He was very close to her just then, gentlemen, so he really ought to know.

" ' What is it, my dear? ' said my uncle.

Will you never love any one but me—never marry any one besides? ' said the young lady.

" My uncle swore a great oath that he never would marry anybody else, and the young lady drew in her head, and pulled up the window. He jumped upon the box, squared his elbows, adjusted the ribbons, seized the whip which lay on the roof, gave one flick to the off leader, and away went the four long-tailed, flowing-maned black horses, at fifteen good English miles an hour, with the mail-coach behind them. Whew! how they tore along!

" The noise behind grew louder. The faster the old mail wont, the faster came the pursuers—men, horses, dogs, were leagued in the pursuit. The noise was frightful, but, above all, rose the voice of the young lady, urging my uncle on, and shrieking * Faster! faster! *

" They whirled pjst the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, haystacks, objects of every kind they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. Still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming ' Faster! faster! '

" My uncle plied whip and rein; and the horses flew onward till they were white with foam; and yet the noise behind increased; and yet the young lady cried * Faster! faster! ' My uncle gave a loud stamp on the boot in the

THE STORY OF THE BAGMAN'S UNCLE 33

energy of the moment, and—found that it was grey morning, and he was sitting in the wheelwright's yard, on the box of an old Edinburgh mail, shivering with the cold and wet, and stamping his feet to warm them! He got down, and looked eagerly inside for the beautiful young lady. Alas! there was neither door nor seat to the coach—it was a mere shell.

" Of course, my uncle knew very well that there was some mystery in the matter, and that everything had passed exactly as he used to relate it. He remained staunch to the great oath he had sworn to the beautiful young lady: refusing several eligible landladies on her account, and dying a bachelor at last. He always said, what a curious thing it was that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his clambering over the palings, that the ghosts of mail-coaches and horses, guards, coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly every night; he used to add, that he believed he was the only living person who had ever been taken as a passenger on one of these excursions; and I think he was right, gentlemen—at least I never heard of any other."

" I wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags," said the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound attention.

" The dead letters, of course," said the bagman.

" Oh, ah—to be sure," rejoined the landlord. " I never thought of that."

THE MONKEY'S PAW

W. W. JACOBS

WITHOUT, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnum Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess; the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary-perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.

" Hark at the wind," said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from seeing it.

" I'm listening," said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he stretched out his hand. " Check."

" I should hardly think that he'd come to-night," said his father, with his hand poised over the board.

" Mate," replied the son.

" That's the worst of living so far out," bawled Mr. White, with sudden and unlooked-for violence; " of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way places to live in, this is the worst. Path's a bog, and the road's a torrent. I don't know what people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn't matter."

"Never mind, dear," said his wife soothingly; "perhaps you'll win the next one."

Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a guilty grin in his thin grey beard.

" There he is," said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and heavy footsteps came toward the door.

The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with himself, so that Mrs. White said, " Tut tut! " and coughed gently as her husband entered the

THE MONKEY'S PAW 35

room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage.

" Sergeant-Major Morris," he said, introducing him.

The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whisky and tumblers and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.

At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair, and spoke of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues, and strange peoples.

" Twenty-one years of it," said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son. " When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look at him."

" He don't look to have taken much harm," said Mrs. White politely.

" I'd like to go to India myself," said the old man, " just to look round a bit, you know."

" Better where you are," said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.

" I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers," said the old man. " What was that you started telling me the other day about a monkey's paw or something, Morris? "

" Nothing," said the soldier hastily.