hing about myself as shortly as I can.'"

"Delighted," replied Angus gravely. "You might tell me something about
myself, too, while you are about it."

"Oh, do hold your tongue and listen," she said. "It's nothing that I'm
ashamed of, and it isn't even anything that I'm specially sorry about.
But what would you say if there were something that is no business of
mine and yet is my nightmare?"

"In that case," said the man seriously, "I should suggest that you bring
back the cake."

"Well, you must listen to the story first," said Laura, persistently.
"To begin with, I must tell you that my father owned the inn called the
'Red Fish' at Ludbury, and I used to serve people in the bar."

"I have often wondered," he said, "why there was a kind of a Christian
air about this one confectioner's shop."

"Ludbury is a sleepy, grassy little hole in the Eastern Counties, and
the only kind of people who ever came to the 'Red Fish' were occasional
commercial travellers, and for the rest, the most awful people you can
see, only you've never seen them. I mean little, loungy men, who had
just enough to live on and had nothing to do but lean about in bar-rooms
and bet on horses, in bad clothes that were just too good for them.
Even these wretched young rotters were not very common at our house; but
there were two of them that were a lot too common--common in every sort
of way. They both lived on money of their own, and were wearisomely idle
and over-dressed. But yet I was a bit sorry for them, because I half
believe they slunk into our little empty bar because each of them had a
slight deformity; the sort of thing that some yokels laugh at. It wasn't
exactly a deformity either; it was more an oddity. One of them was
a surprisingly small man, something like a dwarf, or at least like a
jockey. He was not at all jockeyish to look at, though; he had a round
black head and a well-trimmed black beard, bright eyes like a bird's; he
jingled money in his pockets; he jangled a great gold watch chain; and
he never turned up except dressed just too much like a gentleman to
be one. He was no fool though, though a futile idler; he was curiously
clever at all kinds of things that couldn't be the slightest use; a sort
of impromptu conjuring; making fifteen matches set fire to each other
like a regular firework; or cutting a banana or some such thing into a
dancing doll. His name was Isidore Smythe; and I can see him still, with
his little dark face