understand; and in art--God save the mark!--the Cubist school. That is
how my poor young friend, Randall, was trained to get the worst of the
frothy scum of intelligent Oxford. But even he sometimes winced at the
pretentiousness of his mother and his aunts. He was a clever fellow and
his knowledge was based on sound foundations. I need not say that the
ladies were rather feared than loved in Wellingsford.

All this to explain why it was that when Marigold woke me from an
afternoon nap with the information that Mrs. Holmes desired to see me,
I scowled on him.

"Why didn't you say I was dead?"

"I told Mrs. Holmes you were asleep, sir, and she said: 'Will you be so
kind as to wake him?' So what could I do, sir?"

I have never met with an idiot so helpless in the presence of a woman.
He would have defended my slumbers before a charge of cavalry; but one
elderly lady shoo'd him aside like a chicken.

Mrs. Holmes was shewn in, a tall, dark, thin, nervous woman wearing
pince-nez and an austere sad-coloured garment.

She apologised for disturbing me.

"But," she said, sitting down on the couch, "I am in such great trouble
and I could think of no one but you to advise me."

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"It's Randall. He left the house the day before yesterday, without
telling any of us good-bye, and he hasn't written, and I don't know
what on earth has become of him."

"Did he take any luggage?"

"Just a small suit-case. He even packed it himself, a thing he has
never done at home in his life before."

This was news. The proceedings were unlike Randall, who in his goings
and comings loved the domestic brass-band. To leave his home without
valedictory music and vanish into the unknown, betokened some unusual
perturbation of mind.

I asked whether she knew of any reason for such perturbation.

"He was greatly upset," she replied, "by the stoppage of The Albemarle
Review for which he did such fine work."

I strove politely to hide my inability to condole and wagged my head
sadly:

"I'm afraid there was no room for it in a be-bombed and be-shrapnelled
world."

"I suppose the still small voice of reason would not be heard amid the
din," she sighed. "And no other papers--except the impossible
ones--would print Randall's poems and articles."

More news. This time excellent news. A publicist denied publicity is as
useful as a German Field Marshal on a desert island. I asked what The
Albemarle died of.

"Prac