fascinating- deadly-like a affair on her head, had a wart snake. Ough! A door opened, on one cheek, and silver-rimmed a white-haired secretarial head, spectacles hung on the tip of but wearing a compassionate her nose. expression, appeared, and a skinny forefinger beckoned me into the sanctuary. Its light was dim, and a heavy writingdesk squatted in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frockcoat. The great man himself. He was five feet six, I should judge, and had his grip on the handle - end of ever SO many millions. He shook hands, I fancy, murmured vaguely, was satisfied with my French. Bon voyage.

"In about forty-five seconds I found myself again in the waiting-room with the compassionate secretary, who, full of desolation and sympathy, made me sign some document. I believe I undertook amongst other things not to disclose any trade secrets. Well, I am not going to.

She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, and she threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them and about me too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing, continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinising the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. "Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of these she looked at ever saw her again-not half, by a long

way.

"There was yet a visit to "I began to feel slightly un- the doctor. 'A simple foreasy. You know I am not used mality,' assured me the secreto such ceremonies, and there tary, with an air of taking was something ominous in the an immense part in all my atmosphere. It was just as sorrows. Accordingly a young though I had been let into chap wearing his hat over the some conspiracy-I don't know left eyebrow, some clerk I sup-something not quite right; pose, there must have been and I was glad to get out. In clerks in the business, though the outer room the two women the house was as still as a knitted black wool feverishly. house in a city of the dead,— People were arriving, and the came from somewhere up-stairs, younger one was walking back and led me forth. He was and forth introducing them. shabby and careless, with inkThe old one sat on her chair. stains on the sleeves of his Her flat cloth slippers were jacket, and his cravat was propped up on a foot-warmer, large and billowy, under a chin and a cat reposed on her lap. shaped like the toe of an old She wore a starched white boot. It was a little too early

know why a queer feeling

came to me that I was an impostor. Odd thing that I, who used to clear out for any part of the world at twenty-four hours' notice, with less thought than most men give to the crossing of a street, had a moment-I won't say of hesitation, but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.

wife of the high dignitary, I left. In the street-I don't and goodness knows to how many more people besides, as an exceptional and gifted creature a piece of good fortune for the Company-a man you don't get hold of every day. Good heavens! and I was going to take charge of a twopenny - halfpenny river - steamboat with a penny whistle attached! It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital - you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time, and the excellent woman, living right in the rush of all that humbug, got carried off her feet. She talked about weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit.

666

'You forget, dear Charlie, that the labourer is worthy of his hire,' she said, brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.

"After this I got embraced, told to wear flannel, be sure to write often, and so on-and

"I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed port they have out there, for, as far as I could see, the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers. I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you-smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, Come and find out. This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness. The edge of a colossal jungle, so darkgreen as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist. The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam. Here and there greyish - whitish specks showed up, clustered inside the white surf, with a flag flying above them perhaps. Settlements some centuries old,