the face. “Do I look like a missionary, Mr. Bailey?” she said; “if so, you are the first person who has ever noted the likeness. Look!””Look! Why, I couldn’t help looking, Lil; and with every respect to you, Lil, she was worth a good stare. She had golden hair, parted in the middle and brought low over her ears in the newest of angled fashion. Her eyebrows all but met over her nose, and she had a pair of the loveliest but hardest blue eyes I have ever seen. Lord save you!’ Jim said, striking the palm of one of his hands with the fist of his other, ‘ they were hard — flint wasn’t in it with them! And her mouth! That was cruel too — real downright cruel, with thin, tightly shut lips and sharp white teeth that glittered like a wolf’s.”But for all that she was beautiful…

…enabled me to recognise my surroundings. I was still in the armchair, and before me on the table lay the dessert and wine.”Every vestige of silver had gone; and so had my host and hostess. Here the man on” the bench laughed bitterly. “I was duped, of course!” he added;” the man and the woman were no more Mr. and Mrs. Montague than they were Red Indians! They were part of a gang of notorious burglars who had been wanted for a long time!””Good Heavens!” I cried, *’ they were caught? ‘”Caught, yes” the man on the bench hissed; “seven years apiece, and as for me — I got dismissed! Dismissed! And I have not had the heart to look for another job since!”I gave him five shillings — all I had with me — which he accepted gratefully, and I left him there muttering — muttering that it was…

…One night, as far back as 1894, 1 dreamed I was in a desert in Phantomnia, and that bounding towards me from a distance, came a white kangaroo decorated with large, brown spots that looked as if they had been recently painted, and which imparted to it a wooden appearance. It came right up to me, and eyeing me in the friendliest manner possible, said, “Have you seen my mother?” “No!” I replied, “I have not seen anyone here for the last two years, because it is fully that time since I visited these parts. What is she like?” The kangaroo was greatly perplexed. “Why,” he said, “To tell you the truth I havent the slightest idea. I thought, perhaps, you might know; but, of course; since you have been absent for so long, it is very obvious you are the last person I should have asked. Good-bye.” And,…