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 Agency; in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes to surround him with startling and weird events. As a man is leaving his front door, an excited sweep approaches him and assures him of a plot against his life; he gets into a cab, and is driven to an opium den; he receives a mysterious telegram or a dramatic visit, and is immediately in a vortex of incidents. A very picturesque and moving story is first written by one of the staff of distinguished novelists who are at present hard at work in the adjoining room. Yours, Major Brown (designed by our Mr. Grigsby), I consider peculiarly forcible and pointed; it is almost a pity you did not see the end of it. I need scarcely explain further the monstrous mistake. Your predecessor in your present house, Mr. Gurney-Brown, was a subscriber to our agency, and our foolish clerks, ignoring alike the dignity of the hyphen and the glory of military rank, positively imagined that Major Brown and Mr. Gurney-Brown were the same person. Thus you were suddenly hurled into the middle of another man's story.”
“How on earth does the thing work?” asked Rupert Grant, with bright and fascinated eyes.
“We believe that we are doing a noble work,” said Northover warmly. “It has continually struck us that there is no element in modern life that is more lamentable than the fact that the modern man has to seek all artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he wishes to float into fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to soar into heaven, he reads a book; if he wishes to slide down the banisters, he reads a book. We give him these visions, but we give him exercise at the same time, the necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down long streets from pursuers—all healthy and pleasant exercises. We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under the splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that godlike time when we can act stories, be our own heroes, and at the same instant dance and dream.”
Basil gazed at him curiously. The most singular psychological discovery had been reserved to the end, for as the little business man ceased speaking he had the blazing eyes of a fanatic.
Major Brown received the explanation with complete simplicity and good humour.
“Of course; awfully dense, sir,” he said. “No doubt at all, the scheme excellent. But I don't think—” He paused a moment, and looked dreamily out of the window. “I don't think you will find me in it. Somehow, when one's seen—seen the thing itself, you know—blood and men screaming, one feels about having a little house and a little hobby; in the Bible, you know, 'There remaineth a rest'.”
Northover bowed. Then after a pause he said:
“Gentlemen, may I offer you my card. If any of the rest of you desire, at any time, to communicate with me, despite Major Brown's view of the matter—”
“I should be obliged for your card, sir,” said the Major, in his abrupt but courteous voice. “Pay for chair.”
The agent of Romance and Adventure handed his card, laughing.
It ran, “P. G. Northover, B.A., C.Q.T., Adventure and Romance Agency, 14 Tanner's Court, Fleet Street.”
“What on earth is 'C.Q.T.'?” asked Rupert Grant, looking over the Major's shoulder.
“Don't you know?” returned Northover. “Haven't you ever heard of the Club of Queer Trades?”
“There seems to be a confounded lot of funny things we haven't heard of,” said the little Major reflectively. “What's this one?”
“The Club of Queer Trades is a society consisting exclusively of people who have invented some new and curious way of making money. I was one of the earliest members.”
“You deserve to be,” said Basil, taking up his great white hat, with a smile, and speaking for the last time that evening.
When they had passed out the Adventure and Romance agent wore a queer smile, as he trod down the fire and locked up his desk. “A fine chap, that Major; when one hasn't a touch of the poet one stands some chance of being a poem. But to think of such a clockwork little creature of all people getting into the nets of one of Grigsby's tales,” and he laughed out aloud in the silence.
Just as the laugh echoed away, there came a sharp knock at the door. An owlish head, with dark moustaches, was thrust in, with deprecating and somewhat absurd inquiry.
“What! back again, Major?” cried Northover in surprise. “What can I do for you?”
The Major shuffled feverishly into the room.
“It's horribly absurd,” he said. “Something must have got started in me that I never knew before. But upon my soul I feel the most desperate desire to know the end of it all.”
“The end of it all?”
“Yes,” said the Major. “'Jackals', and the title-deeds, and 'Death to Major Brown'.”
The agent's face grew grave, but his eyes were amused.
“I am terribly sorry, Major,” said he, “but what you ask is impossible. I don't know any one I would sooner oblige than you; but the rules of the agency are strict. The Adventures are confidential; you are an outsider; I am not allowed to let you know an inch more than I can help. I do hope you understand—”
“There is no one,” said Brown, “who understands discipline better than I do. Thank you very much. Good night.”
And the little man withdrew for the last time.
He married Miss Jameson, the lady with the red hair and the green garments. She was an actress, employed (with many others) by the Romance Agency; and her marriage with the prim old veteran caused some stir in her languid and intellectualized set. She always replied very quietly that she had met scores of men who acted splendidly in the charades provided for them by Northover, but that she had only met one man who went down into a coal-cellar when he really thought it contained a murderer.
The Major and she are living as happily as birds, in an absurd villa, and