they would first examine the windows, and Uncle Ben would explain what everything was and where it probably came from, and then they would go in, and although he almost never bought anything, in a few moments he and the dealer became as brothers.

And all the time they were walking, Uncle Ben would be unfolding his busy impressionistic mind to Rudd exactly as to a friend of long standing: drawing his attention to a girl's prettiness, or the rich colours of a fruiterer's window, or the still pearl-grey of the sea, or a man-of-war on the horizon, or an especially good horse. He seemed to see everything, and always to find something which communicated a pleasure which he in his turn must communicate to another. That, perhaps, was Uncle Ben's most remarkable quality: the desire to share whatever he enjoyed.

On this particular visit Uncle Ben had been telling a story of an employee who had robbed him. For some time there had been leakages of money; every one had been questioned, but to no effect; and then at last presumptive evidence had been forthcoming, and the culprit had absconded.

Uncle Ben went at once to the man's house and found his wife and family. They were in great distress, for the wife had had a serious operation and a long illness, and all the money was gone. The thefts, of which she had known nothing, had been to keep the home together. Then the wretched father, leaving the last contribution and a confession behind him, had disappeared.

"But why didn't he come to me?" Uncle Ben had said.

"Ah, if he only had!" replied the wretched wife.

"We must get him back," said Uncle Ben. "Nobody need know the worst."

Then followed an amusing account of their efforts to trace him: advertisements in the papers, so wrapped up, for fear of giving too much away to the outer world, as to be unintelligible even to the runaway himself; a private detective, and all the trouble that it was to make him understand that the husband when found must never suspect that he was required by the law; the suppression of the real facts of the case at the office; and so forth.

And at last came the discovery of the man, in a false beard, close to his own house, having haunted the neighbourhood to waylay his children and discover how their mother was.

In the end Uncle Ben had taken him back.

"Very humane of you, I'm sure," said Mr. Sergison, "but very unwise."

"Not at all, my dear Tom," said Uncle Ben; "very astute of me, as a matter of fact, because if there is one man in my employ who, I know for an absolute certainty, will never either rob me or do anything but guard my interests, it is this one. Many a man," he added, "has to go wrong before he can go right."

CHAPTER XII

MR. DIMSDALE

UDD had been at his first boarding-school only

RU

a few weeks when one of the masters, Mr. Dimsdale, succumbed to pneumonia.

Every one knew that Mr. Dimsdale was ill, but it came as a shock to hear that he had died in the night. The blinds were pulled down; breakfast was eaten by gaslight and almost in silence; there were no games that day. Now and then a boy would forget, and would shout or laugh, and then suddenly he would remember and freeze into quietude again. The classes were subdued also, and the masters wore black ties.

Then, the next day, the whole school was assembled, and the head master informed them that he wished them all to take a last look at their late friend.

They must not, he said, be frightened. There was nothing about death that was frightening; it was merely a phase: Mr. Dimsdale had passed on, that was all. To what life he had passed, no one knew: none had returned from the grave to tell; but he,

the speaker, for one, was confident that it was to a finer and more beautiful existence.

He now proposed, he said, to lead the boys, in small companies, through the death chamber.

There was a rustle of alarm when he had finished. Such a proceeding was by no means to every one's mind. They were sorry for Mr. Dimsdale, who had been sympathetic and sporting; but to have to see his dead body. . .! Vaguely they felt that this was not in the curriculum, and one boy openly remarked, when the first party had left, that he was sure his pater would be jolly stuffy about it—a statement which led to a series of similar avowals, with mater here and there substituted as the jolly stuffy one.

Still, the head master was not to be denied, except by two or three smaller boys, who at once began to cry bitterly and were led away. Rudd envied them, but was unable to emulate. Not that he was not afraid, but his fear of public disgrace, should he thus break down, was greater. It is often the real heroes who run away, but how was he, at his age, to know that?

After a few minutes' absence the first party returned, very depressed in deportment, and some with red eyes. To every one's dismay, Ebbets, the captain of the eleven and a giant of a boy, was openly sobbing, his efforts to disguise his emotion leading to gasping gurgles that did anything but reassure the others. The result was that a few more fell out and were excused; but still not the cowardly Rudd.

At last came his turn to visit the room. They all walked in silence to the dreadful door, and there the silence became almost tangible.

Mr. Dimsdale was in his coffin; terribly still and waxen. He was dressed in a night-shirt, and his hands were placed across his chest. He had been a clean-shaved man, but was now stubbly. His eyes were closed. Had they been open Rudd would have bolted. He felt sure of that.

When all the boys were in the room the head master made a few remarks about the beauty of death. How purifying it was, how serene. He lifted up one of Mr. Dimsdale's hands for them to see its delicacy and whiteness. He held a candle behind it to illustrate its transparency.

"You see," he said finally, "there's nothing to be afraid of."

But Rudd knew better. There was everything to be afraid of, because it was death, and death was the negation of life. Death was horrible. First, ceasing to be; then, this cold marble state; and then, the coffin, and the hammering of the nails, and the lowering into the dark earth. And then

Had Rudd not seen Mr. Dimsdale's actual lifeless body, the funeral, a day or so after, would have been little more than a piece of gloomy ritual; but as it was, it was the definitive burial beneath the ground of a white, fixed stubbly face and semi-transparent hands.

Every time Rudd walked by the cemetery, which was near the school, after this, he saw Mr. Dimsdale