downpour of branches of trees, gnarled
roots, broken fruits, birds' feathers, mutilated apes of many species,
and--well, anatomical specimens! It went on and on until the boughs
around us were made into splinters and we were beaten to the ground with
the force of those missiles, all the dense forest around us echoing to
the shrieks of the lories and parrots, the monkeys and the wildcats."

"And now the missionaries," said Ella, after a pause.

"And what happened after that?" whispered Phyllis.

He shook his head.

"After that we came away," he said. "We couldn't see that there was any
need for us to stay loafing about the forest when we had our business
to mind in another direction. It took us two days, however, finding our
launch."

"And that is what the missionaries call your dynamite outrage against
the natives?" said Ella.

"So it would seem," said he. "I suppose they managed to get some account
of the business; one can't hush up a dynamite outrage even in the
interior of New Guinea."

"But what a gross misrepresentation of facts it was to say that you had
massacred the natives," cried Phyllis indignantly.

He laughed with a shrug.

"Oh, we must all live," he said.

"Unless those who treat tins of dynamite as though they were tins of
brawn," said Ella. Then turning to Phyllis she smiled.

Phyllis had no difficulty interpreting the smile.

"Yes," she said, "your opinion was quite correct: Mr. Courtland doesn't
care what people say, and it doesn't matter in the least what they do
say, or what falsehoods are spread abroad."

"Not in the smallest degree," said Ella. "Herbert Courtland is still
Herbert Courtland."

"But so far as I can gather," said Mr. Courtland, "all that the
missionaries said of me was substantially correct."

"Read the paper and you will see how detestably false all the charges
are," cried Phyllis, rising,--the servants had now left the room,--and
picking up the _Spiritual Aneroid_ from where Ella had laid it on a
chair.

Herbert Courtland had not yet opened it. He took it from her, saying:

"Thank you, Miss Ayrton. But I really don't see that it concerns me very
much whether or not the charges brought against me are true or false.
The matter is certainly one for the--the--ah--_Spiritual Aneroid_ and
its special _clientele_."

"But a question is to be asked about it in the House of Commons. I said
so just now," cried Phyllis.

"And even the House of Commons doesn't matter mu