought pulp forests instead of illuminated missals of the twelf

meant if there was any one thing that he did. For instance if he had only collected anything. Thus, there was Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, who made soda-water, b

be noted what fine places these are to happen to be. And to think that Mr. Rasselyer-Brown would never put his foot outside of the United States! Whereas Mr. Feathertop would come back from what he called a run to Europe, and everybody would learn in a week that he had pi

rstand how heav

h Brown Limited, the ominous business name of Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, were buying that year) "if Mr. Rasselyer-Brown did anything. But he does nothing. Every morning after breakfast off to hi

ertainly

hen the Dante Club met at her house (they selected four lines each week to meditate on, and then discussed them at lunch), Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown had to carry

ce, beside Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the sex-poet, and where was he? Nowhere. He couldn't even understand what Mr. Snoop was saying. And when Mr. Snoop would stand on the hearth-rug with a cup of tea balanced in his hand, and discuss whether sex was or was not the dominant note in Botticelli, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown would be skulking in a corner in his ill-fitting dress suit. His

erself never put it into words. In fact, of this part of her burden she never spoke, even to her bosom friend Miss Snagg; nor did she talk about it

d the Art Society and the Dante Club

. It was not meant that he was a drunkard or that he drank

he Grand Palaver for a moment, if it was a raw day, and dropped in and took something to keep out the damp. If it was a cold day he took something to keep out the cold, and if it was one of those clear, sunny days that are so dangerous to the system he took whatever the bartender (a recognized health expert) suggested to tone the system up. After which he could sit down

r-Brown had begun twenty-five years ago, he finds that if he wants to succeed he must cut malted milk clear out. In any position of responsibility a man has got to drink. No really big deal can be put through without it. If two keen men, sharp as flint, get together to make a deal

est and timber business, where one deals constantly with chief rangers, and pathfinders, a

to take nothing. He might, perhaps, as he passed into the house, step into the dining-room and take a very small drink at the sideboard. But this he counted as part of the return itself, and not after it. And he might, if his brain were over-fatigued, drop down later in the night in his pa

certain differences of face and appearance. Mr. Snoop had expressed this fact exquisitely when he said that it was the difference between a Burne-Jones and a Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But even at that the mother and daughte

haracter and intellect. So is any girl who has beautiful golden hair parted

w interesting!" that she had the mind of a lawyer. And Mr. Brace, the consulting engineer, who showed her on the table-cloth at dessert with three forks and a spoon the method in which the overflow of the spillway of the Gatun Dam is regulated, felt assured, from the way she leaned her face on her hand sideways and said, "How extraordinary!" that she h

one hand. One might see athletic young college men of the football team trying hard to talk about Italian music; and Italian tenors from the Grand Opera doing their best to talk about college football. There were young men in business talking about art, and young men in art talking about religion, and young clergymen talking about business. Because, of course, the Rasselyer-Brown re

elightful salons of the eighteenth century: and whether the gatherings were or were not salons of the eighteenth century, there is no doubt that Mr. Rasselyer-Brown, under

uffi to leave town, and the generous attempt of another committee to gather funds in order to keep Signor Pasti in the City. Beyond this, opera was dead, though the fact that the deficit was nearly twice as large as it had been the year before showed that public interest in

They washed in waves of silk from tango teas to bridge afternoons. They poured in liquid avalanches of colour into crowded receptions,

hought of asking who he was or where he came from. They merely told one another, and repeated it, that he was the celebrated Yahi-Bahi. They added for those who needed the knowledge that the name was pronounced Yahhy-Bahhy, and that the doctrine taught by Mr. Yahi-Bahi

hing that was done in the best circles on Plutoria Avenue

interesting. We drove away down to the queerest part of the City, and went to the strangest little house im

had been inhabited, as it might have been, by a streetcar conductor or a railway brake

," she went on, "with figures of snak

Mr. Yahi-Bahi?"

engalee, I believe. He put his back against a curtain and spread out his arms sideways and

ful!" echoed

sitting behind the curtain eating

Mr. Ram Spudd took it. He made the deepest salaam and said, 'Isis guard you, beautiful lady.' Such perfect courtesy, and yet with the air of scorning the money. As I passed out I couldn't help slipping another dollar into his hand, and he took it as if utterly unaware of it, and muttered, 'Osiris keep you, O flower of w

murmur such things as this for Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. On the whole, re

ide Ram Spudd. The rude way in which the opened the door, and the rude way in which he climbed on to his own seat, and the rudeness with which he turned on

feur, that of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown herself, for exampl

ds, and the thing that gave him a touch of mystery was-and what higher qual

moment Dulphemia's second self), as they sat behind the new chauffeur, "don't tell me t

hen he put on the round cloth cap of his profession it was converted straightway into a military shako. And by Miss Dulphemia and her friends it was presently reported-or was inven

of the salon. Thus, when Mr. Sikleigh Snoop handed her into the car at any time he would dance about saying, "Allow me," and "Permit me," and wou

able that he was a British nobleman, a younger son, very wild, of a ducal family; and she had her own theories as to why he had entered the service of the Rasselyer-Browns. To be quite candid about

s of everybody else that was anybody at all, centre

, drove down to the house of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. And all of them, whether they saw Mr

e little table. Mr. Spudd scarcely seemed to see it. He murmured, 'Osiris help you!' and pointed to the ceiling. I rais

he did," sai

Mr. Yahi-Bahi's occult powers, especially

had asked for a divination, and Mr. Yahi-Bahi had effected one by causing her to lay six ten-dollar pieces on the table arranged in the form of a mystic serpent. Over t

do it?" ask

invited to appear at the residence of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown; and it was understood that ste

he had spent six weeks there on a stop-over ticket of a round-the-world 635 dollar steamship pilgrimage; and he knew the whole country from Jehumbapore in Bhoot

rs of England, an organization limited exclusively to women born in England and elsewhere; of the Daughters of Kossuth, made up solely of Hungarians and friends of Hungary and other nations; and of the Circle of Franz Joseph, which was composed exclusively of the partisans, and others, of Austria. In fact

of course, little Mr. Spillikins, with his vacuous face and football hair, who was there, as everybody knew, on account of Dulphemia; and there was old Judge Longerstill, who sat leaning on a gold-headed stick with his head sideways, trying to hear some fraction of what was being said. He came to the gathering

osed of women, and they sat in a little buz

lady would be good enough to write minutes? Miss Snagg, I wo

, "but I'm afraid there's hardly time t

erwards," chorussed several ladies who understoo

e vote a constitution," said a st

s. Buncomhearst. "All thos

y sti

ld be good enough, Mrs. Fyshe," she said, turning t

o move, if I may, that I almost wonder whether it is necessary to write th

nt, "you have heard the mo

was no

e in favo

s still

," sh

ce, and realizing that Mr. Yahi-Bahi must have been

most eminent gentleman who probably has th

as fortune had it at this very moment Mr. Sikleigh Snoo

g brown face and liquid brown eyes of such depth that when he turned them full upon the l

afterwards, "he seemed simp

correct

ke little puddles of molasses. His head was bound in a turban and his body was swathed in so many bands and sashes that he looked almost

ed afterwards that it was very difficult. The only languages of India which he was able to speak, he said, with any fluency were Gargamic and Gumaic both of these being old Dravidian dialects with only two hundred and three words in each, and hence in

hee. Anybody who could spend a certain number of hours each day, say sixteen, in silent meditation on Boohooism would find his mind gradually reaching a condition of Bahee. The chief aim of Bahee itself was sacrifice: a true follower of the cult must be willing to sacrifice his friends, or his relatives, and even strangers, in order to reach Bahee. In this w

as typifying the three chief virtues, whereas silver or paper money did not; even national banknotes were only regarded as do or, a halfway palliation; and outside currencies such as Canadian or Mexican bills were looke

standing beside the Ganges, and apparently without visible occupation," and it was voted exquisite by all who heard it.

e Longerstill for a few words of thanks, which he gave, foll

, Mr. Yahi-Bahi made four salaams, one to each

body discussed the nature of Bahee, and tried in

a strange and peculiar thing. He first asked Mr. Rasselyer-Brown for a few hours' leave of absence to attend the fun

t pocket, had there been an eye to read it, would have been seen to be filled with stranger details in regard to Oriental mysticism than even Mr. Yahi-Bahi had given to the world. So strange were they that before the Philippine chauffeur returned to the Rasselyer-Brown residence he telegraphed c

red previous belief stale and puerile. The practice of the sacred rites began at once. The ladies' counters of the Plutorian banks were inundated with requests for ten-dollar pieces in exchange for banknotes. At dinner in the best houses nothing was eaten except a thin soup (or bru), followed by fish, succeeded by meat or by game, especially such birds as are particularly pl

or Jumbumbabad. For example, when Mrs. Buncomhearst learned of the remarriage of her second husband-she had lost him three years before, owing to a difference of opinion on the emancipation of women-she showed the most complete Bahee pos

ahee, or Higher Indifference, that they even ceased to attend the meetings of the society; others reached a Swaraj, or Control of Self, so great that they no lon

liar wherever a successful occult creed makes

demonstration of occult power which attended the final seance of

form the demonstration would take was for some time a matter of doubt. It was whispered at first that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt the mysterious eastern rite of burying Ram Spudd alive in the garden of the Rasselyer-Brown residence and leaving h

of confidence, that Mr. Yahi-Bahi would attempt nothing less than the supreme feat

shivered with a luxurious sense

done before?" they

he sect. But it is looked upon as extremely rare. Mr. Yahi tells me that the great danger is that, if the slightest part of the formula is i

t Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's resid

the answer was, "Yes, at midnight. You see, midni

else, "is exactly midday in Allahabad." That made things perfectly clear. Whereas if

the seance some ornament of gold; but it must

ty, wisdom and grace. Therefore, according to the creed of Boohooism, anyone who has enough gold, plain gold, is endow

with the one exception of rubies, which are known to be endowed with t

a second exception was made; especially as Mr. Yahi-Bahi, on appeal, decided that diamonds, though less pleasi

vast dining-room. The servants had been sent upstairs and expressly enjoined to retire at half past ten. Moreover, Mr. Rasselyer-Brown had had to attend that evening, at the Mausoleum Club, a meeting of the trustees of the Church of St. Asaph, and he had come home at eleven o'clock, as he always did after diocesan work of this sort, quite

ps of the darkened house, and were admitted without ringing, the door opening silently in front of them. Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd, who

g room. There was no light in it except the dim taper which stood on a little table. On this table each guest, as instructed, laid an ornament of gold, and at the same time was utt

sts as they saw Mr. Yahi-Bahi pass across the d

he's laying the propitiat

te," whispered Mrs

ng to and fro in front of the sideboar

e greatest hunt to get it all for him. He said that nothing but Burmese brandy would do, because in the Hindu religion the god ca

or incense to reach the nostrils of the god. The glass of propitiato

alaam. The light of the single taper had by this time burned so dim that his movements were vague and uncertain. His body cast great

ement was

mean?" whispere

wherever thou art in thy lofty Nirvana, desc

oving across the room, he disappeared behind the screen. Of what Mr. Ram Spudd was d

ess was no

nce," whispered Mr. Snoop fro

ity, silent, looking towards the

one moved. All were s

per had flickered down till the

ations, the substitution perhaps of the wrong

t

t was the word as afterwards repeated in a hundred confidential discussions. A presenc

gasped as the

he wall, deliberately astralizing itself as it passed through the bricks. Others seemed to have seen it pass in at th

eity, so that to every lip there rose the half-articulated word, "Buddha"; or at le

omparison were not profane, a modern dressing-gown. The legs, if one might so call them, of the apparition were enwrapped in loose pun

ffering. That much was perfectly clear. Whether Buddha spoke or not is doubtful. Certain of the spectators thought that he said, 'Must a fagotnit', which is Hindustanee for

lowly wiping one arm across his mouth

. Then quite suddenly Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown, unable to stand the tension any

d guests staring at one

the centre stood empty-not a single gem, not a fraction of

n everyone at once. There was

ccult power of the vision they had been demonetized, engul

em was more dreadful still. The outer Oriental garments of the two devotees lay strewn upon the floor. The long sash of Yahi-Bahi and the thick turban of Ram Spudd were side by side near them; almost sick

h was to

ed!" cried a doz

ng with their lives. Through some fatal neglect, against which they had fairly warned the

Mr. Snoop. "We must hav

lized?" murmured

of it," sai

up was heard to say, "We must hus

joined in, everybody urgin

eastralize them?" said

l shaking. "Better not try to.

t, after all, the principles of Bahee, or Indiffere

body, and there was a gen

laimed Mrs. Buncomh

zed!" said

n as everybody gazed at the spot where the

et's go without them-don't stay.

ard in the street the clanging of a bell and the rac

p! Hush it up!" For of course the princip

ong and violent peal, and in a second as it seemed, the w

We have them both. Everything is here. We got them before they'd gone a block. But if

He wore the uniform of an inspector of police, and there was the meta

ess the contents of the magic parcels, and the Philippine chauffeur had a grip of iron on the neck of each as they stood. Mr. Spudd had

t complete Bahee, or Submission to Fate, which is attained only by lon

rage. "They had the stuff in a hand-cart and were pushing it away. The chief caught them at the corner, and rang the patrol from there

fe, reliable people policemen in blue are, and what a friendly, f

criminals?"

th of them have done time, and lots of it. They've only been out six month

udd were lifted up into the patrol wagon where they seated themselves with a composure worthy of the best traditions of Jehumbabah a

ed, and the Yahi-Bahi Society terminated

from all danger of arrest, the members of the society realized that on one point the police were entirely off the truth of things. For Mr. Yahi-Bah

tic on this point than Mr

said, "if it was no

tion was nev