nd ingenious in supplying the demand for marvels. Duckby's satirical
story of a tame otter that had a tank in the garden to swim in, and
whined restlessly whenever the water-rate was overdue, was scarcely an
unfair parody of some of Blenkinthrope's wilder efforts. And then one
day came Nemesis.

Returning to his villa one evening Blenkinthrope found his wife sitting
in front of a pack of cards, which she was scrutinising with unusual
concentration.

"The same old patience-game?" he asked carelessly.

"No, dear; this is the Death's Head patience, the most difficult of them
all. I've never got it to work out, and somehow I should be rather
frightened if I did. Mother only got it out once in her life; she was
afraid of it, too. Her great-aunt had done it once and fallen dead from
excitement the next moment, and mother always had a feeling that she
would die if she ever got it out. She died the same night that she did
it. She was in bad health at the time, certainly, but it was a strange
coincidence."

"Don't do it if it frightens you," was Blenkinthrope's practical comment
as he left the room. A few minutes later his wife called to him.

"John, it gave me such a turn, I nearly got it out. Only the five of
diamonds held me up at the end. I really thought I'd done it."

"Why, you can do it," said Blenkinthrope, who had come back to the room;
"if you shift the eight of clubs on to that open nine the five can be
moved on to the six."

His wife made the suggested move with hasty, trembling fingers, and piled
the outstanding cards on to their respective packs. Then she followed
the example of her mother and great-grand-aunt.

Blenkinthrope had been genuinely fond of his wife, but in the midst of
his bereavement one dominant thought obtruded itself. Something
sensational and real had at last come into his life; no longer was it a
grey, colourless record. The headlines which might appropriately
describe his domestic tragedy kept shaping themselves in his brain.
"Inherited presentiment comes true." "The Death's Head patience: Card-
game that justified its sinister name in three generations." He wrote
out a full story of the fatal occurrence for the _Essex Vedette_, the
editor of which was a friend of his, and to another friend he gave a
condensed account, to be taken up to the office of one of the halfpenny
dailies. But in both cases his reputation as a romancer stood fatally in
the way of the fulfilment of