which seem to
be irrelevant to the dramatic sequence. But when I remember that the
result of all the pomp and circumstance of that meeting was seven
recruits, of whom three were rejected as being physically unfit, my pen
runs away with my discretion, and my conjecturing as to artistic
fitness.

Yes, the Major spoke. Sir Anthony is a peppery little person and the
audience enjoyed the cayenne piquancy of his remarks. The red-tabbed
Lieutenant-Colonel spoke. He was a bit dull. The elderly orator from
London roused enthusiastic cheers. The wounded sergeant, on crutches,
displaying a foot like a bandaged mop, brought tears into the eyes of
many women and evoked hoarse cheers from the old men. I spoke from my
infernal chair, and I think I was quite a success with the good fellows
in khaki. But the only men we wanted to appeal to had studiously
refrained from being present. The whole affair was a fiasco.

When we got home, Marigold, who had stood behind my chair during the
proceedings, said to me:

"I think I know personally about thirty slackers in this town, sir, and
I'm more than a match for any three of them put together. Suppose I was
to go the rounds, so to speak, and say to each of them, 'You young
blighter, if you don't come with me and enlist, I 'll knock hell out of
you!'--and, if he didn't come, I did knock hell out of him--what
exactly would happen, sir?"

"You would be summoned," said I, "for thirty separate cases of assault
and battery. Reckoning the penalty at six months each, you would have
to go to prison for fifteen years."

Marigold's one eye grew pensive and sad.

"And they call this," said he, "a free country!"

I began this chapter by remarking that for a week or two after my
second interview with Randall Holmes, nothing particular happened. Then
one afternoon came Sir Anthony Fenimore to see me, and with a view to
obtaining either my advice or my sympathy, reopened the story of his
daughter Althea found drowned in the canal eleven months before.

What he considered a most disconcerting light had just been cast on the
tragedy by Maria Beccles. This lady was Lady Fenimore's sister. A
deadly feud, entirely of Miss Beccles' initiating and nourishing, had
existed between them for years. They had been neither on speaking nor
on writing terms. Miss Beccles, ten years Lady Fenimore's senior, was,
from all I had heard, a most disagreeable and ill-conditioned person,
as different from my charming friend