CHAPTER IV.

In the back-parlour of a bookseller's shop, between the Strand and the Embankment, three persons sat at tea; the proprietor of the shop, a gray little man with round spectacles and bushy eyebrows, his wife, and a pretty girl of twenty or twenty-one. The girl apparently was a visitor, for she wore her hat, and her jacket lay across the arm of an old horsehair sofa that stood against the wall in the lamp's half shadow; and yet the gray little bookseller and his little Dresden-china wife very evidently made no stranger of her. They talked, all three, as members of a family talk, when contented and affectionate; at haphazard, taking one another for granted, not raising their voices.

The table was laid for a fourth; and by-and-by they heard him coming through the shop—in a hurry too. The old lady, always sensitive to the sound of her boy's footsteps, looked up almost in alarm, but the girl half rose from her chair, her eyes eager.

'I know,' she said breathlessly. 'Jim has heard—'

'Chrissy here? That's right.' A young man broke into the room, and stood waving a newspaper. 'The Carnatic's arrived—here it is under "Stop Press"—I bought the paper as I came by Somerset House— "Carnatic arrived at Southampton 3.45 this afternoon. Her time from Sandy Hook, 5 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes."

'Then she hasn't broken the record this time, though Dick was positive she would,' put in the old lady. During the last six months she had developed a craze for Atlantic records, and knew the performances of all the great liners by heart.

'You bad little mother!'—Jim wagged a forefinger at her. 'You don't deserve to hear another word.'

'Is there any more?'

'More? Just you listen to this—"Reports heroic rescue. Yesterday afternoon Mr Markham, the famous Insurance King, accidentally fell overboard from fore deck, and was gallantly rescued by a young officer named Kendal"—you bet that's a misprint for Rendal—error in the wire, perhaps—we'll get a later edition after tea—"who leapt into the sea and swam to the sinking millionaire, supporting him until assistance arrived. Mr Markham had by this afternoon recovered sufficiently to travel home by the Boat Express." There, see for yourselves!'

Jim spread the newspaper on the table.

'But don't they say anything about Dick?' quavered the mother, fumbling with her glasses, while Miss Chrissy stared at the print with shining eyes.

'Dick's not a millionaire, mother—though it seems he has been supporting one—for a few minutes anyway. Well, Chrissy, how does that make you feel?'

'You see, my dear,' said the little bookseller softly, addressing his wife, 'if any harm had come to the boy, they would have reported it for certain.'

They talked over the news while Jim ate his tea, and now and again interrupted with his mouth full; talked over it and speculated upon it in low, excited tones, which grew calmer by degrees. But still a warm flush showed on the cheeks of both the women, and the little bookseller found it necessary to take out his handkerchief at intervals and wipe his round spectacles.

He was wiping them perhaps for the twentieth time, and announcing that he must go and relieve his assistant in the shop, when the assistant's voice was heard uplifted close outside—as it seemed, in remonstrance with a customer.

'Hallo!' said the little bookseller, and was rising from his chair, when the door opened. A middle-aged, Jewish-looking man, wrapped to the chin in a shabby ulster and carrying a suit-case, stood on the threshold, and regarded the little party.

'Mother!' cried Mr Markham. 'Chrissy!'

He set down the suit-case and took two eager strides. Old Mrs.
Rendal, the one immediately menaced, shrank back into Jim's arms as
he started up with his throat working to bolt a mouthful of cake.
Chrissy caught her breath.

'Who in thunder are you, sir?' demanded Jim.

'Get out of this, unless you want to be thrown out!'

'Chrissy!' again appealed Mr Markham, but in a fainter voice. He had come to a standstill, and his hand went slowly up to his forehead.

Chrissy pointed to the suit-case. 'It's—it's Dick's!' she gasped.
Jim did not hear.

'Mr Wenham,' he said to the white-faced assistant in the doorway; 'will you step out, please, and fetch a policeman?'

'Excuse me.' Mr Markham took his hand slowly from his face, and spread it behind him, groping as he stepped backwards to the door. 'I—I am not well, I think'—he spoke precisely, as though each word as it came had to be held and gripped. 'The address'—here he turned on Chrissy with a vague, apologetic smile—'faces—clear in my head. Mistake—I really beg your pardon.'

'Get him some brandy, Jim,' said the little bookseller.
'The gentleman is ill, whoever he is.'

But Mr Markham turned without another word, and lurched past the assistant, who flattened himself against a bookshelf to give him room. Jim followed him through the shop; saw him cross the doorstep and turn away down the pavement to the left; stared in his wake until the darkness and the traffic swallowed him; and returned, softly whistling, to the little parlour.

'Drunk's the simplest explanation,' he announced.

'But how did he know my name?' demanded Chrissy. 'And the suit-case!'

'Eh?' He's left it—well, if this doesn't beat the band!—Here,
Wenham nip after the man and tell him he left his luggage behind!'
Jim stooped to lift the case by the handle.

'But it's Dick's!'

'Dick's?'

'It's the suit-case I gave him—my birthday present last April.
See, there are his initials!'