face was crimson, and he stood with his legs
crooked as if the pith had all gone out of his back. The clerk began to
realise that something out of the ordinary was in the wind.

"How long does it take to get a wire to London?"

"About two hours."

"And it's two now. I could not get it there before four."

"Before three."

"Four."

"No, three."

"But you said two hours."

"Yes, but there's more than an hour's difference in longitude."

"By Heaven, I'll do it yet!" cried Anerley, and staggering to a
packing-case, he began the dictation of his famous despatch.

And so it came about that the _Gazette_ had a long column, with
headlines like an epitaph, when the sheets of the _Intelligence_ and the
_Courier_ were as blank as the faces of their editors. And so, too, it
happened that when two weary men, upon two foundered horses, arrived
about four in the morning at the Sarras post-office, they looked at each
other in silence and departed noiselessly, with the conviction that
there are some situations with which the English language is not capable
of dealing.

The New Catacomb

"Look here, Burger," said Kennedy, "I do wish that you would confide in
me."

The two famous students of Roman remains sat together in Kennedy's
comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they
had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove
which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth.

Outside under the bright winter stars lay the modern Rome, the long,
double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted _cafes_, the
rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. But inside,
in the sumptuous chamber of the rich young English archaeologist, there
was only old Rome to be seen. Cracked and time-worn friezes hung upon
the walls, grey old busts of senators and soldiers with their fighting
heads and their hard, cruel faces peered out from the corners. On the
centre table, amidst a litter of inscriptions, fragments, and ornaments,
there stood the famous reconstruction by Kennedy of the Baths of
Caracalla, which excited such interest and admiration when it was
exhibited in Berlin.

Amphorae hung from the ceiling, and a litter of curiosities strewed the
rich red Turkey carpet. And of them all there was not one which was not
of the most unimpeachable authenticity, and of the utmost rarity and
value; for Kennedy, though little more than thirty, had a Eu