A Tangled Tale

The ruddy glow of sunset was already fading into the sombre shadows of night, when two travellers might have been observed swiftly⁠—at a pace of six miles in the hour⁠—descending the rugged side of a mountain; the younger bounding from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, while his companion, whose aged limbs seemed ill at ease in the heavy chain armour habitually worn by tourists in that district, toiled on painfully at his side.

As is always the case under such circumstances, the younger knight was the first to break the silence.

“A goodly pace, I trow!” he exclaimed. “We sped not thus in the ascent!”

“Goodly, indeed!” the other echoed with a groan. “We clomb it but at three miles in the hour.”

“And on the dead level our pace is⁠—?” the younger suggested; for he was weak in statistics, and left all such details to his aged companion.

“Four miles in the hour,” the other wearily replied. “Not an ounce more,” he added, with that love of metaphor so common in old age, “and not a farthing less!”

“ ’Twas three hours past high noon when we left our hostelry,” the young man said, musingly. “We shall scarce be back by suppertime. Perchance mine host will roundly deny us all food!”

“He will chide our tardy return,” was the grave reply, “and such a rebuke will be meet.”

“A brave conceit!” cried the other, with a merry laugh. “And should we bid him bring us yet another course, I trow his answer will be tart!”

“We shall but get our deserts,” sighed the elder knight, who had never seen a joke in his life, and was somewhat displeased at his companion’s untimely levity.

“Straight down the crooked lane, And all round the square.”

“Let’s ask Balbus about it,” said Hugh.

“All right,” said Lambert.

“He can guess it,” said Hugh.

“Rather,” said Lambert.

No more words were needed: the two brothers understood each other perfectly.

Balbus was waiting for them at the hotel: the journey down had tired him, he said: so his two pupils had been the round of the place, in search of lodgings, without the old tutor who had been their inseparable companion from their childhood. They had named him after the hero of their Latin exercise-book, which overflowed with anecdotes of that versatile genius⁠—anecdotes whose vagueness in detail was more than compensated by their sensational brilliance. “Balbus has overcome all his enemies” had been marked by their tutor, in the margin of the book, “Successful Bravery.” In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus⁠—sometimes one of warning, as in “Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon,” against which he had written “Rashness in Speculation”⁠—sometimes of encouragement, as in the words “Influence of Sympathy in United Action,” which stood opposite to the anecdote “Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon”⁠—and sometimes it dwindled down to a single word, such as “Prudence,” which was all he could extract from the touching record that “Balbus, having scorched the tail of the dragon, went away.”

“Well, they call me so because I am a little mad, I suppose,” she said, good-humouredly, in answer to Clara’s cautiously-worded question as to how she came by so strange a nickname. “You see, I never do what sane people are expected to do nowadays. I never wear long trains, (talking of trains, that’s the Charing Cross Metropolitan Station⁠—I’ve something to tell you about that), and I never play lawn-tennis. I can’t cook an omelette. I can’t even set a broken limb! There’s an ignoramus for you!”

Clara was her niece, and full twenty years her junior; in fact, she was still attending a High School⁠—an institution of which Mad Mathesis spoke with undisguised aversion. “Let a woman be meek and lowly!” she would say. “None of your High Schools for me!” But it was vacation-time just now, and Clara was her guest, and Mad Mathesis was showing her the sights of that Eighth Wonder of the world⁠—London.

“The Charing Cross Metropolitan Station!” she resumed, waving her hand towards the entrance as if she were introducing her niece to a friend. “The Bayswater and Birmingham Extension is just completed, and the trains now run round and round continuously⁠—skirting the border of Wales, just touching at York, and so round by the east coast back to London. The way the trains run is most peculiar. The westerly ones go round in two hours; the easterly ones take three; but they always manage to start two trains from here, opposite ways, punctually every quarter-of-an-hour.”

“They part to meet again,” said Clara, her eyes filling with tears at the romantic thought.

They landed, and were at once conducted to the Palace. About halfway they were met by the Governor, who welcomed them in English⁠—a great relief to our travellers, whose guide could speak nothing but Kgovjnian.

“I don’t half like the way they grin at us as we go by!” the old man whispered to his son. “And why do they say ‘Bamboo!’ so often?”

“It alludes to a local custom,” replied the Governor, who had overheard the question. “Such persons as happen in any way to displease Her Radiancy are usually beaten with rods.”

The old man shuddered. “A most objectional local custom!” he remarked with strong emphasis. “I wish we had never landed! Did you notice that black fellow, Norman, opening his great mouth at us? I verily believe he would like to eat us!”

Norman appealed to the Governor, who was walking at his other side. “Do they often eat distinguished strangers here?” he said, in as indifferent a tone as he could assume.

“Not often⁠—not ever!” was the welcome reply. “They are not good for it. Pigs we eat, for they are fat. This old man is thin.”

“And thankful to be so!” muttered the elder traveller. “Beaten we shall be without a doubt. It’s a comfort to know it won’t be Beaten without the B! My dear boy, just look at the peacocks!”

They were now walking between two unbroken lines of those gorgeous birds, each held in check, by means of a golden collar and chain, by a black

“Not wide enough! Not half wide enough!” was the passionate reply.

The words came in aptly enough, but the voice was not that of Clara, and both ladies turned in some surprise to see who it was that had so suddenly struck into their conversation. A fat little old lady was standing at the door of a cab, helping the driver to extricate what seemed an exact duplicate of herself: it would have been no easy task to decide which was the fatter, or which looked the more good-humoured of the two sisters.

“I tell you the cab-door isn’t half wide enough!” she repeated, as her sister finally emerged, somewhat after the fashion of a pellet from a popgun, and she turned to appeal to Clara. “Is it, dear?” she said, trying hard to bring a frown into a face that dimpled all over with smiles.

“Some folks is too wide for ’em,” growled the cabdriver.

“Don’t provoke me, man!” cried the little old lady, in what she meant for a tempest of fury. “Say another word and I’ll put you into the County Court, and sue you for a Habeas Corpus!” The cabman touched his hat, and marched off, grinning.

“Nothing like a little Law to cow the ruffians, my dear!” she remarked confidentially to Clara. “You saw how he quailed when I mentioned the Habeas Corpus? Not that I’ve any idea what it means, but it sounds very grand, doesn’t it?”