f possibly latent
enormities.

Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed.

Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of
an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a
monologue was a humiliating novelty.

"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he
intended some shade of sternness to creep.

At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further
appeal.

"Aren't we being very silly?"

"A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on
Egbert's retreat. Then he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and
leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch's cage.
It was the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but
he was carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the precision of
mature deliberation. The bullfinch, who had fancied himself something of
a despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his normal
displacement; then he fell to a helpless wing-beating and shrill
cheeping. He had cost twenty-seven shillings without the cage, but Lady
Anne made no sign of interfering. She had been dead for two hours.

THE LOST SANJAK

The prison Chaplain entered the condemned's cell for the last time, to
give such consolation as he might.

"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned, "is to tell my
story in its entirety to some one who will at least give it a respectful
hearing."

"We must not be too long over it," said the Chaplain, looking at his
watch.

The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.

"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my own
violent deeds. In reality I am a victim to a lack of specialisation in
my education and character."

"Lack of specialisation!" said the Chaplain.

"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar with
the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or able to repeat stanzas of Camoens'
poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in proving my
identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of life and death
for me. But my education was merely a moderately good one, and my
temperament was of the general order that avoids specialisation. I know
a little in a general way about gardening and history and old masters,
but I could never tell you off-hand whether 'Stella van der Loopen' was a
chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War of Indepen