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grates in the old days. Naturally, if you have six pigeons, and a lamprey, and a lobster, and a side of lamb, and a leg of mutton, and all these other things cooking at the same time, you would need a huge fire."

"The wonderful thing about Pepys," said Frank, looking thoughtfully over the pages, "is that he is capable of noting down the mean little impulses of human nature, which most men would be so ashamed of, that they would hasten to put them out of their mind. His occasional shabbiness in money matters, his jealousies, his envies, all his petty faults, which are despicable on account of their pettiness. Fancy any man writing this. He is describing how he visited a friend and was reading a book from his library. A very good book,' says he, 'especially one letter of advice to a courtier, most true and good, which made me once resolve to tear out the two leaves that it was writ in, but I forbore it.' Imagine recording such a vile thought."

"But what you have never explained to me yet, dear, or if you did, I didn't understand—you don't mind my being a little stupid, do you?-is, what object Mr. Pepys had in putting down all this in such a form that no one could read it."

"Well, you must bear in mind, dear, that he could read it himself. Besides, he was a fellow with a singularly methodical side to his mind. He was, for example, continually adding up how much money he had, or cataloguing and indexing his library, and so on. He liked to have everything shipshape. And so with his life, it

pleased him to have an exact record which he could turn to. And yet, after all, I don't know that that is a sufficient explanation."

"No, indeed, it is not. My experience of men-—” "Your experience, indeed!"

"Yes, sir, my experience of men-how rude you are, Frank!-tells me that they have funny little tricks and vanities which take the queerest shapes."

"Indeed! Have I any?"

"You-you are compounded of them. Not vanity -no, I don't mean that. But pride-you are as proud as Lucifer, and much too proud to show it. That is the most subtle form of pride. Oh yes, I know perfectly well what I mean. But in this man's case, it took the form of wishing to make a sensation after his death. He could not publish such a thing when he lived, could he?"

"Rather not."

"Well, then, he had to do it after his death. He had to write it in cipher, or else someone would have found him out during his lifetime. But, very likely, he left a key to the cipher, so that everyone might read it when he was gone, but the key and his directions were in some way lost."

"Well, it is very probable."

The fire had died down, so Maude slipped off her chair, and sat on the black fur rug, with her back against Frank's knees. "Now, dear, read away?" said she.

But the lamp shone down upon her dainty head,

and it gleamed upon her white neck, and upon the fluffy, capricious, untidy, adorable, little curlets, which broke out along the edges of the gathered strands of her chestnut hair. And so, after the fashion of men, his thoughts flew away from Mr. Pepys and the seventeenth century, and all that is lofty and instructive, and could fix upon nothing except those dear little wandering tendrils, and the white column on which they twined. Alas, that so small a thing can bring the human mind from its empyrean flights! Alas, that vague emotions can drag down the sovereign intellect! Alas, that even for an hour, a man should prefer the material to the spiritual!

But the man who doesn't misses a good deal.

A VISIT TO MR. SAMUEL PEPYS.

THERE are several unjustifiable extravagances which every normal man commits. There are also several unjustifiable economies. Among others, there is that absurd eagerness to save the striking of a second match, which occasions so many burned fingers, and such picturesque language. And again, there is the desire to compress a telegraphic message into the minimum sixpennyworth, and so send an ambiguous and cryptic sentence, when sevenpence would have made it as clear as light. We all tend to be stylists in our telegrams.

A week after the conversation about Mr. Pepys, when

some progress had been made with the reading of the Diary, Maude received the following wire from Frank

"Mrs. Crosse. Woking.-Pepys buttered toast suède gloves four Monument wait late.”

As a sixpennyworth it was a success, but as a message it seemed to leave something to be desired. Maude puzzled over it, and tried every possible combination of the words. The nearest approach to sense was when it was divided in this way

Pepys-buttered toast-suède gloves-four-Monument, wait late.

She wrote it out in this form, and took it section by section. "Pepys," that was unintelligible. "Buttered toast," no sense in that. "Suède gloves," yes, she had

told Frank that when she came to town, she would buy some suède gloves at a certain shop in the City, where she could get a kind for three and threepence a pair which would cost her three and ninepence in Woking. Maude was so conscientiously economical, that she was always prepared to spend two shillings in railway-fares to reach a spot where a sixpence was to be saved, and to lavish her nerve and energy freely in the venture. Here, then, in the suède gloves, was a central point of light. And then her heart bounded with joy, as she realised that the last part could only mean that she was to meet Frank at the Monument at four, and that she was to wait for him if he were late.

So, now, returning to the opening of the message,

with the light which shone from the ending, she realised that buttered toast might refer to a queer little City hostel, remarkable for that luxury, where Frank had already taken her twice to tea. And so leaving Mr. Pepys to explain himself later, Maude gave hurried orders to Jemima and the cook, and dashed upstairs to put on her new fawn-coloured walking-dress-a garment which filled her with an extraordinary mixture of delight and remorse, for it was very smart, cost seven guineas, and had not yet been paid for.

The rendezvous was evidently a sudden thought upon the part of Frank, for he had left very little time for her to reach the trysting-place. However, she was fortunate in catching a train to Waterloo, and another thence to the City, and so reached the Monument at five minutes to four. The hour was just striking when Frank, with his well-brushed top-hat and immaculate business frockcoat, came rushing from the direction of King William Street. Maude held out her hand and he shook it, and then they both laughed at the formality.

"I am so glad you were able to come, dearest. How you do brighten up the old City!”

"Do I? I felt quite lonely until you came. Nothing but droves of men-and all staring."

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"Well, that's brown. Anyhow, it looks charming.

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