ale freemasonry. I remembered the witches' Sabbaths. I was
just, in my absurd lightheadedness, trying to remember a line of verse
about Diana's nymphs, when Miss Mowbray threw her arm round me from
behind. The moment it held me I knew it was not a woman's arm.

"Miss Brett--or what I had called Miss Brett--was standing in front of
me with a big revolver in her hand and a broad grin on her face.
Miss James was still leaning against the door, but had fallen into an
attitude so totally new, and so totally unfeminine, that it gave one a
shock. She was kicking her heels, with her hands in her pockets and her
cap on one side. She was a man. I mean he was a wo--no, that is I saw
that instead of being a woman she--he, I mean--that is, it was a man."

Mr Shorter became indescribably flurried and flapping in endeavouring to
arrange these genders and his plaid shawl at the same time. He resumed
with a higher fever of nervousness:

"As for Miss Mowbray, she--he, held me in a ring of iron. He had her
arm--that is she had his arm--round her neck--my neck I mean--and I
could not cry out. Miss Brett--that is, Mr Brett, at least Mr something
who was not Miss Brett--had the revolver pointed at me. The other two
ladies--or er--gentlemen, were rummaging in some bag in the background.
It was all clear at last: they were criminals dressed up as women, to
kidnap me! To kidnap the Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex. But why? Was it to
be Nonconformists?

"The brute leaning against the door called out carelessly, ''Urry up,
'Arry. Show the old bloke what the game is, and let's get off.'

"'Curse 'is eyes,' said Miss Brett--I mean the man with the
revolver--'why should we show 'im the game?'

"'If you take my advice you bloomin' well will,' said the man at the
door, whom they called Bill. 'A man wot knows wet 'e's doin' is worth
ten wot don't, even if 'e's a potty old parson.'

"'Bill's right enough,' said the coarse voice of the man who held me (it
had been Miss Mowbray's). 'Bring out the picture, 'Arry.'

"The man with the revolver walked across the room to where the other
two women--I mean men--were turning over baggage, and asked them for
something which they gave him. He came back with it across the room
and held it out in front of me. And compared to the surprise of that
display, all the previous surprises of this awful day shrank suddenly.

"It was a portrait of myself. That such a picture should be in the hands
of these scoundrels migh