the bridge of the _Tanganyika_, his feet
in a white-enamelled bucket of hot water, contemplating the opposite
bulkhead. He was thinking very hard, according to the System of the
London School of Mnemonics. The key of this system was simplicity
itself. You wanted to remember something which you had forgotten. Very
well; you worked back on the lines of a dog following a scent. From what
you were thinking at the present moment to what you were thinking when
you came in the door, which would lead you by gentle gradations back to
the item of which you were in search. Very simple. Unfortunately, Mr.
Spokesly, in the course of these retrograde pilgrimages, was apt to come
upon vast and trackless oceans of oblivion, bottomless gulfs of time in
which, as far as he could recall, his intellectual faculties had been in
a state of suspended animation. The London School of Mnemonics did not
seem to allow sufficiently for the bridging of these gaps. It is true
they said in Lesson Three, with gentle irony, _Remember the chain of
ideas is often faulty; there may be missing links_. Mr. Spokesly, who on
this occasion was determined to remember what he was thinking of at the
moment when the Old Man spoke sharply behind him and made him jump, was
of the opinion that it was the chain that was often missing and that all
he could discover were a few odd links! He lifted one foot out of the
grateful warmth and felt the instep tenderly, breathing hard, with his
tongue in one corner of his mouth, as his mind ran to and fro nosing at
the closed doors of the past. What _was_ he thinking of? He remembered
it attracted him strangely, had given him a feeling of pleasant
anticipation as of a secret which he could unfold at his leisure. It
was ... it was.... He put his foot into the water again and frowned.
He had been thinking of Ada, he recalled----Ah! _Now_ he was on the
track of it. He had been thinking not of her but of the melancholy fact
communicated to him by his own sister, that Ada had no "dot," no money
until her father died. Now how in the world did that come to react upon
his mind as a pleasant thing? It was a monstrous thing, that he should
have capsized his future by such precipitate folly! Mr. Spokesly
comprehended that what he was looking for was not a memory but a mood.
He had been in a certain mood as he stood on the bridge that morning
about half-past three, his hand resting lightly on the rail, his eyes on
the dim horizon, when the Ol