IX. ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST

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IX. ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST

'Mr. Frederick Warren'--so Merton read the card presented to him on a salver of Limoges enamel by the office-boy.

'Show the gentleman in.'

Mr. Warren entered. He was a tall and portly person, with a red face, red whiskers, and a tightly buttoned frock-coat, which more expressed than hid his goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circumstance that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly vaccinated.

Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown of his hat, he wiped his countenance. The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton hospitably offered an effervescent draught.

'Without the whisky, if you please, sir,' said Mr. Warren, in a provincial accent. He pointed to a blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of alcoholic refreshment in all its forms.

'Two glasses of Apollinaris water,' said Merton to the office-boy; and the innocent fluid was brought, while Merton silently admired his client's arrangement in blue and crimson. When the thirst of that gentleman had been assuaged, he entered upon business thus:

'Sir, I am a man of principle!'

Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was needed. He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required.

'Sir, have you been vaccinated?' asked the client earnestly.

'Really,' said Merton, 'I do not quite understand your interest in a matter so purely personal.'

'Personal, sir? Not at all. It is the first of public duties--the debt that every man, woman, and child owes to his or her country. Have you been vaccinated, sir?'

'Why, if you insist on knowing,' said Merton, 'I have, though I do not see--'

'Recently?' asked the visitor.

'Yes, last month; but I cannot conjecture why--'

'Enough, sir,' said Mr. Warren. 'I am a man of principle. Had you not done your duty in this matter by your country, I should have been compelled to seek some other practitioner in your line.'

'I was not aware that my firm had any competitors in our line of business,' said Merton. 'But perhaps you have come here under some misapprehension. There is a firm of family solicitors on the floor above, and next them are the offices of a company interested in a patent explosive. If your affairs, or your political ideas, demand a legal opinion, or an outlet in an explosive which is widely recommended by the Continental Press--'

'For what do you take me, sir?' asked Mr. Warren.

'For a Temperance Anarchist,' Merton would have liked to reply, 'judging by your colours'; but he repressed this retort, and mildly answered, 'Perhaps it would be as much to the purpose to ask, for what do you take me ?'

'For the representative of Messrs. Gray & Graham, the specialists in matrimonial affairs,' answered the client; and Merton said that he would be happy if Mr. Warren would enter into the details of his business.

'I am the ex-Mayor of Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren, 'and, as I told you, a man of principle. My attachment to the Temperance cause'--and he fingered his blue ribbon--'procured for me the honour of a defeat at the last general election, but endeared me to the consciences of the Nonconformist element in the constituency. Yet, sir, I am at this moment the most unpopular man in Bulcester; but I shall fight it out--I shall fight it to my latest breath.'

'Is Bulcester, then, such an intemperate constituency? I had understood that the Nonconformist interest was strong there,' said Merton.

'So it is, sir, so it is; but the interest is now bound to the chariot wheels of the truckling Toryism of our time--to the sycophants who basely made vaccination permissive, and paltered with the Conscientious Objector. These badges, sir'--the client pointed to his own crimson decorations--'proclaim that I have been vaccinated on both arms, as a testimony to the immortal though, in Bulcester, maligned discovery of the great Jenner. Sir, I am hooted in the public streets of my native town, where Anti-vaccinationism is a frenzy. Mr. Rider Haggard, the author of Dr. Therne , has been burned in effigy for his thrilling and manly protest to which I owe my own conversion.'

'Then the conversion is relatively recent?' asked Merton.

'It dates since my reading of that powerful argument, sir; that appeal to reason which overcame my prejudice, for I was a prominent A. V.'

' Ave ?' asked Merton.

'A. V., sir--Anti-Vaccinationist. A. C. D. A. too, and always,' he added proudly; but Merton did not think it prudent to ask for further explanations.

'An A. V. I was, an A. V. I am no longer; and I defy popular clamour, accompanied by brickbats, to shake my principles.'

' Justum et tinacem propositi virum ,' murmured Merton, adding, 'All that is very interesting, but, my dear sir, while I admire the tenacity of your principles, will you permit me to ask, what has vaccination to do with the special business of our firm?'

'Why, sir, I have a family, and my eldest son--'

'Does he decline to be vaccinated?' asked Merton, in a sympathetic voice.

'No, sir, or he would never darken my doorway,' exclaimed this more than Roman father. 'But he is engaged, and I can never give my consent; and if he marries that girl, the firm ceases to be "Warren & Son, wax-cloth manufacturers." That's all, sir--that's all.'

Mr. Warren again applied his red handkerchief to his glowing features.

'And what, may I ask, are the grounds of your objection to this engagement? Social inequality?' asked Merton.

'No, the young lady is the daughter of one of our leading ministers, Mr. Truman--author of The Bishops to the Block --but principles are concerned.'

'You cannot mean that the young lady is excessively addicted to the--wine cup?' asked Merton gravely. 'In melancholy cases of that kind Mr. Hall Caine, in a romance, has recommended hypnotic treatment, but we do not venture to interfere.'

'You misunderstand me, sir,' replied Mr. Warren, frowning. 'The young woman, on principle, as they call it, has never been vaccinated. Like most of our prominent citizens, her father (otherwise an excellent man) objects to what he calls "The Worship of the Calf" on grounds of conscience.'

'Conscience! It is a hard thing to constrain the conscience,' murmured Merton, quoting a remark of Queen Mary to John Knox.

'What is conscience without knowledge, sir?' asked the client, using--without knowing it--the very argument of Mr. Knox to the Queen.

'You have no other objections to the alliance?' asked Merton.

'None whatever, sir. She is a good and good-looking girl. On most important points we are thoroughly agreed. She won a prize essay on Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Of course Shakespeare could not have written them--a thoroughly uneducated man, who never could have passed the fourth standard. But look at the plays! There are things in them that, with all our modern advantages, are beyond me. I admit they are beyond me. "To be, and to do, and to suffer,"' declaimed Mr. Warren, apparently under the impression that this is part of Hamlet's soliloquy--'Shakespeare could never have written that . Where did he learn grammar?'

'Where, indeed?' replied Merton. 'But as the lady is in all other respects so suitable a match, cannot this one difficulty be got over?'

'Impossible, sir; my son could not slice the sleeve in her dress and inflict this priceless boon on her with affectionate violence. Even the hero of Dr. Therne failed there--'

'And rather irritated his pretty Jane,' added Merton, who remembered this heroic adventure. 'It is a very hard case,' he went on, 'but I fear that our methods are powerless. The only chance would be to divert young Mr. Warren's affections into some other more enlightened channel. That expedient has often been found efficacious. Is he very deeply enamoured? Would not the society of another pretty and intelligent girl perhaps work wonders?'

'Perhaps it might, sir, but I don't know where to find any one that would attract my James. Except for political meetings, and a literary lecture or two, with a magic-lantern and a piano, we have not much social relaxation at Bulcester. We object to promiscuous dancing, on grounds of conscience. Also, of course, to the stage.'

'Ah, so you do allow for the claims of conscience, do you?'

'For what do you take me, sir? Only, of course the conscience must be enlightened,' said Mr. Warren, as other earnest people usually do.

'Certainly, certainly,' said Merton; 'nothing so dangerous as the unenlightened conscience. Why, in this very matter of marriage the conscience of the Mormons leads them to singular aberrations, while that of the Arunta tribe--but I should only pain you if I pursued the subject. You said that your Society indulged in literary lectures: is your programme for the season filled up?'

'I am President of the Bulcester Literary Society,' said Mr. Warren, 'and I ought to know. We have a vacancy for Friday week; but why do you inquire? In fact I want a lecturer on "The Use and Abuse of Novels," now you ask. Our people, somehow, always want their literary lectures to be about novels. I try to make the lecturers take a lofty moral tone, and usually entertain them at my house, where I probe their ideas, and warn them that we must have nothing loose. Once, sir, we had a lecturer on "The Oldest Novel in the World." He gave us a terrible shock, sir! I never saw so many red cheeks in a Bulcester audience. And the man seemed quite unaware of the effect he was producing.'

'Short-sighted, perhaps?' said Merton.

'Ever since we have been very careful. But, sir, we seem to have got away from the subject.'

'It is only seeming,' said Merton. 'I have an idea which may be of service to you.'

'Thank you, most kindly,' said Mr. Warren. 'But as how?'

'Does your Society ever employ lady lecturers?'

'We prefer them; we are all for enlarging the sphere of woman's activity--virtuous activity, I mean.'

'That is fortunate,' remarked Merton. 'You said just now that to try the plan of a counter-attraction was difficult, because there was little of social relaxation in your Society, and you knew no lady who had the opportunities necessary for presenting an agreeable alternative to the charms of Miss Truman. A young man's fancy is often caught merely by the juxtaposition of a single member of the opposite sex, with whom he contracts a custom of walking home from chapel.'

'That's mostly the way at Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren.

'Well,' Merton went on, 'you are in the habit of entertaining the lecturers at your house. Now, I know a young lady--one of our staff, in fact--who is very well qualified to lecture on "The Use and Abuse of Novels." She is a novelist herself; one of the most serious and improving of our younger writers. In her works virtue (after struggles) is always rewarded, and vice (especially if gilded) is held up to execration, though never allowed to display itself in colours which would bring a blush to the cheek of--a white rabbit. Here is her portrait,' said Merton, taking up a family periodical, The Young Girl . This blameless journal was publishing a serial story by Miss Martin, one of the ladies who had been enlisted at the dinner given by Logan and Merton when they founded their Society. A photograph of Miss Martin, in white and in a large shadowy hat, was published in The Young Girl , and certainly no one could have recognised in this conscientiously innocent and domestic portrait the fair author of romances of social adventure and unimagined crime. 'There you see our young friend,' said Merton; 'and the magazine, to which she is a regular contributor, is a voucher for her character as an author.'

Mr. Warren closely scrutinised the portrait, which displayed loveliness and candour in a very agreeable way, and arranged in the extreme of modest simplicity.

'That is a young woman who bears her testimonials in her face,' said Mr. Warren. 'She is one whom a father can trust--but has she been vaccinated?'

'Early and often,' answered Merton reassuringly. 'Girls with faces like hers do not care to run any risks.'

'Jane Truman does, though my son has put it to her, I know, on the ground of her looks. " Nothing ," she said, "will ever induce me to submit to that filthy, that revolting operation."'

'"Conscience doth make cowards of us all," as Bacon says,' replied Merton, 'or at least of such of us as are unenlightened. But to come to business. What do you think of asking our young friend down to lecture--on Friday week, I think you said--on the Use and Abuse of Novels? You could easily persuade her, I dare say, to stay over Sunday--longer if necessary--and then young Mr. Warren would at least find out that there is more than one young woman in the world.'

'I shall be delighted to see your friend,' answered Mr. Warren. 'At Bulcester we welcome intellect, and a real novelist of moral tendencies would make quite a sensation in our midst.'

'They are but too scarce at present,' Merton answered--'novelists of high moral tone.'

'She is not a Christian Scientist?' asked Mr. Warren anxiously. 'They reject vaccination, like all other means appointed, and rely on miracles, which ceased with the Apostolic age, being no longer necessary.'

'The lady, I can assure you, is not a Christian Scientist,' said Merton 'but comes of an Evangelical family. Shall I give you her address? In my opinion it would be best to write to her from Bulcester, on the official paper of the Literary Society.' For Merton wished to acquaint Miss Martin with the nature of her mission, lecturing being an art which she had never cultivated.

'There is just one thing,' remarked Mr. Warren hesitatingly. 'This young lady, if our James lets his affections loose on her--how would that be, sir?'

Merton smiled.

'Why, no great harm would be done, Mr. Warren. You need not fear any complication: any new matrimonial difficulty. The affection would be all on one side, and that side would not be the lady lecturer's. I happen to know that she has a prior attachment.'

'Vaccinated!' cried Mr. Warren, letting a laugh out of him.

'Exactly,' said Merton.

Mr. Warren now gladly concurred in the plan of his adviser, after which the interview was concerned with financial details. Merton usually left these vague, but in Mr. Warren he saw a client who would feel more confidence if everything was put on a strictly business footing. The client retired in a hopeful frame of mind, and Merton went to look for Miss Martin at her club, where she was usually to be found at the hour of tea.

He was fortunate enough to find her, dressed by no means after the style of her portrait in The Young Girl , but still very well dressed. She offered him the refreshment of tea and toast--very good toast, Merton thought--and he asked how her craft as a novelist was prospering. Friends of Miss Martin were obliged to ask, for they did not read The Young Girl , or the other and less domestic serials in which her works appeared.

'I am doing very well, thank you,' said Miss Martin. 'My tale The Curate's Family has raised the circulation of The Young Girl ; and, mind you, it is no easy thing for a novelist to raise the circulation of any periodical. For example, if The Quarterly Review published a new romance, even by Mr. Thomas Hardy, I doubt if the end would justify the proceedings.'

'It would take about four years to get finished in a quarterly,' said Merton.

'And the nonagenarians who read quarterlies,' said Miss Martin, with the flippancy of youth, 'would go to their graves without knowing whether the heroine found a lenient jury or not. I have six heroines in The Curate's Family , and I own their love affairs tend to get a little mixed. I have rigged up a small stage, with puppets in costume to represent the characters, and keep them straight in my mind; but Ethelinda, who is engaged to the photographer, as nearly as possible eloped with the baronet last week.'

'Anything else on?' asked Merton.

'An up-to-date story, all heredity and evolution,' said Miss Martin. 'The father has his legs bitten off by a shark, and it gets on the nerves of his wife, the Marchioness, and two of the girls are born like mermaids. They have immense popularity at bathing-places on the French coast, but it is not easy for them to go into general society.'

'What nonsense!' exclaimed Merton.

'Not worse than other stuff that is highly recommended by eminent reviewers,' said Miss Martin.

'Anything else?'

'Oh, yes; there is "The Pope's Poisoner, a Tale of the Borgias." That is a historical romance, I got it up out of Histories of the Renaissance. The hero (Lionardo da Vinci) is the Pope's bravo, and in love with Lucrezia Borgia.'

'Are the dates all right?' asked Merton.

'Oh, bother the dates! Of course he is a bravo pour le bon motif , and frustrates the pontifical designs.'

'I want you,' said Merton, 'you have such a fertile imagination, to take part in a little plot of our own. Beneficent, of course, but I admit that my fancy is baffled. Could we find a room less crowded? This is rather private business.'

'There is never anybody in the smoking-room at the top of the house,' said Miss Martin, 'because--to let out a secret--none of us ever smoke, except at public dinners to give tone. But you may.'

She led Merton to a sepulchral little chamber upstairs, and he told her all the story of Mr. Warren, his son, and the daughter of the minister.

'Why don't they elope?' asked Miss Martin.

'The Nonconformist conscience is unfriendly to elopements, and the young man has no accomplishment by which he could support his bride except the art of making oilcloth.'

'Well, what do you want me to do?'

Merton unfolded the scheme of the lady lecturer, and prepared Miss Martin to receive an invitation from Mr. Warren.

'Can you write a lecture on "The Use and Abuse of Novels" before Friday week?' he asked.

'Say seven thousand words? I could do it by to-morrow morning,' said Miss Martin.

'You know you must be very careful?'

'Style of answers to correspondents in The Young Girl ,' said Miss Martin. 'I know my way about.'

'Then you really will essay the adventure?'

'Like a bird,' answered the lady. 'It will be great fun. I shall pick up copy about the habits of the middle classes in the Midlands.'

'They won't recognise you as the author of your more criminal romances?'

'How can they? I sign them "Passion Flower" and "Nightshade," and "La Tofana," and so on.'

'You will dress as in your photograph in The Young Girl ?'

'I will, and take a fichu to wear in the evening. They always wear fichus in evening dress. But, look here, do you want a happy ending to this romance?'

'How can it be happy if you are to be successful? Miss Jane Truman will be miserable, and Mr. James Warren will die of remorse and a broken heart, when you--'

'Fail to crown his flame, and Jane has too much pride to welcome back the wanderer?'

'I'm afraid that, or something like that, will be the end of it,' said Merton, 'and, perhaps, on reflection, we had better drop the affair.'

'But suppose I could manage a happy ending? Suppose I reconcile Mr. Warren to the union? I am all for happy endings myself. I drink to King Charles II., who declared that while he was king all tragedies should end happily.'

'You don't mean that you can persuade Jane to be vaccinated?'

'One never knows till one tries. You'll find that I shall make a happy conclusion to my Borgia novel, and that is not so easy. You see Lionardo goes to the Pope's jeweller and exchanges the--'

Miss Martin paused and remained absorbed in thought.

Suddenly she danced round the room with much grace and abandon , while Merton, smoking in an arm-chair that had lost a castor, gently applauded the performance.

'You have your idea?' he asked.

'I have it. Happy ending! Hurrah!'

Miss Martin spun round like a dancing Dervish, and finally fell into another arm-chair, overcome by the heat and the intoxication of genius.

'We owe a candle to Saint Alexander Borgia!' she said, when she recovered her breath.

'Miss Martin,' said Merton gravely, 'this is a serious matter. You are not going, I trust, to poison the lemons for the elder Mr. Warren's lemon squash? He is strictly Temperance, you know.'

'Poison the lemons? With a hypodermic syringe?' asked Miss Martin. 'No; that is good business. I have made one of my villains do that , but that is not my idea. Perfectly harmless, my idea.'

'But sensational, I fear?' asked Merton.

'Some very cultured critics might think so,' the lady admitted. 'But I am sure to succeed, and I hear the merry, merry wedding bells of the Bulcester tabernacle ringing a peal for the happy pair.'

'Well, what is the plan?'

'That is my secret.'

'But I must know. I am responsible. Tell me, or I telegraph to Mr. Warren: "Lecturer never vaccinated; sorry for my mistake."'

'That would not be true,' said Miss Martin.

'A noble falsehood,' said Merton.

'But I assure you that if my plan fails no harm can possibly be caused or suspected. And if it succeeds then the thing is done: either Mr. Warren is reconciled to the marriage, or--the marriage is broken off, as he desires.'

'By whom?'

'By the Conscientious Objectrix, if that is the feminine of Objector--by Miss Jane Truman.'

'Why should Jane break it off if the old gentleman agrees?'

'Because Jane would be a silly girl. Mr. Merton, I will promise you one thing. The plan shall not be tried without the approval of the lover himself. None but he shall be concerned in the affair.'

'You won't hypnotise the girl and let him vaccinate her when she is in the hypnotic sleep?'

'No, nor even will I give her a post-hypnotic suggestion to vaccinate herself, or go to the doctor's and have it done when she is awake; though,' said Miss Martin, 'that is not bad business either. I must make a note of that. But I can't hypnotise anybody. I tried lots of girls when I was at St. Ursula's and nothing ever came of it. Thank you for the idea all the same. By the way, I first must sterilise the pontifical--' She paused.

'The what?'

'That is my secret! Don't you see how safe it is? None but the lover shall have his and her fate in his hands. C'est a prendre ou a laisser .'

Merton was young and adventurous.

'You give me your word that your idea is absolutely safe and harmless? It involves no crime?'

'None; and if you like,' said Miss Martin, 'I will bring you the highest professional opinion,' and she mentioned an eminent name in the craft of healing. 'He was our doctor when we were children,' said the lady, 'and we have always been friends.'

'Well,' Merton said, 'what is good enough for Sir Josiah Wilkinson is good enough for me. But you will bring me the document?'

'The day after to-morrow,' said Miss Martin, and with that assurance Merton had to be content.

Sir Josiah was almost equally famous in the world as a physician and, in a smaller but equally refined circle, as a virtuoso and collector of objects of art. His opinions about the beneficent effects of vaccination were known to be at the opposite pole from those of the intelligent population of Bulcester.

On the next day but one Miss Martin again entertained Merton at her club, and demurely presented him with three documents. These were Mr. Warren's invitation, her reply in acceptance, and a formal signed statement by Sir Josiah that her scheme was perfectly harmless, and commanded his admiring approval.

'Now!' said Miss Martin.

'I own that I don't like it,' said Merton. 'Logan thinks that it is all right, but Logan is a born conspirator. However, as you are set on it, and as Sir Josiah's opinion carries great weight, you may go. But be very careful. Have you written your lecture?'

'Here is the scenario,' said Miss Martin, handing a typewritten synopsis to Merton.

'USE AND ABUSE OF NOVELS.

'All good things capable of being abused. Alcohol not one of these; alcohol always pernicious. Fiction, on the other hand, a good thing. Antiquity of fiction. In early days couched in verse. Civilisation prefers prose. Fiction, from the earlier ages, intended to convey Moral Instruction. Opinion of Aristotle defended against that of Plato. Morality in mediaeval Romance. Criticism of Mr. Frederic Harrison. Opinion of Moliere. Yet French novels usually immoral, and why. Remarks on Popery. To be avoided. Morality of Richardson and of Sir Walter Scott. Impropriety re-introduced by Charlotte Bronte. Unwillingness of Lecturer to dwell on this Topic. The Novel is now the whole of Literature. The people have no time to read anything else. Responsibilities of the Novelist as a Teacher. The Novel the proper vehicle of Theological, Scientific, Social, and Political Instruction. Mr. Hall Caine, Miss Corelli. Fallacy of thinking that the Novel should Amuse. Abuse of the Novel as a source of mischievous and false Opinions. Case of The Woman Who Did . Sacredness of Marriage. Study of the Novel becomes an abuse if it leads to the Neglect of the Morning and Evening Newspapers. Sir Walter Besant on the Novel. None but the newest Novels ought to be read. Mr. W. D. Howells on this subject. Experience of the Lecturer as a Novelist. Gratifying letters from persons happily influenced by the Lecturer. Anecdotes. Case of Miss A--- C---. Case of Mr. J--- R---. Unhappy Endings demoralising. Marriage the true End of the Novel, but the beginning of the happy life. Lecturer wishes her audience happy Endings and true Beginnings. Conclusion.'

'Will that do?' asked Miss Martin anxiously.

'Yes, if you don't exceed your plan, or run into chaff.'

'I won't,' said Miss Martin. 'It is all chaff, but they won't see it.'

'I think I would drop that about Popery,' said Merton--'it may lead to letters in the newspapers; and do be awfully careful about impropriety in novels.'

'I'll put in "Vice to be Condemned, not Described,"' said Miss Martin, pencilling a note on the margin of her paper.

'That seems safe,' said Merton. 'But it cuts out some of our most powerful teachers.'

'Serve them right!' said Miss Martin. 'Teachers! the arrant humbugs.'

'You will report at once on your return?' said Merton. 'I shall be on tenter-hooks till I see you again. If I knew what you are really about, I'd take counsel's opinion. Medical opinion does not satisfy me: I want legal.'

'How nervous you are!' said Miss Martin. 'Counsel would be rather stuck up, I think; it is a new kind of case,' and the lady laughed in an irritating way. 'I'll tell you what I'll do,' she said. 'I'll telegraph to you on the Monday morning after the lecture. If everything goes well, I'll telegraph, "Happy ending." If anything goes wrong--but it can't--I'll telegraph, "Unhappy ending."'

'If you do, I shall be off to Callao.

' On no condition
Is Extradition
Allowed in Callao !'

said Merton.

'But if there is any uncertainty--and there may be,' said Miss Martin, 'I'll telegraph, "Will report."'

* * * * *

Merton passed a miserable week of suspense and perplexity of mind. Never had he been so imprudent; he felt sure of that, and it was the only thing of which he did feel sure. The newspapers contained bulletins of an epidemic of smallpox at Bulcester. How would that work into the plot? Then the high animal spirits and daring fancy of Miss Martin might carry her into undreamed-of adventures.

'But they won't let her have even a glass of champagne,' reflected Merton. 'One glass makes her reckless.'

It was with a trembling hand that Merton, about ten on the Monday morning, took the telegraphic envelope of Fate.

'I can't face it,' he said to Logan. 'Read the message to me.' Merton was unmanned!

Logan carelessly opened the envelope and read:

' Happy ending , but awfully disappointed. Will call at one o'clock .'

'Oh, thanks to all gracious Powers,' said Merton falling limply on to a sofa. 'Ring, Logan, and order a small whisky-and-soda.'

'I won't,' said Logan. 'Horrid bad habit. Would you like me to send out for smelling-salts? Be a man, Merton! Pull yourself together!'

'You don't know that awful girl,' said Merton, slowly recovering self- control. 'However, as she is disappointed though the ending is happy, her infernal plan must have been miscarried, whatever it was. It must be all right, though I sha'n't be quite happy till I see her. I am no coward, Logan' (and Merton was later to prove that he possessed coolness and audacity in no common measure), 'but it is the awful sense of responsibility. She is quite capable of getting us into the newspapers.'

'You funk being laughed at,' said Logan.

Merton lay on the sofa, smoking too many cigarettes, till, punctually at one o'clock, a peal at the bell announced the arrival of Miss Martin. She entered, radiant, smiling, and in her costume of innocence she looked like a sylph.

'It is all right--they are engaged, with Mr. Warren's full approval,' she exclaimed.

'Were we on the stage, I should embrace you!' exclaimed Merton rapturously.

'We are not on the stage,' replied Miss Martin demurely. 'And I have no occasion to congratulate myself. My plot did not come off; never had a look in. Do you want to be vaccinated? If so, shake hands,' and Miss Martin extended her own hands ungloved.

'I do not want to be vaccinated,' said Merton.

'Then don't shake hands,' said Miss Martin.

'What on earth do you mean?' asked Merton.

'Look there!' said the lady, lifting her hand to his eyes. Merton kissed it.

'Oh, take care !' shrieked Miss Martin. 'It would be awkward--on the lips. Do you see my ring?'

Merton and Logan examined her ring. It was a beautiful cinque cento jewel in white and blue enamel, with a high gold top containing a pointed ruby.

'It's very pretty,' said Merton--'quite of the best period. But what is the mystery?'

'It is a poison ring of the Borgias,' said Miss Martin. 'I borrowed it from Sir Josiah Wilkinson. If it scratched you' (here she exhibited the mechanism of the jewel), 'why, there you are!'

'Where? Poisoned?'

'No! Vaccinated!' said Miss Martin. 'It is full of the stuff they vaccinate you with, but it is quite safe as far as the old poison goes. Sir Josiah sterilised it, in case of accidents, before he put in the glycerinated lymph. My own idea! He was delighted. Shall I shake hands with the office-boy?--it might do him good--or would Kutuzoff give a paw?'

Kutuzoff was the Russian cat.

'By no means--not for worlds,' said Merton. 'Kutuzoff is a Conscientious Objector. But were you going to shake hands with Miss Truman with that horrible ring? Sacred emblems enamelled on it,' said Merton, gingerly examining the jewel.

'No; I was not going to do that,' replied Miss Martin. 'My idea was to acquire the confidence of the lover--the younger Mr. Warren--explain to him how the thing works, lend it to him, and then let him press his Jane's wrist with it in some shady arbour. Then his Jane would have been all that the heart of Mr. Warren pere could desire. But it did not come off.'

'Thank goodness!' ejaculated Merton. 'There might have been an awful row. I don't know what the offence would have been in the eye of the law. Vaccinating a Conscientious Objector, without consent, yet without violence,--what would the law say to that ?'

'We might make it hamesucken under trust in Scotland,' said Logan, 'if it was done on the premises of the young lady's domicile.'

'We have not that elegant phrase in England,' said Merton. 'Perhaps it would have been a common assault; but, anyhow, it would have got into the newspapers. Never again be officer of mine, Miss Martin.'

'But how did all end happily?' asked Logan.

'Why, you may call it happily and so may the lovers, but I call it very disappointing,' said Miss Martin.

'Tell us all about it!' cried Logan.

'Well, I went down, simple as you see me.'

' Simplex munditiis !' said Merton.

'And was met at the station by young Mr. Warren. His father, with the wisdom of a Nonconformist serpent, had sent him alone to make my acquaintance and be fascinated. My things were put on a four-wheeler. I was all young enthusiasm in the manner of The Young Girl . He was a good-looking boy enough, though in a bowler hat, with turn-down collar. But he was gloomy. I was curious about the public buildings, ecstatic about the town hall, and a kind of Moeso-Gothic tabernacle (if it was not Moeso-Gothic in style I don't know what it was) where the Rev. Mr. Truman holds forth. But I could not waken him up, he seemed miserable. I soon found out the reason. The placards of the local newspapers shrieked in big type with

SPREAD OF SMALLPOX.
135 CASES.

When I saw that I took young Mr. Warren's hand.'

'Were you wearing the ring?' asked Merton.

'No; it was in my dressing-bag. I said, "Mr. Warren, I know what care clouds your brow. You are brooding over the fate of the young, the fair, the beloved--the unvaccinated. I know the story of your heart."

'"How the D--- I mean, how do you know, Miss Martin, about my private affairs?"

'"A little bird has told me," I said (style of The Young Girl , you know). "I have friends in Bulcester who esteem you. No, I must not mention names, but I come, not too late, I hope, to bring you security. She shall be preserved from this awful scourge, and you shall be her preserver." He wanted to know how it was to be done, of course, and after taking his word of honour for secrecy, I told him that the remedy would lie in his own hands, showed him the ring, and taught him how to work it. Mr. Squeers,' went on Miss Martin, 'had never wopped a boy in a cab before, and I had never beheld a scene of passionate emotion before--in a four-wheeler. He called me his preserver, he said that I was an angel, he knelt at my feet, and, if we had been on the stage--as Mr. Merton said--'

'And were you on the stage?' asked Merton.

'That is neither here nor there. It was an instructive experience, and you little know the treasures of passion that may lie concealed in the heart of a young oilcloth manufacturer.'

'Happy young oilcloth manufacturer!' murmured Merton.

'They are both happy, but I did not manage my fortunate conclusion in my own way. When young Mr. Warren had moderated the transports of his gratitude we were in the suburbs of Bulcester, where the mill-owners live in houses of the most promiscuous architecture: Tudor, Jacobean, Queen Anne, Bedford Park Queen Anne, chalets , Chineseries, "all standing naked in the open air," for the trees have not grown up round them yet. Then we came to a gate without a lodge, the cabman got down and opened it, and we were in the visible presence of Mr. Warren's villa. The style is the Scottish Baronial; all pepper-pots, gables and crowsteps.

'"What a lovely old place!" I said to my companion. "Have you secret passages and sliding panels and dark turnpike stairs? What a house for conspiracies! There is a real turret window; can't you fancy it suddenly shot up and the king's face popped out, very red, and bellowing, 'Treason!'"

'At that moment, when my imagination was in full career, the turret window was shot up, and a face, very red, with red whiskers, was popped out.

'"That is my father," said young Mr. Warren; and we alighted, and a very small maidservant opened the portals of the baronial hall, while the cabman carried up my trunk, and Mr. Warren, senior, greeted me in the hall.

'"Welcome to Bulcester!" he said, with a florid air, and "hoped James and I had made friends on the way," and then he actually winked! He is a widower, and I was dying for tea, but there we sat, and when the little maid came in, it was to say that a gentleman wanted to see Mr. Warren in the study. So he went out, and then, James being the victim of gratitude, I took my courage in both hands and asked if I might have tea. James said that they usually had it after the lecture was over, which would not be till nine, and that some people had been asked to meet me. Then I knew that I was got among a strange, outlandish race who eat strange meats and keep High Teas, and my spirit fainted within me.

'"Oh, Mr. James!" I said, "if you love me have a cup of tea and some bread-and-butter sent up to my room, and tell the maid to show me the way to it."

'So he sent for her, and she showed me to the best spare room, with oleographs of Highland scenery on the walls, and coloured Landseer prints, and tartan curtains, and everything made of ormolu that can be made of ormolu. In about twenty minutes the girl returned with tea and poached eggs and toast, and jam and marmalade. So I dressed for the lecture, which was to begin at eight--just when people ought to be dining--and came down into the drawing-room. The elder Mr. Warren was sitting alone, reading the Daily News , and he rose with an air of happy solemnity and shook hands again.

'"You can let James alone now, Miss Martin," he said, and he winked again, rubbed his hands, and grinned all over his expansive face.

'"Let James alone!" I said.

'"Yes; don't go upsetting the lad--he's not used to young ladies like you. You leave James to himself. James will do very well. I have a little surprise for James."

'He certainly had a considerable surprise for me, but I merely asked if it was James's birthday, which it was not.

'Luckily James entered. All his gloom was gone, thanks to me, and he was remarkably smiling and particularly attentive to myself. Mr. Warren seemed perplexed.

'"James, have you heard any good news?" he asked. "You seem very gay all of a sudden."

'James caught my eye.

'"No, father," he said. "What news do you mean? Anything in business? A large order from Sarawak?"

'Mr. Warren was silent, but presently took me into a corner on the pretence of showing me some horrible objet d'art --a treacly bronze.

'"I say," he said, "you must have made great play in the cab coming from the station. James looks a new man. I never would have guessed him to be so fickle. But, mind you, no more of it! Let James be--he will do very well."

'How was James to do very well? Why were my fascinations not to be exercised, as per contract? I began to suspect the worst, and I was thinking of nothing else while we drove to the premises of the Bulcester Literary Society. Could Jane have drowned herself out of the way, or taken smallpox, which might ruin her charms? Well, I had not a large audience, on account of fear of infection, I suppose, and all the people present wore the red badge, like Mr. Warren, only he wore one on each arm. This somewhat amazed me, but as I had never spoken in public before I was rather in a flutter. However, I conquered my girlish shyness, and if the audience was not large it was enthusiastic. When I came to the peroration about wishing them all happy endings and real beginnings of true life, don't you know, the audience actually rose at me, and cheered like anything. Then someone proposed, "Three cheers for young Warren," and they gave them like mad; I did not know why, nor did he: he looked quite pale. Then his father, with tears in his voice, proposed a vote of thanks to me, and said that he and the brave hearts of old Bulcester, his old friends and brothers in arms, were once more united; and the people stormed the platform and shook his hand and slapped him on the back. At last we got out by a back way, where our cab was waiting. Young Mr. Warren was as puzzled as myself, and his father was greatly overcome and sobbing in a corner. We got into the house, where people kept arriving, and at last a fine old clerical-looking bird entered with a red badge on one arm and a very pretty girl in white on the other. She had a red badge too.

'Young Mr. Warren, who was near me when they came in, gave a queer sort of cry, and then I understood! The girl was his Jane, and she had been vaccinated, also her father, that afternoon, owing to the awful panic the old man got into after reading the evening papers about the smallpox. The gentleman whom Mr. Warren went to see in the study, just after my arrival, had brought him this gratifying intelligence, and he had sent the gentleman back to ask the Trumans to a High Tea of reconciliation. The people at the lecture had heard of this, and that was why they cheered so for young Warren, because his affair was as commonly known to all Bulcester as that of Romeo and Juliet at Verona. They are hearty people at Bulcester, and not without elements of old English romance.

'Old Mr. Warren publicly embraced Jane Truman, and then brought her and presented her to me as James's bride. We both cried a little, I think, and then we all sat down to High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I used to be. It was a height! And a weight! And a length! After tea Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him, and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was too happy, I think. And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances) vaccination was good enough. But they yet clung to principles for which Hampden died on the field, and Russell on the scaffold, and many of their own citizens in bed! There must be no Coercion. Everyone who liked must be allowed to have smallpox as much as he pleased. All other issues were unimportant except that of freedom!

'Here I rose--I was rather excited--and said that I hoped the reverend speaker was not deserting the sacred principle of compulsory temperance? Would the speaker allow people freedom to drink? All other issues were unimportant compared with that of freedom, except the interest of depriving a poor man of his beer. To catch smallpox was a Briton's birthright, but not to take a modest quencher. No freedom to drink! "Down with the drink!" I cried, and drained my tea-cup, and waved it, amidst ringing cheers. Mr. Truman admitted that there were exceptions--one exception, at least. Disease must be free to all, not alcohol nor Ritualism. He thanked his young friend the gifted lecturer for recalling him to his principles.

'The principles of the good old cause, the Puritan cause, were as pure as glycerinated lymph, and he proposed to found a Liberal Vaccinationist League. They are great people for leagues at Bulcester, and they like the initials L. V. L. There was no drinking of toasts, for there was nothing to drink them in, and--do you know, Mr. Merton?--I think it must be nearly luncheon time.'

'Champagne appears to me to be indicated,' said Merton, who rang the bell and then summoned Miss Blossom from her typewriting.

'We have done nothing,' Merton said, 'but heaven only knows what we have escaped in the adventure of the Lady Novelist and the Vaccinationist.'

On taking counsel's opinion, Merton learned, with a shudder, that if young Warren had used the Borgia ring, and if Jane had resented it, he might have been indicted for a common assault, under 24 and 25 Victoria, cap. 100, sec. 24, for 'unlawfully and maliciously administering a noxious thing with intent to annoy.'

'I don't think she could have proved the intent to annoy,' said the learned counsel.

'You don't know a Bulcester jury as it was before the epidemic,' said Merton. 'And I might have been an accessory before the fact, and, anyhow, we should all have got into the newspapers.'

Miss Martin was the most admired of the bridesmaids at the Warren-Truman marriage. _

Read next: X. ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR AMERICAN

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