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    New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
    New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
    New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
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    New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)

    By Robert Louis Stevenson

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    About this ebook

    This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘New Arabian Nights’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson’.

    Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Stevenson includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

    eBook features:
    * The complete unabridged text of ‘New Arabian Nights’
    * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Stevenson’s works
    * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
    * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateJul 17, 2017
    ISBN9781786567901
    New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)
    Author

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850, changing his second name to ‘Louis’ at the age of eighteen. He has always been loved and admired by countless readers and critics for ‘the excitement, the fierce joy, the delight in strangeness, the pleasure in deep and dark adventures’ found in his classic stories and, without doubt, he created some of the most horribly unforgettable characters in literature and, above all, Mr. Edward Hyde.

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      Book preview

      New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) - Robert Louis Stevenson

      The Complete Works of

      ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

      VOLUME 16 OF 60

      New Arabian Nights

      Parts Edition

      By Delphi Classics, 2015

      Version 4

      COPYRIGHT

      ‘New Arabian Nights’

      Robert Louis Stevenson: Parts Edition (in 60 parts)

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

      © Delphi Classics, 2017.

      All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

      ISBN: 978 1 78656 790 1

      Delphi Classics

      is an imprint of

      Delphi Publishing Ltd

      Hastings, East Sussex

      United Kingdom

      Contact: [email protected]

      www.delphiclassics.com

      Robert Louis Stevenson: Parts Edition

      This eBook is Part 16 of the Delphi Classics edition of Robert Louis Stevenson in 60 Parts. It features the unabridged text of New Arabian Nights from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

      Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Robert Louis Stevenson or the Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson in a single eBook.

      Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

      ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

      IN 60 VOLUMES

      Parts Edition Contents

      The Novels

      1, Treasure Island

      2, The Black Arrow

      3, Prince Otto

      4, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

      5, Kidnapped

      6, The Master of Ballantrae

      7, The Wrong Box

      8, The Wrecker

      9, Catriona

      10, The Ebb-Tide

      11, Weir of Hermiston

      12, St. IVes

      13, Heathercat

      14, The Great North Road

      15, The Young Chevalier

      The Short Story Collections

      16, New Arabian Nights

      17, More New Arabian Nights - the Dynamiter

      18, The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables

      19, Island Nights’ Entertainments

      20, Fables

      21, Tales and Fantasies

      22, Uncollected Stories

      The Plays

      23, The Charity Bazaar

      24, Deacon Brodie

      25, Beau Austin

      26, Admiral Guinea

      27, Macaire

      The Poetry Collections

      28, A Child’s Garden of Verses

      29, Underwoods

      30, Ballads

      31, Songs of Travel and Other Verses

      32, Additional Poems

      33, New Poems and Variant Readings

      The Travel Writing

      34, An Inland Voyage

      35, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

      36, Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes

      37, Essays of Travel

      38, Across the Plains

      39, The Silverado Squatters

      40, The Old and New Pacific Capitals

      The Non-Fiction

      41, Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers

      42, Familiar Studies of Men and Books

      43, Memories and Portraits

      44, Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin

      45, Records of a Family of Engineers

      46, Additional Memories and Portraits

      47, Later Essays

      48, Lay Morals and Other Papers

      49, Prayers Written for Family Use at Vailima

      50, A Footnote to History

      51, In the South Seas

      52, Letters from Samoa

      53, Juvenilia and Other Papers

      54, Pierre Jean de Béranger Article

      The Letters

      55, The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson

      56, Vailima Letters

      The Biographies

      57, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson by Sir Graham Balfour

      58, Robert Louis Stevenson by Alexander H. Japp

      59, The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls by Jacqueline M. Overton

      60, The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

      www.delphiclassics.com

      New Arabian Nights

      This short story collection was first published in 1882 and features some of Stevenson’s earliest published works, including ‘A Lodging for the Night: a Story of Francis Villon’, the first piece of fiction Stevenson wrote.

      The collection was first published in two volumes with the first volume being made up of the eponymous New Arabian Nights (or Latter-Day Arabian Nights, to give them the title under which they were first serialised in the London Magazine during 1878). These delightful fantasies of London life strongly influenced later depictions of the city by the likes of Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

      The stories’ hero is Prince Florizel of Bohemia, who travels the streets incognito with his faithful servant, in search of adventure, novelty and any injustice that needs setting right. The serial is divided into two self-contained strands, made up of three and four stories respectively. The first is ‘The Suicide Club’, in which Florizel thwarts the President of a diabolical secret society, whose practices blur the line between suicide and murder. The second strand, ‘The Rajah’s Diamond’, concerns the theft of the eponymous jewel.

      The other stories, making up the second volume, includes the romances ‘The Sire de Malétroit’s Door’ and ‘Providence and the Guitar’, as well as the more substantial ‘Pavilion on the Links’, a thrilling adventure story involving death-by-quicksand, Italian gangsters and murder.

      The gathering of the Suicide Club, from a 1970 British TV adaptation

      CONTENTS

      THE SUICIDE CLUB

      STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS

      STORY OF THE PHYSICIAN AND THE SARATOGA TRUNK

      THE ADVENTURE OF THE HANSOM CABS

      THE RAJAH’S DIAMOND

      STORY OF THE BANDBOX

      STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN IN HOLY ORDERS

      STORY OF THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN BLINDS

      THE ADVENTURE OF PRINCE FLORIZEL AND A DETECTIVE

      THE PAVILION ON THE LINKS

      CHAPTER I TELLS HOW I CAMPED IN GRADEN SEA-WOOD, AND BEHELD A LIGHT IN THE PAVILION

      CHAPTER II TELLS OF THE NOCTURNAL LANDING FROM THE YACHT

      CHAPTER III TELLS HOW I BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH MY WIFE

      CHAPTER IV TELLS IN WHAT A STARTLING MANNER I LEARNED THAT I WAS NOT ALONE IN GRADEN SEA-WOOD

      CHAPTER V TELLS OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN NORTHMOUR, CLARA, AND MYSELF

      CHAPTER VI TELLS OF MY INTRODUCTION TO THE TALL MAN

      CHAPTER VII TELLS HOW A WORD WAS CRIED THROUGH THE PAVILION WINDOW

      CHAPTER VIII TELLS THE LAST OF THE TALL MAN

      CHAPTER IX TELLS HOW NORTHMOUR CARRIED OUT HIS THREAT

      A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT: A STORY OF FRANCIS VILLON

      THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT’S DOOR

      PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II

      CHAPTER III

      CHAPTER IV

      CHAPTER V

      CHAPTER VI

      Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, Stevenson’s wife, whom he married in 1880. ‘The Pavillion on the Links’ was written during Stevenson’s dramatic journey across America in pursuit of Fanny, with whom he had fallen in love.

      W. E. Henley, poet and editor, in whose London Magazine many of the stories in ‘New Arabian Nights’ were first published. Stevenson and Henley were close friends, but became estranged in later life after Henley accused Stevenson’s wife of plagiarism.

      TO

      ROBERT ALLAN MOWBRAY STEVENSON

      IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR YOUTH

      AND THEIR ALREADY OLD AFFECTION

      THE SUICIDE CLUB

      STORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE CREAM TARTS

      During his residence in London, the accomplished Prince Florizel of Bohemia gained the affection of all classes by the seduction of his manner and by a well-considered generosity. He was a remarkable man even by what was known of him; and that was but a small part of what he actually did. Although of a placid temper in ordinary circumstances, and accustomed to take the world with as much philosophy as any ploughman, the Prince of Bohemia was not without a taste for ways of life more adventurous and eccentric than that to which he was destined by his birth. Now and then, when he fell into a low humour, when there was no laughable play to witness in any of the London theatres, and when the season of the year was unsuitable to those field sports in which he excelled all competitors, he would summon his confidant and Master of the Horse, Colonel Geraldine, and bid him prepare himself against an evening ramble. The Master of the Horse was a young officer of a brave and even temerarious disposition. He greeted the news with delight, and hastened to make ready. Long practice and a varied acquaintance of life had given him a singular facility in disguise; he could adapt not only his face and bearing, but his voice and almost his thoughts, to those of any rank, character, or nation; and in this way he diverted attention from the Prince, and sometimes gained admission for the pair into strange societies. The civil authorities were never taken into the secret of these adventures; the imperturbable courage of the one and the ready invention and chivalrous devotion of the other had brought them through a score of dangerous passes; and they grew in confidence as time went on.

      One evening in March they were driven by a sharp fall of sleet into an Oyster Bar in the immediate neighbourhood of Leicester Square. Colonel Geraldine was dressed and painted to represent a person connected with the Press in reduced circumstances; while the Prince had, as usual, travestied his appearance by the addition of false whiskers and a pair of large adhesive eyebrows. These lent him a shaggy and weather-beaten air, which, for one of his urbanity, formed the most impenetrable disguise. Thus equipped, the commander and his satellite sipped their brandy and soda in security.

      The bar was full of guests, male and female; but though more than one of these offered to fall into talk with our adventurers, none of them promised to grow interesting upon a nearer acquaintance. There was nothing present but the lees of London and the commonplace of disrespectability; and the Prince had already fallen to yawning, and was beginning to grow weary of the whole excursion, when the swing doors were pushed violently open, and a young man, followed by a couple of commissionaires, entered the bar. Each of the commissionaires carried a large dish of cream tarts under a cover, which they at once removed; and the young man made the round of the company, and pressed these confections upon every one’s acceptance with an exaggerated courtesy. Sometimes his offer was laughingly accepted; sometimes it was firmly, or even harshly, rejected. In these latter cases the new-comer always ate the tart himself, with some more or less humorous commentary.

      At last he accosted Prince Florizel.

      Sir, said he, with a profound obeisance, proffering the tart at the same time between his thumb and forefinger, will you so far honour an entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the pastry, having eaten two dozen and three of them myself since five o’clock.

      I am in the habit, replied the Prince, of looking not so much to the nature of a gift as to the spirit in which it is offered.

      The spirit, sir, returned the young man, with another bow, is one of mockery.

      Mockery? repeated Florizel. And whom do you propose to mock?

      I am not here to expound my philosophy, replied the other, but to distribute these cream tarts. If I mention that I heartily include myself in the ridicule of the transaction, I hope you will consider honour satisfied and condescend. If not, you will constrain me to eat my twenty-eighth, and I own to being weary of the exercise.

      You touch me, said the Prince, and I have all the will in the world to rescue you from this dilemma, but upon one condition. If my friend and I eat your cakes — for which we have neither of us any natural inclination — we shall expect you to join us at supper by way of recompense.

      The young man seemed to reflect.

      I have still several dozen upon hand, he said at last; and that will make it necessary for me to visit several more bars before my great affair is concluded. This will take some time; and if you are hungry—

      The Prince interrupted him with a polite gesture.

      My friend and I will accompany you, he said; for we have already a deep interest in your very agreeable mode of passing an evening. And now that the preliminaries of peace are settled, allow me to sign the treaty for both.

      And the Prince swallowed the tart with the best grace imaginable.

      It is delicious, said he.

      I perceive you are a connoisseur, replied the young man.

      Colonel Geraldine likewise did honour to the pastry; and every one in that bar having now either accepted or refused his delicacies, the young man with the cream tarts led the way to another and similar establishment. The two commissionaires, who seemed to have grown accustomed to their absurd employment, followed immediately after; and the Prince and the Colonel brought up the rear, arm in arm, and smiling to each other as they went. In this order the company visited two other taverns, where scenes were enacted of a like nature to that already described — some refusing, some accepting, the favours of this vagabond hospitality, and the young man himself eating each rejected tart.

      On leaving the third saloon the young man counted his store. There were but nine remaining, three in one tray and six in the other.

      Gentlemen, said he, addressing himself to his two new followers, I am unwilling to delay your supper. I am positively sure you must be hungry. I feel that I owe you a special consideration. And on this great day for me, when I am closing a career of folly by my most conspicuously silly action, I wish to behave handsomely to all who give me countenance. Gentlemen, you shall wait no longer. Although my constitution is shattered by previous excesses, at the risk of my life I liquidate the suspensory condition.

      With these words he crushed the nine remaining tarts into his mouth, and swallowed them at a single movement each. Then, turning to the commissionaires, he gave them a couple of sovereigns.

      I have to thank you, said be, for your extraordinary patience.

      And he dismissed them with a bow apiece. For some seconds he stood looking at the purse from which he had just paid his assistants, then, with a laugh, he tossed it into the middle of the street, and signified his readiness for supper.

      In a small French restaurant in Soho, which had enjoyed an exaggerated reputation for some little while, but had already begun to be forgotten, and in a private room up two pair of stairs, the three companions made a very elegant supper, and drank three or four bottles of champagne, talking the while upon indifferent subjects. The young man was fluent and gay, but he laughed louder than was natural in a person of polite breeding; his hands trembled violently, and his voice took sudden and surprising inflections, which seemed to be independent of his will. The dessert had been cleared away, and all three had lighted their cigars, when the Prince addressed him in these words: —

      You will, I am sure, pardon my curiosity. What I have seen of you has greatly pleased but even more puzzled me. And though I should be loth to seem indiscreet, I must tell you that my friend and I are persons very well worthy to be entrusted with a secret. We have many of our own, which we are continually revealing to improper ears. And if, as I suppose, your story is a silly one, you need have no delicacy with us, who are two of the silliest men in England. My name is Godall, Theophilus Godall; my friend is Major Alfred Hammersmith — or at least, such is the name by which he chooses to be known. We pass our lives entirely in the search for extravagant adventures; and there is no extravagance with which we are not capable of sympathy.

      I like you, Mr. Godall, returned the young man; you inspire me with a natural confidence; and I have not the slightest objection to your friend the Major, whom I take to be a nobleman in masquerade. At least, I am sure he is no soldier.

      The Colonel smiled at this compliment to the perfection of his art; and the young man went on in a more animated manner.

      There is every reason why I should not tell you my story. Perhaps that is just the reason why I am going to do so. At least, you seem so well prepared to hear a tale of silliness that I cannot find it in my heart to disappoint you. My name, in spite of your example, I shall keep to myself. My age is not essential to the narrative. I am descended from my ancestors by ordinary generation, and from them I inherited the very eligible human tenement which I still occupy and a fortune of three hundred pounds a year. I suppose they also handed on to me a hare-brain humour, which it has been my chief delight to indulge. I received a good education. I can play the violin nearly well enough to earn money in the orchestra of a penny gaff, but not quite. The same remark applies to the flute and the French horn. I learned enough of whist to lose about a hundred a year at that scientific game. My acquaintance with French was sufficient to enable me to squander money in Paris with almost the same facility as in London. In short, I am a person full of manly accomplishments. I have had every sort of adventure, including a duel about nothing. Only two months ago I met a young lady exactly suited to my taste in mind and body; I found my heart melt; I saw that I had come upon my fate at last, and was in the way to fall in love. But when I came to reckon up what remained to me of my capital, I found it amounted to something less than four hundred pounds! I ask you fairly — can a man who respects himself fall in love on four hundred pounds? I concluded, certainly not; left the presence of my charmer, and slightly accelerating my usual rate of expenditure, came this morning to my last eighty pounds. This I divided into two equal parts; forty I reserved for a particular purpose; the remaining forty I was to dissipate before the night. I have passed a very entertaining day, and played many farces besides that of the cream tarts which procured me the advantage of your acquaintance; for I was determined, as I told you, to bring a foolish career to a still more foolish conclusion; and when you saw me throw my purse into the street, the forty pounds were at an end. Now you know me as well as I know myself: a fool, but consistent in his folly; and, as I will ask you to believe, neither a whimperer nor a coward.

      From the whole tone of the young man’s statement it was plain that he harboured very bitter and contemptuous thoughts about himself. His auditors were led to imagine that his love affair was nearer his heart than he admitted, and that he had a design on his own life. The farce of the cream tarts began to have very much the air of a tragedy in disguise.

      Why, is this not odd, broke out Geraldine, giving a look to Prince Florizel, that we three fellows should have met by the merest accident in so large a wilderness as London, and should be so nearly in the same condition?

      How? cried the young man. Are you, too, ruined? Is this supper a folly like my cream tarts? Has the devil brought three of his own together for a last carouse?

      The devil, depend upon it, can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing, returned Prince Florizel; and I am so much touched by this coincidence, that, although we are not entirely in the same case, I am going to put an end to the disparity. Let your heroic treatment of the last cream tarts be my example.

      So saying, the Prince drew out his purse and took from it a small bundle of bank-notes.

      You see, I was a week or so behind you, but I mean to catch you up and come neck and neck into the winning-post, he continued. This, laying one of the notes upon the table, will suffice for the bill. As for the rest—

      He tossed them into the fire, and they went up the chimney in a single blaze.

      The young man tried to catch his arm, but as the table was between them his interference came too late.

      Unhappy man, he cried, you should not have burned them all! You should have kept forty pounds.

      Forty pounds! repeated the Prince. Why, in heaven’s name, forty pounds?

      Why not eighty? cried the Colonel; for to my certain knowledge there must have been a hundred in the bundle.

      It was only forty pounds he needed, said the young man gloomily. But without them there is no admission. The rule is strict. Forty pounds for each. Accursed life, where a man cannot even die without money!

      The Prince and the Colonel exchanged glances. Explain yourself, said the latter. I have still a pocket-book tolerably well lined, and I need not say how readily I should share my wealth with Godall. But I must know to what end: you must certainly tell us what you mean.

      The young man seemed to awaken; he looked uneasily from one to the other, and his face flushed deeply.

      You are not fooling me? he asked. You are indeed ruined men like me?

      Indeed, I am for my part, replied the Colonel.

      And for mine, said the Prince, I have given you proof. Who but a ruined man would throw his notes into the fire? The action speaks for itself.

      A ruined man — yes, returned the other suspiciously, or else a millionaire.

      Enough, sir, said the Prince; I have said so, and I am not accustomed to have my word remain in doubt.

      Ruined? said the young man. Are you ruined, like me? Are you, after a life of indulgence, come to such a pass that you can only indulge yourself in one thing more? Are you — he kept lowering his voice as he went on— are you going to give yourselves that last indulgence? Are you going to avoid the consequences of your folly by the one infallible and easy path? Are you going to give the slip to the sheriff’s officers of conscience by the one open door?

      Suddenly he broke off and attempted to laugh.

      Here is your health! he cried, emptying his glass, and good night to you, my merry ruined men.

      Colonel Geraldine caught him by the arm as he was about to rise.

      You lack confidence in us, he said, and you are wrong. To all your questions I make answer in the affirmative. But I am not so timid, and can speak the Queen’s English plainly. We too, like yourself, have had enough of life, and are determined to die. Sooner or later, alone or together, we meant to seek out death and beard him where he lies ready. Since we have met you, and your case is more pressing, let it be to-night — and at once — and, if you will, all three together. Such a penniless trio, he cried, should go arm in arm into the halls of Pluto, and give each other some countenance among the shades!

      Geraldine had hit exactly on the manners and intonations that became the part he was playing. The Prince himself was disturbed, and looked over at his confidant with a shade of doubt. As for the young man, the flush came back darkly into his cheek, and his eyes threw out a spark of light.

      You are the men for me! he cried, with an almost terrible gaiety. Shake hands upon the bargain! (his hand was cold and wet). You little know in what a company you will begin the march! You little know in what a happy moment for yourselves you partook of my cream tarts! I am only a unit, but I am a unit in an army. I know Death’s private door. I am one of his familiars, and can show you into eternity without ceremony and yet without scandal.

      They called upon him eagerly to explain his meaning.

      Can you muster eighty pounds between you? he demanded.

      Geraldine ostentatiously consulted his pocket-book, and replied in the affirmative.

      Fortunate beings! cried the young man. Forty pounds is the entry money of the Suicide Club.

      The Suicide Club, said the Prince, why, what the devil is that?

      Listen, said the young man; this is the age of conveniences, and I have to tell you of the last perfection of the sort. We have affairs in different places; and hence railways were invented. Railways separated us infallibly from our friends; and so telegraphs were made that we might communicate speedier at great distances. Even in hotels we have lifts to spare us a climb of some hundred steps. Now, we know that life is only a stage to play the fool upon as long as the part amuses us. There was one more convenience lacking to modern comfort; a decent, easy way to quit that stage; the back stairs to liberty; or, as I said this moment, Death’s private door. This, my two fellow-rebels, is supplied by the Suicide Club. Do not suppose that you and I are alone, or even exceptional in the highly reasonable desire that we profess. A large number of our fellowmen, who have grown heartily sick of the performance in which they are expected to join daily and all their lives long, are only kept from flight by one or two considerations. Some have families who would be shocked, or even blamed, if the matter became public; others have a weakness at heart and recoil from the circumstances of death. That is, to some extent, my own experience. I cannot put a pistol to my head and draw the trigger; for something stronger than myself withholds the act; and although I loathe life, I have not strength enough in my body to take hold of death and be done with it. For such as I, and for all who desire to be out of the coil without posthumous scandal, the Suicide Club has been inaugurated. How this has been managed, what is its history, or what may be its ramifications in other lands, I am myself uninformed; and what I know of its constitution, I am not at liberty to communicate to you. To this extent, however, I am at your service. If you are truly tired of life, I will introduce you to-night to a meeting; and if not to-night, at least some time within the week, you will be easily relieved of your existences. It is now (consulting his watch) eleven; by half-past, at latest, we must leave this place; so that you have half-an-hour before you to consider my proposal. It is more serious than a cream tart, he added, with a smile; and I suspect more palatable.

      More serious, certainly, returned Colonel Geraldine; and as it is so much more so, will you allow me five minutes’ speech in private with my friend, Mr. Godall?

      It is only fair, answered the young man. If you will permit, I will retire.

      You will be very obliging, said the Colonel.

      As soon as the two were alone— What, said Prince Florizel, is the use of this confabulation, Geraldine? I see you are flurried, whereas my mind is very tranquilly made up. I will see the end of this.

      Your Highness, said the Colonel, turning pale; let me ask you to consider the importance of your life, not only to your friends, but to the public interest. ‘If not to-night,’ said this madman; but supposing that to-night some irreparable disaster were to overtake your Highness’s person, what, let me ask you, what would be my despair, and what the concern and disaster of a great nation?

      I will see the end of this, repeated the Prince in his most deliberate tones; and have the kindness, Colonel Geraldine, to remember and respect your word of honour as a gentleman. Under no circumstances, recollect, nor without my special authority, are you to betray the incognito under which I choose to go abroad. These were my commands, which I now reiterate. And now, he added, let me ask you to call for the bill.

      Colonel Geraldine bowed in submission; but he had a very white face as he summoned the young man of the cream tarts, and issued his directions to the waiter. The Prince preserved his undisturbed demeanour, and described a Palais Royal farce to the young suicide with great humour and gusto. He avoided the Colonel’s appealing looks without ostentation, and selected another cheroot with more than usual care. Indeed, he was now the only man of the party who kept any command over his nerves.

      The bill was discharged, the Prince giving the whole change of the note to the astonished waiter; and the three drove off in a four-wheeler. They were not long upon the way before the cab stopped at the entrance to a rather dark court. Here all descended.

      After Geraldine had paid the fare, the young man turned, and addressed Prince Florizel as follows: —

      It is still time, Mr. Godall, to make good your escape into thraldom. And for you too, Major Hammersmith. Reflect well before you take another step; and if your hearts say no — here are the cross-roads.

      Lead on, sir, said the Prince. I am not the man to go back from a thing once said.

      Your coolness does me good, replied their guide. I have never seen any one so unmoved at this conjuncture; and yet you are not the first whom I have escorted to this door. More than one of my friends has preceded me, where I knew I must shortly follow. But this is of no interest to you. Wait me here for only a few moments; I shall return as soon as I have arranged the preliminaries of your introduction.

      And with that the young man, waving his hand to his companions, turned into the court, entered a doorway and disappeared.

      Of all our follies, said Colonel Geraldine in a low voice, this is the wildest and most dangerous.

      I perfectly believe so, returned the Prince.

      We have still, pursued the Colonel, a moment to ourselves. Let me beseech your Highness to profit by the opportunity and retire. The consequences of this step are so dark, and may be so grave, that I feel myself justified in pushing a little farther than usual the liberty which your Highness is so condescending as to allow me in private.

      Am I to understand that Colonel Geraldine is afraid? asked

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