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 MEAP Edition
Manning Early Access Program
Designing APIs with Swagger and OpenAPI
Version 4

Copyright 2020 Manning Publications

For more information on this and other Manning titles go to

manning.com

©Manning Publications Co. To comment go to liveBook

 welcome
Thank you for purchasing the MEAP of Designing APIs with Swagger and OpenAPI!
My name is Josh Ponelat ( Pah-neh-lat ) and I have the privilege of introducing you to the
world of OpenAPI and Swagger. The eco-systems that surround RESTful APIs and the
sheer joy of leveraging and automating those systems.
The goal of this book is to teach the fundamentals of describing APIs using OpenAPI,
and how those descriptions can be used to drive parts of your work flows and pipelines with
tooling, such as those prefixed with Swagger.
Within you'll find out how to read and write OpenAPI definitions, where writing consists
of describing existing or new RESTful APIs. We'll disambiguate as much as we can, aiming
to answer questions as to "why" something is the way it is. After literacy of OpenAPI, we'll
dive into the design process. How to create new APIs cheaply and iterate on their design.
And finally we'll look at some lovely advanced topics, including my favourite.. guidelines to
building your own OpenAPI tooling.
OpenAPI and Swagger are both Open Source, and there are resources on the subjects
online, but few books to capture just how they work and why they're so sorely needed today.
While I've endeavoured to do just that, I'd like to ask for your help.
Please reach out in the liveBook's discussion forum and comments, the biggest help can
come from silly questions, such as asking for clarity on a subject or even just asking why
something happens to be that way.
Ultimately by learning the fundamentals of OpenAPI and Swagger, my hope is that this
book will make your life a little easier and hopefully even inspire you to automate even
more things!

—Joshua S. Ponelat

©Manning Publications Co. To comment go to liveBook

 brief contents
PART 1
1 Introducing APIs and OpenAPI
2 Getting set up to make API requests
3 Our first taste of OpenAPI definitions
4 Using Swagger Editor to write OpenAPI definitions
5 Describing API responses
6 Creating resources
7 Adding Authentication and Authorization
8 Preparing and hosting API documentation
PART 2
9 Designing a web application
10 Creating an API design using OpenAPI
11 Building a change workflow around API Design First
12 Implementing frontend code and reacting to changes
13 Building a backend with Node.js and Swagger Codegen
14 Integrating and releasing the web application
15 Reviewing our plan and design strategy
PART 3
16 Designing the next API iteration
17 Versioning an API and handling breaking changes
©Manning Publications Co. To comment go to liveBook
 18 Scaling collection endpoints with filters and pagination
19 Supporting the unhappy path: error handling with problem+json
20 Improving input validation with advanced JSON Schema
21 Beyond the application: what's next for our API?
PART 4
22 Composition of API definitions
23 Swagger 2.0 vs OpenAPI 3.0 vs OpenAPI 3.1
24 Building your own tools for OpenAPI
25 Enter OAuth: Securing an API for public usage
26 Deploying an API Gateway
27 Using OpenAPI for API testing and monitoring

©Manning Publications Co. To comment go to liveBook

 1

This chapter covers:

Introducing APIs and OpenAPI
1
Describing an API Ecosystem
What OpenAPI and Swagger are
When to use OpenAPI
An overview of this book

In this chapter we’ll take a look at the world of APIs and OpenAPI, so that we can get
comfortable with the topics of this book. We’ll start by taking a look at the benefits of describing
an API, how it forms part of an API ecosystem and where OpenAPI fits in. We’ll look at an
example of an OpenAPI document and when to use OpenAPI in practice.

Lets get started…​

1.1 What is an API Ecosystem?

I like the word ecosystem. It describes the interactions and relationships between living and
non-living within a fully functioning environment. I always picture a wetland pond with frogs,
wild grasses and stones for some reason, but you may imagine something a little different - either
way the principle of an interactive symbiotic system remains.

If we were to borrow (cough maybe steal ) this principle from biology we could use it to
describe the world of APIs within a team or organization.

The living, changing variables would represent elements that we have control over. These are the
things we make such as our services, stacks or code. The fixed, non living components would

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 2

then be the useful things we can benefit from but cannot easily change. These are the libraries
and external services we use. And of course there is the environment. It could be the Internet, an
internal network or a tiny device stuck on the roof of our house. Perhaps even all of them!

All of these pieces put together forms a complete ecosystem. When these parts are moving in
harmony then our system is healthy and our developers/consumers/users are all happy.

APIs tie together these disparate services, forming the foundation of the ecosystem. When we
assume the role of an "API designer", then our job is to create contracts for services, incorporate
feedback from consumers and ensure changes are communicated ahead of time.

Why API Ecosystem and not Service Ecosystem or perhaps even just Ecosystem you might ask?
That’s a reasonable question, and the answer would depend on which we choose to focus on. In
this book we’re interested in APIs so naturally we focus on that aspect. Since APIs are the
contracts that hold together the ecosystem it is not an unreasonable focal point. This is in fact a
very important part of the ecosystem, without which our services are all isolated. Understanding
them gives us a wholistic perspective.

This book is going to focus on the APIs and the contracts that define, or describe them.

1.2 Describing things

When we look at our ecosystem as individual aspects of a multitude of connections, we might
wonder at what each aspect truly means, what it’s comprised of, and how each one fits into this
design. The how part is where all the interesting bits are.

When those services change without updating all of their dependencies the ecosystem loses
functionality and in some cases can completely break.

Let’s take a look at this story, for example.

1.2.1 Bridget’s Task

Bridget has been tasked to manage a medium sized web stack. Her stack (or ecosystem) is made
up of services that talk to, and depend on each other. The stack also makes use of external
services which are beyond her control.

Every now and then one of the APIs will change in such a way as to negatively impact, and
sometimes break the services that rely on it. This disrupts the ecosystem, bringing down parts of
her stack and ultimately causing failures.

Bridget will need to effectively solve this problem, therefore when an API changes she needs to
tell the affected developers beforehand and keep the ecosystem running smoothly.

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 3

Bridget takes a moment to think about how this ecosystem works, by breaking it down into
tangible steps. She knows that each service has an API, and that each of those APIs are made up
of smaller operations. Each operation expects a certain input and generates an equal resulting
output. When an operation changes so that it requires different inputs , any service that doesn’t
evolve and adapt along with it will result in a systemic failure.

In the same way, when an operation produces a different output, it will cause other dependent
services to break unless they update to address those changes.

Bridget knows that if an API changes its operations to expect different inputs or produce
different outputs, then her ecosystem will suffer.

She concludes that tracking those changes is an important part of keeping functionality up, but
how will she know when an API has changed?

Bridget decides she needs a way of describing APIs, so that she can compare an old API with a
new API, in order to see if the new one has any breaking changes. She writes a program that
takes a description of an API and compares the older version with a newer version - generating a
report. The report is simple and tells her if the new API has any breaking changes from the old.

Happy with her plan, she instructs the developers to describe their APIs in her format so that she
can continue to compare old with new. Aware that the external services aren’t under control, she
keeps an eye on any developments and describes it herself- she is prepared for when those
external services change.

1.2.2 The potential of Bridget’s solution

Bridget’s solution to her problem is centered around the idea that you can describe your APIs in
such a way that people can write them and software can understand them.

While she only used that approach to solve one specific problem, there is now much more
potential for growth with those descriptions. They can serve as the basis for generating more than
just reports. For example she could generate documentation, test out changes before building
them, reduce the overhead of boilerplate code and much more.

Given the title of this book, the punchline may be a little ruined. But let us take a look at how
Bridget’s solution is used in the real world. Let’s take a look at how OpenAPI works…​

1.3 What is OpenAPI?

OpenAPI is a description of HTTP-based APIs which are typically, RESTful APIs. It comes in
the form of a YAML file or definition, that describes the inputs and outputs of an API. It can also
include information such as where the API is hosted, what authorization is required to access it,
and other details needed for consumers and producers (such as web-developers).
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 4

Definitions can be written by hand, by tools, or even generated from code. Once an API has been
written down we say it has been described. Once API has been described into a definition, it
becomes a platform for tools and humans to make use of. A typical example of making use of
API definitions is to generate human readable documentation from it.

1.3.1 Example OpenAPI Definition

There is a fun little API for dog breeds and their images on the Internet hosted at dog.ceo. To
give you an example of what an OpenAPI definition looks like, I’ve described a single operation
from this dog API, along with some other basic details of the API. Here is that definition ( as a
YAML file )…​

Listing 1.1 Example OpenAPI Document/Definition

openapi: 3.0.0
info:
title: Dog API
version: 1.0.0
servers:
- url: https://dog.ceo/api
paths:
/breed/{breedName}/images:
get:
description: Get images of dog breeds
parameters:
- in: path
name: breedName
schema:
type: string
example: hound
required: true
responses:
'200':
description: A list of dog images
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: object
properties:
status:
type: string
example: success
message:
type: array
items:
type: string
example: https://images.dog.ceo/breeds/hound-afghan/n02088094_1003.jpg

It can be a little verbose at first glance, but you will find some exceptionally useful information
contained within.

From it, we can gather a few snippets about the single operation it describes and how to consume
it.

The API is hosted at dog.ceo/api

There is a GET operation: GET /breed/{breedName}/images
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 5

Where the breedName in the URI, is a string

We see that a successful response will give us a JSON array where each item is an object
containing the message and status fields.
The message fields is an array of strings which are URLs of dog images.

That is usable information. Developers can build clients to consume the API, product managers
can determine if the API suits their needs and meets their standards, and documentation teams
can use it as the basis for showing human readable documentation.

As an example of using an OpenAPI definition, we can load this definition into a tool called
SwaggerUI (we’ll go into details of that later in the book). It will render documentation based on
the definition and provide other small niceties. It would look something like the following…​

Figure 1.1 SwaggerUI with Dogs API

SwaggerUI can consume the API definition file and from it render a more human friendly
version of it.

1.4 Where do OpenAPI definitions fit in ?

Once we have an API definition we use tools to leverage them, build bigger abstractions and
more automated work flows.

Here is a diagram showing how OpenAPI definitions could fit into an organization’s work flows.

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 6

Figure 1.2 OpenAPI

The diagram shows how to leverage OpenAPI definitions, that are described by tools or by
extracting annotations from code. They are then transformed into API documentation, server
stubs / routers and client SDKs. There are certainly more work flows that could be diagrammed
out, ones that provide more specific value depending on the business cases.

Other work flows could include…​

Example Workflows:

Automating parts of testing (APIs)

Getting early feedback on the design of the API
Ensuring API consistency
Comparing API changes across versions, etc.

The beauty of OpenAPI is that, once you have an OpenAPI definition, the rest (pun!) is simply a
matter of leveraging it for your needs.

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 7

1.5 And what is Swagger?

In the beginning there was SwaggerUI and a rough guide for writing YAML files that described
HTTP APIs. Later, more tools were built that relied on this guide that soon became a
specification and a standard. The tools and this specification were collectively known as
"Swagger". The term referred to all of it. The specification grew more mature and was released
as open source encouraging the community to create even more tools. They soon began to
contribute features into the specification, which finally began to be adopted by large companies
and house hold names.

Then in 2015 it was adopted by SmartBear who then donated the specification part to the Linux
Foundation1. During that transfer the specification part was subsequently renamed to the
OpenAPI Specification and SmartBear retained the copyright for the term Swagger.

Today you’ll find the terms used interchangeably as a result of this historical quirk. Going
forward its encouraged to use the term OpenAPI to refer the heart of this ecosystem: the
specification. And to use Swagger to refer to the specific set of tools managed by SmartBear (
which includes SwaggerUI, SwaggerEditor, SwaggerParser and at least a dozen more ).

1.6 What about REST?

REST or REpresentational State Transfer is a collection of ideas around how to design
networked systems (in particular server/client systems), and while it is not restricted to HTTP
based APIs they are both closely linked in practice.

The principles of REST were outlined by Roy Fielding in his dissertation on networked systems
which was released in the year 2000. RESTful APIs now drive the majority of web servers on the
Internet and what makes an API RESTful is determined by how closely it adopts the ideas ( or
constraints ) of that dissertation. 2 and can be considered a little subjective. Out in the wild
HTTP-based APIs have to make trade offs between what they require, and how standard or
RESTful they wish to be. It is a balancing act for all API producers to juggle.

The ideas in REST aim to be simple, and to decouple the API from the underlying services that
serve the API. It has a request/response model and is stateless, as all the information necessary to
do something is contained within the request.

One of the key ideas behind REST is the idea of a resource. I like to think of them as boxes that
you can put things into. Things such as user accounts, billing reminders or even the weather in
San Francisco, all of these things are resources. Resources are identified by a URI. For a user’s
account we might have /users/123 where 123 is the identifier for that user.

Given a resource, consumers will want to be able to do things to and with them. Think of these
actions as verbs. HTTP has a set of well defined ones, such as
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 8

POST,GET,PUT,DELETE,PATCH and a few less common ones. These are HTTP methods but
they are derived from the ideas in REST. As an example of a HTTP method, if you wish to fetch
data related to a resource you would use the GET method. If you wish to create a new resource
you could use the POST method.

Where REST starts and HTTP ends is a tricky one to answer, but the rule of thumb is HTTP is
the actual protocol and REST is a way of designing APIs. HTTP has incorporated many of the
ideas of REST into its protocol, which is why they are so closely related.

Typically we’ll more often note when a HTTP API is not RESTful, by that we mean it doesn’t
conform to the design patterns outlined by REST.

OpenAPI was designed to describe as many HTTP based API as possible, but not all of them. Its
major constraint ( and a huge benefit of OpenAPI ) is to still allow tools to generate usable code
from the definitions, this means that some API nuances may not be describable in OpenAPI.

NOTE A quick note regarding Hypermedia.

In Roy’s REST paper he mentions the idea of Hypermedia. A system of
returning context aware links, in the form of URIs. For example, If you were
to execute a GET on a /users/{userId} resource it could return a link (
URI ) to execute a password reset. Another link might be to the login
operation for that user. The links are related to resource ( at that point in
time ) and decouple clients from knowing those URIs outside of the
response. This is a crude description of a very powerful model.
Many REST purists are eager to point out that this is a sorely missed
component of RESTful APIs. In OpenAPI ( particularly v3.0.0+ ) support
was added to help document these hypermedia links, but their semantics
are out of scope for the OpenAPI specification.
OpenAPI is sufficient to describe what is required by Hypermedia APIs
but not the semantics of what each link should do. There are specifications
that attempt to tackle describing those details. Here is an incomplete list
that I know of:

HATEOAS: restfulapi.net/hateoas/
Siren: github.com/kevinswiber/siren
Hydra: www.hydra-cg.com/

1.7 When to use OpenAPI

Always.

I hope that statement triggered the picture of a grinning author. I couldn’t resist. But let’s take a
look at when using OpenAPI makes sense.
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 9

OpenAPI describes HTTP based APIs (including RESTful APIs) so when you’re tasked with
designing, managing and in some cases consuming the API, then OpenAPI makes sense. Of
course if you’re dealing with other API technologies that don’t leverage HTTP, such as gRPC or
GraphQL…​ then OpenAPI doesn’t make sense at all.

For this section, when we refer to APIs we’re referring to HTTP based APIs. It’s a little easier to
communicate with that assumption.

1.7.1 For API consumers

If you’re required to consume some API you may need an SDK, and if you have OpenAPI you
could generate SDKs for many different languages. The benefit is in having familiarity with a
single type of SDK or even customizing the SDK to suit your needs. Each and every API
described with OpenAPI can then be turned into an SDK of your choosing. Although typically
the SDKs provided by tools such as SwaggerCodegen or OpenapiGenerator are sufficient and
give a good head start into developing clients.

More importantly is the ability to know what to build a client against, and to even develop
against mock servers, generated by the same OpenAPI definition.

1.7.2 For API producers

Building APIs can be quite fun, particularly when you have a contract to develop against (and
you agree with that design! Perhaps a different conversation). Building out the boilerplate of an
HTTP server is less fun once you’ve done it umpteen times. Generating boilerplate code and
stubs from an OpenAPI definition gives you speed and consistency ( since you can customize the
templates to your needs ).

Although there are even more exciting methods of developing APIs, using OpenAPI definitions
during runtime to act as a router (have API operations map to classes/methods in code) and as a
validation layer (incoming requests will fail validation unless they conform to the OpenAPI
definition’s schema). Such practices are becoming more common in microservice-oriented
architecture where services are being built-out at a faster rate.

1.7.3 For API designers

Designing APIs has also been given a new focus of late ( at least at the time of writing ) and its
importance cannot be understated. While I’m a huge fan of Agile practices ( short feedback
cycles ) and the art of failing fast ( ie: bringing products to market quicker to validate
success/failure )…​ APIs should still be designed with longevity in mind as changing them,
means changing the consumers ( typically beyond your control ). No-one likes getting stuck
maintaining an old API!

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 10

OpenAPI is a medium to communicate to both consumers and producers, allowing designers to

get feedback early in the process and to iterate based on that feedback.

Design becomes even more interesting when it comes to managing more than one API. In those
cases consistency also plays an important role.

Standardizing all your APIs to have consistent patterns becomes possible when you can measure
those patterns. OpenAPI definitions is such a measurement.

1.8 This book

This book aims to help you understand how OpenAPI works, how it and the tooling can be used
to design APIs, and how you can create advanced and very specific work flows for your team
and organization.

In my opinion, all efforts in OpenAPI are aimed at automating parts of your work flow thus
freeing your team to accomplish more. The small upfront cost of describing APIs with OpenAPI
is greatly offset by the power you can wield leveraging it, and the new opportunities it presents.

This book is broken down into three parts…​

Part one deals with OpenAPI literacy and introduces you to the syntax and structure of
OpenAPI definitions. Giving you the ability to describe APIs. Throughout this part we
document a contrived FarmStall API that is hosted online and is simple enough to easily
grok ( ie: understand without knowing the details ).
Part two deals in the design phase and how we’ll use the tools to create a new API and
iterate its design. We’ll be extending our contrived API into a new one.
Part three is a deep dive into some of more specific tools and work flows, including a
look at how to build your own OpenAPI tooling and features.

1.9 Part One

Part one will have the following diagram to indicate where we are in the scheme of things…​

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 11

Figure 1.3 Where we are

We’ll progressively highlight those sections as we’re about to learn them.

Onward!

1.10 Summary
OpenAPI is a specification for describing HTTP-based APIs, most notably RESTful
APIs.
Swagger is a trademarked set of tools by SmartBear.
Describing APIs into a definition (ie: YAML file) allows you to leverage tools to help
automate a lot of API related processes.
OpenAPI is useful for consumers, producers and API designers. Each can benefit from
knowing and utilizing tools that consume OpenAPI definitions.
This book will give you further understanding and a knowledge base of how to work with
OpenAPI. To ultimately incorporate it into your team and organization work flows.

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 12

Getting set up to make API Requests

This chapter covers:

2
Introducing the FarmStall API and some of its business logic
Introducing a tool to make HTTP requests — Postman
Executing API requests and inspecting the responses

Our task in part one is to describe facets of an API called FarmStall.

FarmStall is an API designed specifically for this book, and was made to be as simple as
possible. For those interested, the server was written in Go and you are more than welcome to
inspect the source code at github.com/ponelat/farmstall. The API is hosted online at
farmstall.ponelat.com/v1/ (v1 is specifically for part one).

Before we can describe this API, we’ll need to understand how it works and to be able to make
HTTP requests and inspect the responses.

In this chapter we’ll be looking at how to use a tool called Postman, to make HTTP requests
against our API. We’ll be verifying that we get "decent looking" responses without concerning
ourselves too much with the details of those responses.

We also want to learn a bit about the business domain of the API so that we have an
understanding of what we’re doing. This will make it easier to describe later on.

What we’ll be touching on

Postman — getpostman.com
FarmStall API landing page — farmstall.ponelat.com/
FarmStall API — farmstall.ponelat.com/v1/reviews

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 13

(Source code) — github.com/ponelat/farmstall

Figure 2.1 Where we are

2.1 The problem

Our problem in this chapter is to discover and learn more about the FarmStall API. In particular
we want to interact with it and confirm some basics, such as access and the ability to create
requests and inspect the responses.

First an overview of the API itself…​

SIDEBAR FarmStall API Overview

The FarmStall API is hosted on farmstall.ponelat.com/v1 The API’s primary
focus is to allow patrons of the Farmer’s Market to write up reviews and
give their feedback on their experiences. Users can submit anonymous
reviews, which include a message and a rating (1 to 5 inclusive). Users can
also sign up to create reviews that will then be associated with them. Once
signed up, they can get a "UserToken" to create reviews with their user ID.

2.1.1 First two operations of FarmStall API

The FarmStall API has several operations and we’re going to try the following two…​

To get a list of public reviews you can use GET /reviews, you can filter reviews by their
rating using the query parameter maxRating.

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 14

To submit a new review you can use POST /reviews, the body of this request will
include message and rating fields.

Table 2.1mAPI Operations Table

Method URI Query Params Body Response
GET /reviews maxRating (1-5) N/A ?
POST /reviews N/A {message: "Was good.", rating: ?
5}

From the above information we can gather enough detailed information create our first two
requests, including where the API is hosted (farmstall.ponelat.com/v1) and the details of each
operation. You will note in the above table that the Response column has question marks, our
task in this chapter is to fill out those question marks by personally verifying what responses
come back from each operation.

So how do we make these HTTP requests? Fortunately for API folks there are numerous ways
that we can make these HTTP requests. From the brave who’d try their hand using telnet, the
practical ones who would use curl, to the individuals who have whole software suites with bells,
whistles and bunches of utilities.

NOTE For the brave

While no-one really writes HTTP requests by hand, I encourage you do so.
It is actually quite satisfying when you form an HTTP request completely
from scratch and get a response. I’ll stick a section at the end of this
chapter (not a biggie) to craft a request using the low level tools: telnet
(for HTTP) and openssl (for HTTPS). Watch out for that!

There is no hard requirement for you to use any particular tool for making HTTP requests, and
we’ve tried to structure this book in a way as to steer clear where ever possible from requiring
those tools. However I’d still encourage you to try out the suggested tools as-is, to more closely
follow along. Perhaps there are features that you can incorporate back into your own arsenal!

Without further ado lets learn about Postman.

2.2 Getting set up with Postman

Postman is a general HTTP tool that has a pleasant user interface and is suitable for beginners
and professionals alike. It can be a bit overwhelming if we look at all the text boxes, but it has
got good bones.

It was chosen as a tool for this book predominately because of its popularity (so that you’re not
stuck using an esoteric tool like some that I use) and because of the many features it provides.
Some you’ll find useful and others you might find inspirational.

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 15

Lets go and get it!

2.2.1 Installing Postman

In order to use Postman we need to install it. So go ahead and download then install it from
getpostman.com (or directly from www.getpostman.com/downloads/). It has support for
Microsoft Windows, macOS and most Linux distributions.

At the time of writing Postman was on version 6.7.2. Your version may look and act a little
differently depending on how much the authors of Postman change it in the interim. The UI has
been pretty stable so it should look similar to the screen-shots in this chapter.

Also, during the period when this was being written you did not need to create an account with
Postman in order to use it, although they will encourage you to do so. There are free and paid-for
plans, as well as the option to NOT create any account at all. For this chapter we’ll assume you
didn’t create an account so that we’ll only use the features that are available to non registered
users, which should be ample for our purposes.

Go ahead and install Postman, I’ll wait :)

2.3 FarmStall API

We’re going to make requests against our FarmStall API, but before we do a quick note…​

The data in the FarmStall API will persist but only for a day or two, so that its doesn’t start to
overflow with too much data (its only a little service!).

It was designed specifically for this book to help guide us in describing an existing API, and it
wasn’t designed to be robust enough to handle production level data. If you add a review one day
and don’t see it the next, you’re not going crazy — the API is just cleaning up!

To get to grips with the basics of creating an HTTP request we’re going to execute two of them.
A GET request with query parameters, and a POST request with a header parameter. We’ll
progressively examine the details of these operations as we go along, for now we’re going to
focus more on the practical side of making requests and less on what the operations are actually
doing.

Lets start by getting a list of reviews from the API.

2.4 Our first request!

From the two operations described in the beginning of this chapter we’re going to start by getting
the list of reviews. It has the following details…​

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 16

Table 2.2mGET /reviews

Method URI Query Params Body Response
GET /reviews maxRating (1-5) N/A ?

From it we know that it is a GET method and that it has at least one query parameter called
maxRating. This parameter accepts a number from 1 to 5 inclusive.

Operations are often described relative to where the server is hosted and this API has a base URL
of farmstall.ponelat.com/v1 so the URL for GET /reviews becomes:

farmstall.ponelat.com/v1/reviews

If we add in the query parameter it’ll form our final URL of:

farmstall.ponelat.com/v1/reviews?maxRating=5

Armed with a URL and a method we have enough to execute this particular request — time to
use Postman.

2.4.1 Forming the request in Postman

If you haven’t done so already, go ahead and start up Postman. We want to get to the main page
so if you’re confronted by a welcome modal feel free to dismiss it. You can generally dismiss
modals by clicking on the small "x" at the top right side of the modal.

Here are the key areas in the main page that we are interested in (for our GET request):

Figure 2.2 Postman - the key areas

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 17

1. HTTP method drop-down This selects the method to use. The default is likely GET but
you can select it again if it isn’t already.
2. URL input box This is where we will put the URL of the endpoint we want to make the
request against.
3. Send request button The button that executes the request.

To create a request against our endpoint we need to add the URL into the URL input box and hit
the send button after that, so go ahead and type it out. You should end up with the following…​

Figure 2.3 Postman - GET /reviews

After hitting send, you should see a chunk of JSON data in the Response Body section. This is
the result of us executing the request. If you see this JSON data — congratulations, you’ve
successfully executed a request!

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 18

Figure 2.4 Postman - GET /reviews Response

NOTE If for some reason you encountered an error in the response, that’s okay. It
could be that there is a typo, that the server is down/misbehaving or some
other unforeseen reason. If you’re happy you wrote the request correctly,
that is enough for now. We’ll have more examples later on in the chapter
that we can test against.

2.4.2 Verification
Wonderful…​ we should now see some response data from our request. Confirming that our API
works and that we can reach it. Our response data should look similar to the following:

Listing 2.1 Data received from GET /reviews

[
{
"message": "Was awesome.",
"rating": 5,
"uuid": "16f5e7e1-b581-4ca4-8af2-8dead5894869",
"userId": null
},
{
"message": "Was aweful",
...more of the same...

Now we can fill in the question mark in our operation table, as we know what the response data
is! Later on we’ll need to describe this data, for now we’re just satisfied that the operation works
and does indeed return some data.

Now let’s try creating a new review by executing a POST request.

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 19

2.5 Adding a Review to the FarmStall API

Looking at the FarmStall documentation table we can see that the operation we’re after is POST
/reviews. It takes no query parameters but it does require a body. In this case the response isn’t
the most interesting part of the operation, what is more interesting is that we are adding data into
the API.

Table 2.3mGET /reviews

Method URI Query Params Body Response
POST /reviews N/A {message: "Was good.", rating: ?
5}

One of the key differences between POST and GET is the request body. One could conceivably
send data as query parameters, but they impose too many limitations. From size limitations of
query parameters, to the fact that they cannot contain binary data. A request body doesn’t have
these limitations, the size is limited only by practicality and the body can contain binary data.

NOTE Another interesting benefit of sending data in the body is security. Query
parameters are part of the URL, and as such, often get logged by servers
and proxies. If you were to send secret data as query parameters, there is
a good chance it will be recorded somewhere between your client and the
server. Whereas bodies are most often not processed by proxies, nor are
they typically logged.

In the POST /reviews operation, the body is required to be in JSON format. In this format we
can see it’s an object that has two fields.

They are message and rating.

message will be a string, and is the feedback for the Market.

rating will be a number, between 1 and 5 inclusive. Which will indicate our general
experience where 1 is the worst and 5 is the best.

Let us build the request…​

Listing 2.2 JSON Request body for POST /review

{
"message": "Was pretty good.",
"rating": 4
}

As we previously did with the GET /reviews operation, we need to combine the URI with the
base URL of the server to form the following complete URL:

farmstall.ponleat.com/v1/reviews
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 20

Good stuff, now let’s go through what we need to do in Postman in order to execute this request.

We’ll need to do the following:

1. Change the method to be POST

2. Type out the URL to be farmstall.ponelat.com/v1/reviews (same as the GET /review)
3. Select the Body Tab, so that we can type out the body
4. Type out the JSON body that includes the message and rating fields
5. Ensure that the content type is set to JSON (or application/json). Depends on the UI
(User Interface)

Number (5) will set a special header called Content-Type which indicates to the server which
media type our data is in (more on that later). Since the UI of Postman could change, we’ll need
to double check that it is set, and we will also see that other headers can be easily added to future
requests.

First go ahead and make the changes in Postman so that you see the following (allowing for
minor differences):

Figure 2.5 Postman - POST /reviews Was Good.

Now confirm that the Content-Type header was set and that its value is application/json
(the official media type for JSON data).

There is a tab in the Postman main page specifically for headers. When you typed out your body
there was also a dropdown for selecting the content type of the data written. Postman will create
the header for us based on this value, but we need to be sure. So go ahead, click on the header tab
and ensure it looks similar to the following. Content-Type: application/json

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 21

Figure 2.6 Postman - POST /reviews Headers Tab

NOTE
Listing 2.3 Executing Requests

Great! Our request is ready to send. After clicking on the Send button the new review should be
created. To confirm that it was created you should see the following in the Response Body
section of Postman, as well as the Status code 201 (which is for "Resource Created" or just
"Created").

Listing 2.4 JSON response body from POST /review

{
"message": "Was pretty good.",
"rating": 4,
"uuid":"16f5e7e1-b581-4ca4-8af2-8dead5894869",
"userId": null
}

Note that this value will be different (its random)

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 22

Figure 2.7 Postman - POST /review Response

2.5.1 Verification
What have we accomplished so far? We’ve successfully executed two requests. One for getting
the list of reviews, and another for creating a new review. Our operations details table has now
been verified — and is telling the truth! For now, just seeing reasonable data is enough. Soon
we’re going to describe these operations in a way that clarifies what is possible, without actually
executing requests and making assumptions about the data.

Now that we’re able to make basic requests with Postman, we can have a little fun and practice
with more APIs!

2.6 Practice
Now for a bit of practice! The following HTTP requests are a short list of APIs that have fun,
interesting or perhaps even useful responses. Given the nature of the world, its entirely possible
that some (hopefully not all) of these APIs may become unavailable, or worse, change their
interfaces so that these requests will fail! The latter is something we hope to avoid when
designing our own APIs.

The ones chosen here were considered to be stable enough at time of print but we hope you
understand that they might change. We’ve put the expected results at the end of this chapter so
that you can compare with your own.

Withour further ado here are the requests…​

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 23

2.6.1 Fun API requests to make

A little fun with cat (and other animal) facts.

Listing 2.5 Cat Facts API

Documentation: https://alexwohlbruck.github.io/cat-facts/docs/
Server: https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com

GET /facts?animal_type=cat,horse
GET /facts/random

Example response:
{
"_id": "58e008780aac31001185ed05",
"user": "58e007480aac31001185ecef",
"text": "Owning a cat can reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack by a third.",
"__v": 0,
"updatedAt": "2019-01-19T21:20:01.811Z",
"createdAt": "2018-03-29T20:20:03.844Z",
"deleted": false,
"type": "cat",
"source": "user",
"used": false
}

For those times you need a random image to put onto a website prototype.

Listing 2.6 LoremPixel API

Documentation: http://lorempixel.com/
Server: http://lorempixel.com

GET /{width}/{height}/{category}/{text}

Example: GET /400/200/sports/Dummy-Text

Example response:
<See image>

A look at DuckDuckGo’s search engine API.

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 24

Listing 2.7 DuckDuckGo API

Documentation: https://api.duckduckgo.com/api
Server: https://api.duckduckgo.com

GET /?q={query}&format=json&pretty=1

Example: /?q=cats&format=json&pretty=1
Example response:
{
"Abstract" : "",
"ImageWidth" : 0,
"AbstractSource" : "Wikipedia",
"meta" : {
"src_domain" : "en.wikipedia.org",
"blockgroup" : null,
"is_stackexchange" : null,
"dev_milestone" : "live",
...
<a bit too large to print>

And because the world needs more "Pirate speak", someone went and made an API for that too!

Listing 2.8 Pirate Talk API

Documentation: https://funtranslations.com/api/pirate
API: https://api.funtranslations.com

POST /translate/pirate.json?text={text}
Example:

POST /translate/pirate.json?text=Hello%20Good%20Sir
Note: %20 is URL encoding for spaces

Example response:
{
"success": {
"total": 1
},
"contents": {
"translated": "Ahoy Good matey",
"text": "Hello Good Sir",
"translation": "pirate"
}
}

2.7 HTTP For the brave

Bonus section! Only proceed if you feel brave…​

As promised here is a section on how to craft an HTTP request completely from scratch. If
you’re feeling less than brave feel free to give this section a skip. You may spontaneously start
sporting a neck beard if you continue…​ you’ve been warned!

PS: There is a bit of low level jargon in this section.

There are two utilities you can use to open a TCP connection (a pipe you can read and write data
into) suitable for HTTP requests. The first is telnet which is available on most systems, and
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Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 CHAPTER XLIII.
AN OLD LADY’S DIARY.
On the following afternoon Laura drove straight from the House of
Detention to Russell Square. Her interview with her husband had
been full of comfort. Mr. Leopold had been with his client, and Mr.
Leopold was in excellent spirits. He had no doubt as to the issue of
his case, even without Desrolles; and the detectives had very little
doubt of finding Desrolles.
‘A man of that age and of those habits doesn’t go far,’ said the
lawyer, speaking of this human entity with as much assurance as if
he were stating a mathematical truth.
Laura got out of her cab before one of the dullest-looking houses in
the big, handsome old square—a house brightened by no modern
embellishment in the way of Venetian blind or encaustic flower-box,
but kept with a scrupulous care. Not a speck upon the window
panes, not a spot upon the snow-white steps, the varnish of the
door as fresh as if it had been laid on yesterday.
The door was opened by an old man-servant in plain clothes. Laura
grew hopeful at the sight of him. He looked like a man who had lived
fifty years in one service—the kind of man who begins as a knife-
boy, and either stultifies a spotless career by going to America with
the plate, or ends as a pious annuitant, in the odour of sanctity.
‘Does Mrs. Malcolm still live here?’ asked Laura.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Is she at home?’
‘I will inquire, ma’am, if you will be kind enough to give me your
card,’ replied the man, as much as to say that his mistress was a
lady whose leisure was not to be irreverently disturbed. She was to
be at home or not at home, as it pleased her sovereign will, and
according to the quality and claims of her visitor.
Laura wrote upon one of her cards, ‘Stephen Malcolm’s daughter,
Laura,’ while the ancient butler produced a solid old George the
Second salver whereon to convey the card with due reverence to his
mistress.
The address upon the card looked respectable, and so did Laura,
and upon the strength of these appearances the butler ventured to
show the stranger into the dining-room, where the furniture was of
the good old brobdingnagian stamp, and there was nothing portable
except the fire-irons. Here Laura waited in a charnel-house
atmosphere, while Mrs. Malcolm called up the dim shadows of the
past, and finally came to the determination that she would hold
parley with this young person who claimed to be of her kindred.
The butler came back after a chilly interval, and ushered Mrs.
Treverton up the broad, ghastly-looking staircase, where drab walls
looked down upon a stone-coloured carpet, to the big, bare drawing-
room, which had ever been one of the coldest memories of her
childhood.
It was a long and lofty room, furnished with monumental rosewood.
The cheffoniers were like tombs—the sofa suggested an altar—the
centre table looked as massive as one of those Druidic menhirs
which crop up here and there among the wilds of Dartmoor, or the
sandy plains of Brittany. A pale-faced clock ticked solemnly on the
white marble chimney-piece, three tall windows let in narrow streaks
of pallid daylight, between voluminous drab curtains.
In this mausoleum-like chamber, beside a dull and miserly-looking
fire, sat an old lady in black satin—the very same figure, the very
same satin gown, Laura remembered years ago; or a gown so like
that it appeared the same.
‘Aunt,’ said Laura, approaching timidly, and feeling as if she were a
little child again, and doomed to solitary imprisonment in that awful
room, ‘have you forgotten me?’
The old lady in black satin held out her hand, a withered white hand
clad in a black mitten, and adorned with old-fashioned rings.
‘No, my dear,’ she replied, without any indication of surprise, ‘I never
forget anyone or anything. My memory is good, and my sight and
hearing are good. Providence has been very kind to me. Your card
puzzled me at first, but when I came to think it over I soon
understood who you were. Sit down, my dear. Jonam shall bring you
a glass of sherry.’
The old lady rose and rang the bell.
‘Please don’t, aunt,’ said Laura. ‘I never take sherry. I don’t want
anything except to talk with you a little about my poor father.’
‘Poor Stephen,’ replied Mrs. Malcolm. ‘Sadly imprudent, poor fellow.
Nobody’s enemy but his own. And so you are married, my dear?
Never mind, Jonam, my niece will not take anything.’ This to the
butler. ‘You were adopted by an old friend of your father’s, I
remember. I went to Chiswick the day after poor Stephen’s death,
and found that you had been taken away. I was very glad to know
you were provided for; though of course I should have done what I
could for you in the way of trying to get you into an institution, or
something of that kind. I could never have had a child in this house.
Children upset everything. I hope your father’s friend has carried out
his undertaking handsomely?’
‘He was all goodness,’ answered Laura. ‘He was more than a father
to me. But I lost him two years ago.’
‘I hope he left you independent?’
‘He made me independent by a deed of trust, when I first went to
him. He settled six thousand pounds for my benefit.’
‘Very handsome indeed. And pray whom have you married?’
‘My benefactor’s nephew, and the inheritor of his estate.’
‘You have been a very lucky girl, Laura, and you ought to be thankful
to God.’
‘I hope I am thankful.’
‘I have often noticed that the children of improvident fathers do
better in life than those whose parents toil to make them
independent. They are like the ravens—Providence takes care of
them. Well, my dear, I congratulate you.’
‘God has been very good to me, dear aunt, but I have had many
troubles. I want you to tell me about my father. Did you see much of
him in the last years of his life?’
‘Not very much. He used to call upon me occasionally, and he used
sometimes to bring your mother to spend the day with me. She was
a sweet woman—you are like her in face and figure—and she and I
used to get on very nicely together. She was not above taking
advice.’
‘Had my father many friends and acquaintances at that time?’ asked
Laura.
‘Many friends! My dear, he was poor.’
‘Do you know if he had any one particular friend? He could not have
been quite alone in the world. I recollect there was a gentleman who
used to come very often to the cottage at Chiswick. I cannot
remember what he was like. I was seldom in the room when he was
there. I remember only that my father and he were often together. I
have a very strong reason for wishing to know all about that man.’
‘I think I know whom you mean. I have heard your poor mother talk
of him many a time. She used to tell me all her troubles, and I used
to give her good advice. You say you want particularly to know
about this person.’
‘Most particularly, dear aunt,’ said Laura eagerly.
‘Then, my dear, my diary can tell you much better than I can. I am a
woman of methodical habits, and ever since my husband’s death,
three-and-twenty years ago last August, I have made a point of
keeping a record of the course of every day in my life. I dare say the
book would seem very stupid to strangers. I hope nobody will
publish it after I am dead. But it has been a great pleasure to me to
look through the pages from time to time, and call up old days. It is
almost like living over again. Kindly take my keys, Laura, and open
the right-hand door of the cheffonier.’
Laura obeyed. The interior of the cheffonier was divided into
shelves, and on the uppermost of these shelves were neatly
arranged three-and-twenty small volumes, bound in morocco, and
lettered Diary, with the date of each year. The parliamentary records
at Strawberry Hill are not more carefully kept than the history of
Mrs. Malcolm’s life.
‘Let me see,’ she said. ‘Your father died in the winter of ’56; your
poor mother a few months earlier. Bring me the volume for ’56.’
Laura handed the book to the old lady, who gave a gentle little sigh
as she opened it.
‘Dear me, how neatly I wrote in ’56,’ she exclaimed. ‘My handwriting
has sadly degenerated since then. We get old, my dear; we grow old
without knowing it.’
Laura thought that in that monumental drawing-room age might well
creep on unawares. Life there must be a long hybernation.
‘Let me see. I must find some of my conversations with your mother.
“June 2. Read prayers. Breakfast. My rasher was cut too thick, and
the frying was not up to cook’s usual mark. Mem.: must speak to
cook about the bacon. Read a leading article on indirect taxation in
Times, and felt my store of knowledge increased. Saw cook. Decided
on a lamb cutlet for lunch, and a slice of salmon and roast chicken
for dinner. Sent for cook five minutes afterwards, and ordered sole
instead of salmon. I had salmon the day before yesterday.” Dear me,
I don’t see your poor mother’s name in the first week of June,’ said
the old lady, turning over the leaves. ‘Here it comes, a little later, on
the fifteenth. Now you shall hear your mother’s own words, faithfully
recorded on the day she spoke them. And yet there are people who
would ridicule a lonely old woman for keeping a diary,’ added Mrs.
Malcolm, with mild self-approval.
‘I feel very grateful to you for having kept one,’ said Laura.
‘June 15. Stephen brought his wife to lunch with me, by
appointment. I ordered a nice little luncheon; filleted sole, cutlets, a
duckling, peas, new potatoes, cherry tart, and a custard. The poor
woman does not often enjoy a good dinner, and no doubt my
luncheon would be her dinner. But my thoughtfulness was thrown
away. The poor thing was looking pale and worn when she came,
and she hardly ate a morsel. Even the duckling did not tempt her,
though she owned it was the first she had seen this year. After
luncheon Stephen went to the City, to keep an appointment, as he
told us, and his wife and I spent a quiet hour in my drawing-room.
We had a long talk, which turned, as usual, on her domestic
troubles. She calls this Captain Desmond her husband’s evil genius,
and says he is a blight upon her life. He is not an old friend of
Stephen’s, so there is no excuse for that foolish fellow’s infatuation.
They met him first at Boulogne, last year; and from that time to this
he and Stephen have been inseparable. Poor Laura declares that this
Desmond belongs to a horrid, gambling, drinking set, and that he is
the cause of Stephen’s ruin. “We were poor when we first went to
Boulogne,” she said, with tears in her eyes, poor child, “but we could
just manage to live respectably, and for the first year we were very
happy. But from the day my husband made the acquaintance of
Captain Desmond things began to go badly. Stephen resumed his old
habits of billiard-playing, cards, and late hours. He had grown fond
of his home, and reconciled to a quiet, domestic life. Darling Laura’s
pretty ways and sweet little talk amused and interested him. But
after Captain Desmond came upon the scene Stephen seldom spent
an evening at home. I know that it is wicked to hate people,” the
poor thing said, in her simple way, “but I cannot help hating this bad
man.”’
‘Poor mother!’ sighed Laura, touched to the heart by this picture of
domestic misery.
‘I asked her if she knew who and what Captain Desmond was. She
could only tell me that when Stephen made his acquaintance he was
living at a boarding-house at Boulogne, and had been living there for
some months. He had spent a considerable part of his life abroad.
He had nobody belonging to him, and he seemed to belong to
nobody; though he often boasted vaguely of grand connections. To
poor Laura’s mind he was nothing more or less than an adventurer.
“He flatters my husband,” she said, “and he tries to flatter me. He is
very often at Chiswick, and whenever he comes he takes my
husband back to London with him, and then I see no more of
Stephen till the next day, or perhaps not for two or three days after.
He has what his friend calls a shake-down at Captain Desmond’s
lodgings in May’s Buildings, St. Martin’s Lane.”’
‘Aunt,’ exclaimed Laura eagerly, ‘will you let me copy that address? It
might be of use to me, if I should have to trace the past life of this
man.’
She wrote the address in a little memorandum book contained in her
purse.
‘My dear, why should you trouble yourself about Captain Desmond,’
said the old lady. ‘Whatever harm he did your poor father is past and
done with. Nothing can alter or mend it now.’
‘No, aunt, but as long as this man lives he will go on doing harm. He
will go from small crimes to great ones. It is his nature. Please go on
with the diary, dear aunt. You can have no idea how valuable this
information is to me.’
‘I have always felt I was doing a useful act in keeping a diary, my
dear. I am not surprised to find this humble record of inestimable
value,’ said the old lady, who was bursting with gratified vanity.
‘Where would history be if people in easy circumstances, and with
plenty of leisure, did not keep diaries? I do not think there is any
more about Captain Desmond. No; your mother tells me about her
own health. She is feeling very low and ill. She fears she will not live
many years, and then what is to become of poor little Laura?’
‘Did you ever go to Chiswick, aunt?’
‘Never, till after your poor father’s death. I attended his funeral.’
‘Was Captain Desmond present?’
‘No; but he was with your father up till the last hour of his life. I
heard that from the landlady. He helped to nurse him.’
‘I thank you, aunt, with all my heart, for what you have told me. I
will come and see you again in a few days, if I may.’
‘Do, my dear, and bring your husband.’ Laura shivered. ‘I should like
to make his acquaintance. If you will mention the day a little
beforehand, I should be pleased for you to take your luncheon with
me. I have the cook who roasted that duckling for your poor mother
still with me.’
‘I shall be pleased to come, aunt. We are in London upon very
serious business, but I hope it will soon be ended, and when it is
over I will tell you all about it.’
‘Do, my dear, I am very glad to see you again. I dare say you
remember spending a week with me when your mother died. I think
you enjoyed yourself. This house must have been such a change for
you after that poor little place at Chiswick, and there is a good deal
to amuse a child in this room,’ said Mrs. Malcolm, glancing
admiringly from the monumental clock on the mantelpiece to the
group of feather flowers and stuffed birds on the sepulchral
cheffonier.
Laura smiled faintly, remembering those interminable days in that
cheerless chamber, compared with which a dirty lane where she
could have made mud pies would have been Elysium.
‘I’ve no doubt you were extremely kind to me, aunt,’ she said gently,
‘but I was very small and very shy.’
‘And you did not like going to bed in the dark; which shows that you
have been foolishly brought up. Your mother was a sweet woman,
but wanting in strength of mind.’
 CHAPTER XLIV.
THREE WITNESSES.
In the forenoon of the following Tuesday John Treverton again
appeared before the magistrate, at the Police-court in Bow Street.
The same witnesses were present who had been examined on the
previous occasion. Two medical men gave their evidence as to the
dagger, which had been sent to them for examination. One declared
that the blade bore unmistakable traces of blood stains, and gave it
as his opinion that steel once so sullied never lost the stain. The
other stated that a steel blade wiped quickly while the blood upon it
was wet would carry no such ineffaceable mark, and that the
tarnished appearance of the dagger was referable only to time and
atmosphere.
The inquiry dragged itself haltingly towards a futile close, when just
as it seemed about to conclude, an elderly woman, wrapped in a
thick gray shawl, and a cat-skin sable victorine, and further muffled
with a Shetland veil tied over a close black bonnet, came forward,
escorted by George Gerard, and volunteered her evidence. This was
Mrs. Evitt, who was just well enough to crawl from a cab to the
witness-box, leaning on the surgeon’s arm.
‘Oh,’ said the magistrate, when Jane Sophia Evitt had been duly
sworn, ‘you are the landlady, are you? Why were you not here last
Tuesday? You were subpœnaed, I believe.’
‘Yes, your worship, though I was not in a state of health to bear it.’
‘Oh, you were too ill to appear, were you? Well, what have you to
say about the prisoner?’
‘Please, your worship, he oughtn’t to be a prisoner. I ought to have
up and spoke the truth sooner—it has preyed upon me awful that I
didn’t do it—a sweet young wife, too.’
‘What is the meaning of this rambling?’ asked the magistrate,
indignantly. ‘Is the poor creature delirious?’
‘No, sir, I ain’t more delirious than your worship. My body has been
all of a shiver—hot fits and cold fits—but thank God my mind has
kep’ clear.’
‘You really must not tell us about your ailments. What do you know
of the prisoner?’
‘Only that he’s as innocent as that lamb, yonder,’ said Mrs. Evitt,
pointing to a baby in the arms of a forlorn looking drab, from the
adjacent rookeries of St. Giles’s, which had just set up a shrill squall,
and was in process of being evicted by a policeman. ‘He had no
more to do with it than that blessed infant that’s just been carried
out of court.’
And then, continually beginning to wander, and being continually
pulled up sharp by the magistrate, Mrs. Evitt told her ghastly story of
the handful of iron-grey hair, and the blood-stained dressing-gown,
hidden in the closet behind the bed in her two-pair back.
‘Which is there to this day, as the police may find for themselves if
they like to go and look,’ concluded Mrs. Evitt.
‘They will take care to do that,’ said the magistrate. ‘Where is this
Desrolles?’
‘He is being looked for, sir,’ replied Mr. Leopold. ‘If your worship will
permit, there are two gentlemen in court who are in possession of
facts that have a material bearing on this case.’
‘Let them be sworn.’
The first of these two voluntary witnesses was Mr. Joseph Lemuel,
the well-known stockbroker and millionaire, on whose appearance in
the witness-box there was a sudden hush in the court, and profound
attention from every one, as at the presence of greatness.
Even that tag-rag and bob-tail from adjacent St. Giles’s had heard of
Joseph Lemuel. His name had been in the penny newspapers. He
was a man who was supposed to make a million of money every
time there was war in Europe, and to lose a million whenever there
was a financial crisis.
‘Do you know anything of this affair, Mr. Lemuel?’ the magistrate
asked, with an off-hand friendliness, when the witness had been
sworn, as much as to say, ‘It is really uncommonly good of you to
trouble yourself about a fellow-creature’s fate; and I want to make
the thing as light and as pleasant as I can, for your sake.’
‘I think I may be able to afford a clue to the motive of the murderer,’
said Mr. Lemuel, who seemed more moved than the occasion
warranted. ‘I presented the unhappy lady with a necklace about a
week before her death; and I have reason to fear that this gift may
have been the cause of her terrible death!’
‘Was the necklace of such value as to tempt a murderer?’
‘It was not. But, to an uneducated eye, it appeared of great value. It
was a gift which I offered to a lady whose talents I—as one of the
outside public—enthusiastically admired.’
‘Naturally,’ assented the magistrate, as much as to say, ‘Don’t be
frightened, my dear sir. I am not going to ask you any awkward
questions.’
‘It was a necklace I had bought in Paris, in the Palais Royal, a short
time before. It was made by a man who had a speciality for these
things. It would perhaps have deceived any eye except that of a
diamond merchant, and might indeed have deceived a dealer, if he
had judged by the eye alone. I gave fifty pounds for the necklace. It
was exquisitely set, and really a work of art.’
‘Did Madame Chicot suppose the stones were real?’
‘I don’t know, I told her nothing about the necklace. It seemed to
me a suitable offering to an actress, to whom appearances are as
important as realities.’
‘Madame Chicot made no inquiry as to the intrinsic value of your
gift?’
‘None. It was offered and accepted in silence.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘That is all.’
The next witness was Mr. Mosheh, the diamond merchant. His
evidence consisted of a straight and succinct narrative of his
interview with the stranger who offered for sale a set of imitation
diamonds under the impression that he was offering real stones of
great value.
‘These crystals were some of them equal in size to the largest
diamonds known in the trade,’ said Mr. Mosheh. ‘They would have
been a tremendous haul for a thief, if they had been real.’
He gave the date of the man’s visit, which was within a week of La
Chicot’s murder.
‘Could you identify the man who called upon you with those stones?’
asked the magistrate.
‘I believe I could.’
‘Was he the prisoner?’
‘Certainly not. He was a man of between fifty and sixty years of age.’
‘Has anybody a photograph of Desrolles?’
Yes, there was a photograph in court. Mrs. Evitt had furnished the
police with two, which Desrolles had given her upon different
occasions. One was in court, the other had been taken by the
detective who was looking for Desrolles.
The photograph was shown to the witness.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Mosheh, ‘I believe that to be the same face. The man
who came to me wore a large gray beard. All the lower part of the
face was hidden, and the beard made him look older. I conclude that
it was a false beard. But to the best of my belief that is the same
man. The upper part of the face is very striking. I don’t think I could
be deceived in it.’
After this evidence Mr. Leopold urged that there was no ground for
any longer detaining John Treverton. The magistrate, after some
little discussion, agreed to this, and the prisoner was discharged.
 CHAPTER XLV.
THE HUNT FOR DESROLLES.
When Desrolles left the village under the shadow of Dartmoor, after
bargaining for a handsome annuity, he meant to enter upon a new
and delightful stage of existence. The world was changed for him.
Assured of a handsome income, he felt as it were, new born. He
would rove, butterfly-like, from city to city. He would sip of one
sweet, and then fly to the rest. All that was fairest upon earth was at
his command. The loveliest spots in southern Europe should be the
cradle of his declining years. He would leave off brandy, and live
decently. Henceforward he would have a full purse, and freedom
from care; for what tortures can conscience have in reserve for a
man who has set it at nought all his life?
Mr. Desrolles considered Paris as the first stage in that voyage of
pleasure which he had planned for himself; but once having entered
Paris, with money in his pocket, and a sense of independence, all his
schemes became as nothing when weighed against the fascinations
of that wonderful city. He had spent some of his most reckless years
in Paris; he knew the city by heart, with all her charms, with all her
vices, all those qualities which she possesses in common with the
courtesans who spring from her soil. Paris for Desrolles in his decline
had all the delights she had offered him in his youth. She stretched
out her many arms to detain and hold him like an octopus. Her life
of the streets and the café, her dancing places—where the dancing
began at eleven at night and ended only at some unearthly hour of
the morning—her singing places, where bare-necked brazen women
sat smiling in the glare of the gas—her wine shops at every corner—
her billiard-rooms over every café—all these were charms which for
Desrolles proved irresistible. There was an all-pervading note of
dissipation in the place that delighted him. In London he had felt
himself a scamp. In Paris he fancied himself little worse than his
fellow men. There were differences perhaps; but only differences of
degree.
Desrolles had come to Paris with the intention of curing himself of
brandy. He carried out this resolve with laudable firmness. He cured
himself of brandy by taking to absinthe. He entered Paris with
ninety-five pounds in his pocket, and a promise of a thousand a year.
With the future so amply provided for, he was naturally somewhat
reckless as to his expenditure in the present. He was not a man who
cared for pomp or show. He had out-lived his taste for the
refinements of life. With his purse full of money he had no
inclination to put up at Meurice’s or the Bristol. The elegant luxury of
those establishments would have seemed fade to his perverted
taste, just as brandy without the addition of cayenne pepper used to
seem tasteless to a luckless English marquis, who burned life’s brief
candle at both ends, and brought it to speedy extinction.
Desrolles, like the hare, wound back to his old form. Years ago he
had lodged in the students’ quarter, and drunk at the students’
cafés, and lost his money among those profane young reprobates
from whom were to issue the future senators, doctors, and lawyers
of France. The lodging had been dirty and disreputable twenty years
ago. It was so much the more dirty and no less disreputable after
the lapse of twenty years. But Desrolles was grateful to Providence
and the Prefect of the Seine for having left his old quarters standing.
The house, beneath whose weather-worn roof he had spent such
wild nights of old, had been spared from demolition by accident only,
and was soon to be numbered with the things of the past. Its doom
was fixed, it existed only on sufferance, pending the complete
reconstruction of the quarter. A mighty Boulevard, marching on with
progress as relentless as Juggernaut’s car, had cut the narrow, dingy
old street across, at right angles, letting daylight in upon all its
shabbiness, its teeming life, its contented poverty, its secret crime,
squalid miseries, and sordid vices.
The house in which Desrolles had lived had but just escaped
demolition. It stood at the corner of the broad, new Boulevard,
where mighty stone palaces were being raised upon the ashes of
departed hovels. Its next door neighbour had been razed to the
ground, and the gaudy papers that had lined the vanished rooms
were revealed to the open day, showing how, stage by stage, the
rooms had waxed shabbier, lower, smaller, till on the sixth story they
had dwindled to mere pigeon holes. The ragged paper rotted on the
wall; black patches showed where the fire-places had stood; and a
great black column marked the course of a demolished chimney-
stack. This outside wall had been shored up, but, even thus
supported, the tall, narrow, corner house, contemplated from the
street below, had an insecure look.
Desrolles was delighted to find his ancient den still standing. How
well he remembered the little wine-shop on the ground floor, the
bright-coloured bottles in the windows, the odour of brandy within,
the blouses sitting on the benches against the wall, squabbling
loudly over dominoes, or playing écarte with the limpest and
smallest of cards.
He inquired in the wine-shop if there was une chambre de garçon—a
bachelor’s room—to be had upstairs.
‘There is always room for a bachelor,’ answered the buxom female
behind the counter. ‘Yes, there is a pretty little room on the fifth
story, all that there is of the most commodious, où, monsieur aurait
toutes ses aises.’
Desrolles shrugged his shoulders dubiously.
‘The fifth story,’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you think my legs are as young as
they were twenty years ago?’
‘Monsieur looks full of youth and activity,’ said the woman.
‘Does La Veuve Chomard still keep the house?’
Alas, no. The widow Chomard had departed some nine years ago to
the narrowest of houses in the cemetery of Mount Parnassus. The
present proprietor was a gentleman in the commerce of wines, and
also the proprietor of the shop.
That made nothing, Desrolles told the woman. All he wanted was a
comfortable room on the first or second floor.
Unhappily the chambrette de garçon on the fifth stage was the only
unoccupied room in the house, and after some hesitation Desrolles
followed an ancient female of the portress species up the dirty old
staircase, and into the chambrette.
‘That gives upon the new boulevard,’ said the portress, opening a
small window. ‘C’est crânement gai. It is awfully lively!’
Desrolles looked down upon the broad new street, with its
omnibuses, and waggons, and builders’ trollies, circulating up and
down—its monstrous scaffolding, and lofty ladders, and workmen
dangling between earth and sky, with an appearance of being in
immediate peril of death.
The room was small, but to Desrolles’ eye it looked snug. There
were comfortable stuff curtains to the mahogany bedstead, curtains
to the window, a carpet on the red-tiled floor, a hearth on which a
wood fire might burn cheerily, a cupboard for firewood, and a
bureau with a lock and key, in which a man might put away a bottle
or two for occasional use.
‘It’s an infernal way up,’ he said. ‘A man might as well live on the top
of the gate of St. Denis. But I must make it serve. I am a staunch
Conservative. I like old quarters.’
Of old the house had been free and easy in its habits. A lodger could
come in at any hour he liked with his pass-key. Desrolles made an
inquiry or two of the portress as to the present rule. He found that
the old order still obtained. The present proprietor was un bon
enfant. He asked nothing of his lodgers, but that they should pay
him his rent, and not embroil themselves with the police.
Desrolles flung down the small valise which contained all his worldly
gear, paid the portress a month’s rent in advance, and went out to
enjoy his Paris. That enchantress had him in her clutch already. He
made up his mind by this time that he would defer his journey
southward for a few weeks; perhaps until after the procession of the
Bœuf Gras had delighted the lively inhabitants of the liveliest city in
the world.
He went back to his old haunts, loved twenty years ago, and always
remembered with fondness. He found many changes, but the
atmosphere was still the same. Absinthe was the one great novelty.
That murderous stimulant had not attained a universal popularity at
the beginning of the Second Empire. Desrolles took to absinthe as
an infant takes to the gracious fountain heaven has provided for its
sustenance. He renounced brandy in favour of the less familiar
poison. He found plenty of new companions in his old haunts. They
were not the same men, but they had the same habits, the same
vices; and Desrolles’ idea of a friend was a bundle of sympathetic
wickedness. He found men to gamble with and drink with, men
whose tongues were as foul as his own, and who looked at life in
this world and the next from the same standpoint.
His brutal nature sank even to a lower depth of brutality in such
congenial company. Money gave him a temporary omnipotence. He
was spending it with royal recklessness, believing himself secure
against all future evils, when one morning chance flung an English
newspaper in his way, and he read the report of John Treverton’s
first appearance at the Bow Street Police-court.
The paper was more than a week old. The adjourned inquiry must
have been held a day or two ago. Desrolles sat staring at the page
in a half stupid wonderment, his brain bemused with absinthe, trying
to consider what effect this arrest of John Treverton might exercise
upon his own fortunes.
There was no mention of his own name in the report. So far he was
entirely ignored. So far he felt himself safe.
Yet there was no knowing what might happen. An investigation of
this kind once commenced, might extend its ramifications in the
widest directions.
‘It is a pity,’ Desrolles said to himself. ‘The business was so
comfortably settled. It must be the parson’s son, that young
coxcomb I saw in Devonshire, who has set the thing moving again.’
His life in Paris suited him, it was indeed the only kind of life he
cared for; yet so much was he disturbed by the idea of possible
revelations to which this new inquiry might lead, that he began to
consider the prudence of going further afield.
‘America is the place,’ he said to himself. ‘Some sea-coast city in
South America would suit me down to the ground. But that kind of
life would only be comfortable with an assured income; and how am
I to feel sure of my income if I leave Europe? As to Treverton being
in trouble—I can afford to take that coolly. They can’t hang him. The
evidence against him is not strong enough to hang a mongrel dog.
No, unless other names are brought up, the thing must blow over.
But if I put the high seas between Mr. and Mrs. Treverton and me,
how can I be sure of my pension? They may snap their fingers at me
when I am on the other side of the herring-pond.’
This was a serious consideration, yet Desrolles had a lurking
conviction that it would be wise for him to get to America as soon as
he could. Paris might suit him admirably, but Paris was unpleasantly
near London. The police of the two cities were doubtless in frequent
communication.
He went to a shipping office, and got the time bill of the American
steamers that were to sail from Havre during the next six weeks. He
carried this document about with him for two or three days, and
studied it frequently in his quiet moments. He knew the names of
the steamers and their tonnage by heart, but he had not yet made
up his mind to which vessel he would entrust himself and his
fortunes. There was La Reine Blanche, which sailed for Valparaiso in
a week’s time. There was the Zenobie, which sailed for Rio Janeiro in
a fortnight. He was divided between these two.
He told himself that he must have an outfit of some kind for his
voyage. This and his passage would cost at least fifty pounds. Of the
hundred which John Treverton had given him he had only sixty
remaining.
‘There will not be much left by the time I get to the south,’ he said
to himself. ‘But I don’t think Laura will throw me over. Besides, if the
money is paid to my account in Shepherd’s Inn—the Trevertons need
never know my whereabouts.’
He made up his mind at last that he would go by the Reine Blanche,
the ship which sailed earliest. He went to the Belle Jardinière, and
laid out ten pounds upon clothing, and bought himself a
portmanteau to hold his new garments. He called at the agents to
take his passage and pay the necessary deposit, to secure his berth.
He had intended to go to the New World with a new name, but
exhausted nature had required a good deal of stimulant after the
purchase of the outfit, and by the time he reached the office Mr.
Desrolles was, in his own phraseology, rather far gone. It was as
much as he could do to reckon his money when he took a handful of
loose gold and silver from his pocket. The clerk had to help him.
When the clerk asked him his name, he answered without thinking—
Desrolles; but in the next moment a ray of light flashed through the
darkness of his clouded brain, and he corrected himself.
‘Beg pardon,’ he ejaculated, spasmodically. ‘Desrolles a friend’s
name. My name’s Mowbray. Colonel Mowbray, citizen, United States.
Just finished a grand tour of Europe. ’Mericans very fond of Paris.
Charming city. Good deal altered since my last tour—twent’ years
ago. Not altered for the better.’
‘Oh, then your name is not Desrolles, but Mowbray,’ said the clerk,
scanning the American colonel somewhat suspiciously.
‘Yes, Mowbray. M-o-w-b-r-a-y’ answered Desrolles, laboriously.
He left the office, and being too far gone to have any definite views
as to his destination, drifted vaguely to the Palais Royal, where he
came to anchor at the Café de la Rotonde, and there called for the
usual dose of absinthe, into which he poured half a tumbler of water,
with a tremulous hand.
He fell asleep in the snug corner by the stove, and slept off
something of his intoxication; or at least he awoke so far refreshed
as to remember an appointment he had made with one of his new
friends of the Quartier Latin, to dine at a restaurant on the Quai des
Grands Augustins.
He had plenty of time to spare, so he sauntered round the Palais
Royal, and stared idly at the shop windows, till he came to one
where there was a great display of diamonds, when he recoiled as if
he had seen an adder, and turned quickly aside into the gravelly
garden, where he flung himself upon a bench, trembling from head
to foot. ‘Curse them,’ he muttered, ‘curse those shining shams. They
have ruined me body and soul. I never took to drinking—hard—until
after that.’
Beads of sweat broke out upon his contracted brow as he sat there,
staring straight before him, as if at some horrid vision. Then he
pulled himself together with an effort, braced his shattered nerves,
and left the Palais Royal with something of the old ‘long sword,
saddle, bridle’ swagger, which had been peculiar to him twenty years
ago, when he called himself Captain Desmond, and had not yet
forgotten his youthful days in a cavalry regiment.
He kept his appointment, treated his new friend like a prince, dined
luxuriously, and drank deeply of the strongest Burgundy in the wine
list, winding up with numerous glasses of Chartreuse. After dinner
Mr. Desrolles and his guest repaired to a café on the Boulevard St.
Michel, where there was a billiard table; and the rest of the evening
was devoted to billiards, Desrolles growing noisier, more
quarrelsome, and less distinct of utterance as the night wore on.
There were two things which Mr. Desrolles did not know; first, that
his new friend was a distinguished member of the Parisian swell-
mob, and was constantly under the surveillance of the police;
secondly, that he himself had been watched and followed by an
English detective ever since he left the Quai des Grands Augustins,
which English detective knew all about Mr. Desrolles’ intended
voyage in the Reine Blanche.
Desrolles went home to his lodging, not too steady of foot, soon
after midnight. He was prepared to encounter some slight difficulty
in opening the door with his pass-key, and was pleased at finding
that some other night-bird, returning to his nest a little earlier, had
left the door ajar. He had only to push it open and go in.
Within all was gloom, save in one corner by the portress’s den,
where a glimmer of gas showed the numbered board whereon hung
the keys which admitted the lodgers to their several apartments. But
Desrolles knew every twist of the corkscrew staircase. Drunk as he
was, he wound his way up safely enough, with only an occasional
lurch and an occasional stumble. He managed to unlock the door of
his room, after trying the key upside down once or twice, and
making some circuitous scratchings on the panel. He managed to
strike a lucifer and light his candle, leaning against the mantelpiece
as he performed that feat, and giving a drunken chuckle when it was
done. But his nerves must have been in a very shaky condition, for
when a man, who had crept softly into the room behind him, laid a
strong hand upon his shoulder, he collapsed, and made as if he
would have fallen to the ground. ‘What do you want?’ he asked in
French.
‘You,’ answered the intruder in English. ‘I arrest you on suspicion of
being concerned in the murder of La Chicot. You know all about it.
You were examined at the inquest. Anything you say now will be
used as evidence against you. You had better come quietly with me.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Desrolles, still in French. ‘I am a
Frenchman.’
‘Oh, very much of that. You’ve been lodging here three weeks. You
are known to be an Englishman. You took your passage to-day for
Valparaiso. I called at the office to make inquiries an hour after you
left it. No nonsense, Mr. Desrolles. All you’ve got to do is to come
quietly with me.’
‘You’ve got some one else outside, I suppose,’ said Desrolles, with a
savage glare at the door.
His expression in this moment was diabolical; a wild beast—a beast
of a low type, not your kingly lion or your lordly tiger—at bay and
knowing escape impossible, might so look; the thin lips curling
upward above the long sharks’ teeth; the grizzled brows contracted
—the eyes emitting sparks of lurid light.
‘Of course,’ answered the man coolly. ‘You don’t suppose I should be
such a fool as to trust myself in a hole like this without help. I’ve got
my mate on the landing, and we’ve both got revolvers. Ah, none of
that now,’ ejaculated the detective suddenly, as Desrolles plunged
his lean hand into his breast pocket. ‘Stow that, now. Is it a knife?’
It was a knife, and a murderous one. Desrolles had it out, and the
long-pointed blade ready, before his captor could stop him. The man
sprang upon him, caught him by the wrist, before the knife could do
mischief; and then the two closed, hand against hand, limb against
limb, Desrolles wrestling with his foe as only rage and despair can
wrestle.
He had been a famous bruiser in days of old. To-night he had the
unnatural strength given to the overtasked sinews by a mind on the
edge of madness. He fought like a madman: he fought like a tiger.
There was not a muscle—not a sinew—that was not strained to its
utmost in that savage conflict.
For some moments Desrolles seemed the victor. The detective had
lied when he said that he had help at hand. The French policeman
who had planned to meet him at that house at midnight had not yet
come, and the Englishman had been too impatient to wait, believing
himself and his revolver more than a match for one drunken old
man.
He did not want to use his revolver. It would have been a hazardous
thing even to wound his man. It was his duty to take him alive, and
surrender him safe and sound to be dealt with by the law of his
country.
‘Come,’ he said, soothingly, having hardly enough breath for so much
speech, ‘let me put the bracelets on and take you away quietly.
What’s the use of this humbug?’
Desrolles, with his teeth set, answered never a word. He had got his
antagonist very near the door; once across the threshold, a last
vigorous thrust from his lean arms might hurl the man backwards
down the steep staircase—certain death to the intruder. Desrolles’
eyes were fixed upon the doorway, the door standing conveniently
open. His bloodshot eyeballs flashed fire. It was in his mind that the
thing was to be done. One more herculean effort, and his foe would
be across the threshold.
Possibly the detective saw that look of triumph in the savage face,
and divined his danger. However that might be, he gathered himself
together, and with a sudden impetus, flinging all his weight against
Desrolles, he drove his foe before him across the narrow room,
hurled him with all his might against the wall, casting him loose for
the moment, in order to grip him tighter afterwards.
But as that tall figure fell with terrific force against the gaudy-
papered wall, there was a sudden crashing sound, at which the
detective recoiled with a cry of horror. The frail lath and plaster
partition split asunder, the rotten wood crumbled and scattered itself
in a cloud of dust, half that side of the room dropped into ruin, as if
the house had been a house of cards, and, with one hoarse shriek,
Desrolles rolled backwards into empty air.
They found him presently upon the pavement below, so battered
and disfigured by that awful fall as to be hardly recognizable even by
the eyes that had looked upon him a few minutes before. In falling
he had struck against the timbers that shored up the rotten old
house, and life had been beaten out of him before he touched the
stones below. It was a bad end of a bad man. There was nobody to
be sorry for him except the detective, who had lost the chance of a
handsome reward.
The Parisian journals next day made a feature of the catastrophe.
‘Fall of part of a house in the Boulevard Louis Capet. Horrible death
of one of the inmates.’
The English newspapers of a later date contained the account of the
pursuit and arrest of Desrolles, his desperate resistance, and awful
death.
 EPILOGUE.
Mr. and Mrs. Treverton went back to Hazlehurst Manor, and there
was much rejoicing among their friends at John Treverton’s escape
from the critical position in which the hazards of life had placed him.
The subject was a painful one, and people in their intercourse with
John and Laura, touched upon it as lightly as possible. Those
revelations about John Treverton’s first marriage, his Bohemian
existence under an assumed name, his poverty, and so on, had
created no small sensation among a community which rarely had
anything more exciting to talk about than the state of the weather,
or the appearance of the crops. People had talked their fill by the
time Mr. and Mrs. Treverton came back, for they had spent a month
at a Dorsetshire watering-place on their way home, for the benefit of
Laura’s health, whereby the scandal was stale and almost worn
threadbare when they arrived at the Manor House.
Only one event of any importance had happened during their
absence. Edward Clare—the poet, the man who sauntered through
life hand-in-hand with the muses, dwelling apart from common clay
in a world of his own—had suddenly sickened of elegant leisure, and
had started all at once for the Cape to learn ostrich farming, with the
deliberate intention of settling for life in that distant land.
‘An adventurous career will suit me, and I shall make money,’ he told
those few acquaintances to whom he condescended to explain his
views. ‘My people are tired of seeing me lead an idle life. They have
no faith in my future as a poet. Perhaps they are right. The rarest
and finest of poets have made very little money. It is only
charlatanism in literature that really pays. A man who can write
down to the level of the herd commands an easy success. Herrick, if
he were alive to-day, would not make a living by his pen.’
So Edward Clare departed from the haunts of his youth, and there
was no one save his mother to regret him. The Vicar knew too well
that John Treverton’s arrest was his son’s work, and treachery so
base was a sin his honest heart could not forgive. He was glad that
Edward had gone, and his secret prayer was that the young man
might learn honesty as well as industry in his self-imposed exile.
To the exile himself anything was better than to see the man he had
impotently striven to injure, happy and secure from all future malice.
Weighed against that mortification the possible difficulties and
hardships of the life to which he was going were as nothing to him.
The year wore on, and brought a new and strange gladness and a
deep sense of responsibility to John Treverton. One balmy May
morning his first-born son opened his innocent blue eyes upon a
bright young world, arrayed in all the glory of spring. The child was
placed in his father’s arms by the good old Hazlehurst doctor, who
had attended Jasper Treverton in his last illness.
‘How proud my old friend would have been to see his family name in
a fair way of being continued in the land for many a long year to
come,’ he said.
‘Thank God all things have worked round well for us, at last,’
answered John Treverton, gravely.
In the ripeness and splendour of August and harvest, when the
heather was in bloom on the rolling moor, and the narrow streams
were dried up by the fierceness of the sun, George Gerard came
down to the Manor House to spend a brief holiday; and it happened,
by a strange coincidence, that Laura had invited Celia Clare to stay
with her at the same time. They all had a pleasant time in the
peerless summer weather. There were picnics and excursions across
the moor, with much exciting adventure, and some risk of losing
oneself altogether in that sparsely populated world; and in all these
adventures George and Celia had a knack of finding themselves
abandoned by the other two—or perhaps it was they who went
astray, though they always protested that it was Mr. and Mrs.
Treverton who deserted them.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if we came to a bad end, like the babes in the
wood,’ protested Celia. ‘Imagine us existing on unripe blackberries
for a week or so, and then lying resignedly down to die. I don’t
believe a bit in the birds putting leaves over us. That’s a fable
invented for the pantomime. Birds are a great deal too selfish. No
one who had ever seen a pair of robins fight for a bit of bread would
believe in those benevolent birds who buried the babes in the wood.’
Being occasionally lost on the moor gave Celia and Mr. Gerard great
opportunities for conversation. They were obliged to find something
to talk about; and in the end naturally told each other their inmost
thoughts. And so it came about, in the most natural way in the
world, that one blazing noontide Celia found herself standing before
a Druidic table, gazing idly at the big gray stones half embedded in
heather and bracken, with George Gerard’s arm round her waist, and
with her head placidly resting against his shoulder.
He had been asking her if she would wait for him. That was all. He
had not asked her if she loved him, having made up his own mind
upon that question, unassisted.
‘Darling, will you wait for me?’ he asked, looking down at her, with
eyes brimming over with love.
‘Yes, George,’ she answered, meekly, quite a transformed Celia, all
her pertness and flippancy gone.
‘It may be a long while, dear,’ he said gravely; ‘almost as long as
Rachel waited for Jacob.’
‘I don’t mind that, provided there is no Leah to come between us.’
‘There shall be no Leah.’
So they were engaged, and in the dim cloudland of the future, Celia
saw a vision of Harley Street, a landau, and a pair of handsome
grays.
‘Doctors generally have grays, don’t they, George?’ she asked,
presently, apropos to nothing particular.
George’s thoughts had not travelled so far as the carriage and pair
stage of his existence, and he did not understand the question.
‘Yes, dear, there is a Free Hospital in the Gray’s Inn Road,’ he
answered, simply, ‘but I was at Bartlemy’s.’
‘Oh, you foolish George, I was thinking of horses, not hospitals.
What colour shall you choose when you start your carriage?’
‘We’ll talk it over, dearest, when we are going to start the carriage.’
Mr. and Mrs. Treverton heard of the engagement with infinite
pleasure, nor did the Vicar or his easy-tempered wife offer any
objection.
Before the first year of Celia’s betrothal was over, John Treverton had
persuaded the good old village doctor to retire, and to accept a
handsome price for his comfortable practice, which covered a district
of sixty miles circumference, and offered ample work for an
energetic young man. This practice John Treverton gave to George
Gerard as a free gift.
‘Don’t consider it a favour,’ he said, when the surgeon wanted it to
be treated as a debt, to be paid out of his future earnings. ‘The
obligation is all on my side. I want a clever young doctor, whom I
know and esteem, instead of any charlatan who might happen to
succeed our old friend. The advantage is all on my side. You will help
me in all my sanitary improvements, and my nursery will be safe in
the inevitable season of measles and scarlatina.’
Thus it came to pass that Celia, as well as John Treverton and his
wife was able to say,
‘But in some wise all things wear round betimes,
And wind up well.’

the end.
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