feningly; Basil Grant was laughing
voicelessly; and the rest of us only felt that our heads were like
weathercocks in a whirlwind.

"Confound it, Basil," said Rupert, stamping. "If you don't want me to go
mad and blow your metaphysical brains out, tell me what all this means."

Northover rose.

"Permit me, sir, to explain," he said. "And, first of all, permit me to
apologize to you, Major Brown, for a most abominable and unpardonable
blunder, which has caused you menace and inconvenience, in which, if you
will allow me to say so, you have behaved with astonishing courage and
dignity. Of course you need not trouble about the bill. We will stand
the loss." And, tearing the paper across, he flung the halves into the
waste-paper basket and bowed.

Poor Brown's face was still a picture of distraction. "But I don't even
begin to understand," he cried. "What bill? what blunder? what loss?"

Mr P. G. Northover advanced in the centre of the room, thoughtfully, and
with a great deal of unconscious dignity. On closer consideration,
there were apparent about him other things beside a screwed moustache,
especially a lean, sallow face, hawk-like, and not without a careworn
intelligence. Then he looked up abruptly.

"Do you know where you are, Major?" he said.

"God knows I don't," said the warrior, with fervour.

"You are standing," replied Northover, "in the office of the Adventure
and Romance Agency, Limited."

"And what's that?" blankly inquired Brown.

The man of business leaned over the back of the chair, and fixed his
dark eyes on the other's face.

"Major," said he, "did you ever, as you walked along the empty street
upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for something to
happen--something, in the splendid words of Walt Whitman: 'Something
pernicious and dread; something far removed from a puny and pious life;
something unproved; something in a trance; something loosed from its
anchorage, and driving free.' Did you ever feel that?"

"Certainly not," said the Major shortly.

"Then I must explain with more elaboration," said Mr Northover, with a
sigh. "The Adventure and Romance Agency has been started to meet a great
modern desire. On every side, in conversation and in literature, we hear
of the desire for a larger theatre of events for something to waylay us
and lead us splendidly astray. Now the man who feels this desire for
a varied life pays a yearly or a quarterly sum to the Adventure and
Romance Ag