less hereditary. He really was morbid about it; and
it is likely enough that he did invoke it as a kind of curse in the
violent scene (which undoubtedly happened) in which he struck Green with
the decanter. But the contest ended very differently. Green pressed his
claim and got the estates; the dispossessed nobleman shot himself
and died without issue. After a decent interval the beautiful English
Government revived the "extinct" peerage of Exmoor, and bestowed it,
as is usual, on the most important person, the person who had got the
property.

This man used the old feudal fables--properly, in his snobbish soul,
really envied and admired them. So that thousands of poor English people
trembled before a mysterious chieftain with an ancient destiny and
a diadem of evil stars--when they are really trembling before a
guttersnipe who was a pettifogger and a pawnbroker not twelve years ago.
I think it very typical of the real case against our aristocracy as it
is, and as it will be till God sends us braver men.

Mr Nutt put down the manuscript and called out with unusual sharpness:
"Miss Barlow, please take down a letter to Mr Finn."

DEAR FINN,--You must be mad; we can't touch this. I wanted vampires and
the bad old days and aristocracy hand-in-hand with superstition. They
like that But you must know the Exmoors would never forgive this. And
what would our people say then, I should like to know! Why, Sir Simon
is one of Exmoor's greatest pals; and it would ruin that cousin of the
Eyres that's standing for us at Bradford. Besides, old Soap-Suds was
sick enough at not getting his peerage last year; he'd sack me by wire
if I lost him it with such lunacy as this. And what about Duffey? He's
doing us some rattling articles on "The Heel of the Norman." And how
can he write about Normans if the man's only a solicitor? Do be
reasonable.--Yours, E. NUTT.

As Miss Barlow rattled away cheerfully, he crumpled up the copy
and tossed it into the waste-paper basket; but not before he had,
automatically and by force of habit, altered the word "God" to the word
"circumstances."

EIGHT -- The Perishing of the Pendragons

FATHER BROWN was in no mood for adventures. He had lately fallen ill
with over-work, and when he began to recover, his friend Flambeau had
taken him on a cruise in a small yacht with Sir Cecil Fanshaw, a young
Cornish squire and an enthusiast for Cornish coast scenery. But Brown
was still rather weak; he wa