the least like it."
"Oh! The fact is, I'm up in town for an holiday, and the night before last I went on the razzle, and some Johnny boned my purse, and I thought you might have got it."
I do not know what he meant, or if he intended to insult me-he seemed to be a simple sort of youth-but he was gone before I had a chance of asking him. He was followed by an elderly gentleman, whom I had reason to suppose, before I had got rid of him, was either a seasoned liar, or more or less insane. He seated himself-uninvited by me-crossed his legs, and nursed his silk hat and umbrella.
"I suppose it is a purse you've found?"
"Of course it is. Have you lost one?"
"It isn't a Gladstone bag?"
"A Gladstone bag?" I was a little dazed by my efforts to grasp the man's meaning, and the question was such an absurd one.
"I take it that if it had been a Gladstone bag I should have mentioned it in my advertisement. I am still able to distinguish between the one and the other."
"Nor a silk umbrella with a silver mount and a crest on top, like this?"
He held out the one he had been holding.
I stiffened my back, suspecting him of a humorous intention.
"My time is valuable, as, having just come from downstairs, you must be aware. May I ask if I am indebted for the pleasure of your presence here to the fact of your having lost a purse?"
"A purse? On my soul and honour, sir, in my time I've lost hundreds-hundreds! Positively hundreds!"
I believe I gasped-he spoke with an airy indifference as if that kind of thing were commonplace.
"As I was saying to some of those fellows downstairs, if there's a man in England who has lost more things than I have, I should like to meet him. It's a genius I have; as sure as I get a thing I lose it. And the more it costs, the more it's lost. As for purses, they're my strongest point. I suppose I lost more than a score last year, and already more than a dozen this. Only last week my wife bought a steel chain with a steel purse at the end of it. She chained it round me. If you will believe me, sir, the very next day I went to a Turkish bath and left it there-never set eyes upon it since. I take it it isn't that purse you've found?"
"It is not."
"Nor a large square trunk, iron-bound, weighing about two tons, which I left on the Boulogne Quay a fortnight last Thursday?"
"It is not that, either. Pardon me if I appear to interrupt you, but, since you seem to have been unfortunate on so large a scale, I fear I must ask you to go home and have a list printed of the purses which you have lost at different times, and send it to me at your leisure. I shall then be able to perceive if it is one of them which I have found. But I beg you will not include in it any ironbound trunks. Good-day."
I rang the bell; the man sat still.
"It isn't only trunks and purses which I lose-I lose everything. The day before yesterday I went into the City to buy groceries; filled two great parcels four feet square; had them put with me into the cab so that I might keep them well in sight; got out on the road to have a drink; when I had had it got into the wrong cab; never discovered the mistake till I reached my own doorstep. Those groceries haven't yet come to hand-"
"These anecdotes-"
"Excuse me, I'll tell you another thing I've lost. Six months ago I lost my wife. Took her for a run on the Continent; on the way home dined at a restaurant on the Boulevards; went out to buy a cigar; forgot all about my wife; left her eating an ice; came over by the night boat; never noticed she was missing till I was between the sheets in bed." He paused, as if to meditate. "She wasn't a dead loss; turned up afterwards, as I've reason to remember."
Whether the man was or was not mad, or whether he was merely amusing himself at my expense, is more than I can say. We had the greatest difficulty in getting rid of him. By the time I had interviewed another dozen applicants I came to the conclusion that, if I had to go through much more of that kind of thing, my brain would turn. One red-headed man came into the room with a huge portfolio under his arm. Before I could stop him he had unfolded it before my astonished eyes.
"I have here one of the finest works ever issued from the press. It is a universal gazetteer and general encyclopædia of information, and contains 22,000 more references than any other work of the kind which has been previously produced. It is most superbly illustrated, in the most lavish manner, by the greatest artists, two or more full-page illustrations to each part, besides innumerable smaller illustrations, splendid maps, and magnificent coloured pictures, which are quite worthy of being framed. It is issued in monthly parts price sevenpence, and with the first part is presented a free gift-"
It was all I could do to prevent myself kicking him downstairs. He was not by any means the only offender in this direction. One young woman, after beating about the bush in a manner which, although I was becoming familiar with it, was none the less maddening, explained that she had come to solicit contributions towards providing a day in the country for some ragamuffins at the other end of the town.
IV
The worst of it was that, though I scampered through the applicants as fast as ever they would let me, the number of them, instead of diminishing, increased. The clamour of their voices filled the house. Saunders and the maids were becoming alarmed-for the matter of that so was I. The people swarmed into the house like flies. The downstair rooms were full, the hall was blocked, the stairway choked, a continually increasing crowd was on the pavement. Everyone wanted to see me at once. Judging from the noise quarrels were frequent. I had heard of the astonishing number of the applications which are received for an advertised vacant clerkship; judging from results I might have advertised not for one clerk, but for half a dozen.
"I think," suggested Saunders, pale, though heated, "that we had better send for the police."
I had just disposed of a man who, after explaining that he had lost a purse something like twelve months ago, had assured the crowd, from the top of the stairs, that I was a colourable imitation of a thief, because I had declined to show him the one which I had found a couple of days before. He had been followed by an acidulated-looking female, who, I felt certain, was a tough morsel, and who was eyeing me, as Saunders spoke, as if I had been a convict at the least.
"Why? Are the people misbehaving?"
Saunders's face was more eloquent than his words.
"I don't believe there'll be much furniture left in the drawing-room if something isn't done. Cook's locked herself in the kitchen, and some of the people have gone downstairs-a pretty sort they are! If they aren't in the plate cupboard, they're in the pantry."
This was pleasant hearing. Before I could speak the acidulated lady-proving that my diagnosis of her character had not been unfounded-answered for me.
"And serve you quite right too! I believe that the whole affair's a swindle. You ought to be made to suffer. I don't believe you've found a purse at all."
"My dear madam, I assure you that I have!"
"Then why don't you let any of the poor creatures who have lost their purses have so much as a sight of it? If you have found a purse, why don't you show it to them like an honest man?" I sighed-the logic of people who had lost their purses was wonderful. "As for me, I'm not going through the farce of describing the purse I lost, because I know very well you haven't got it; but I'll tell you this-I've come all the way from Hackney, and I've wasted a day, and I don't mean to leave this house till you've paid me my expenses. I'll teach you to play tricks with innocent people! And" – she suddenly raised her voice-"if other people take my advice they will insist upon having their expenses paid them too!"
Before Saunders or I could interpose she had thrown the door wide open, and was addressing her, by now, excited audience, as if to the manner born.
"My good people, I am Sarah Eliza Warren, of Greenbush Villa, Hackney, and, like yourselves, I have been brought to this house by what seems to me to amount to false pretences. I don't believe that a purse has been found at all. If you take my advice you will do as I am doing-you will insist on being compensated for your