Chapter III: Part 3

I found a morocco case in his room one morning. It contained a very exquisite gold bracelet. He had been late overnight, and I had taken his breakfast up to him. The parcel with the bracelet came on the preceding evening while he was out. He had opened it on returning and left it open. As he was asleep when I took in his morning meal, I had time to examine the trinket. I looked at the costly toy, and then at grandpapa reposing peacefully and sweetly, with a glow of health and youth on his face. He lived out of doors now, and spent most of his time at the Palace. Of course the bracelet spoke louder than words.

He awoke, saw what I had seen, sat up, ate three eggs, much toast, and other things, then made a clean breast of his latest entanglement.

"It’s the purest, truest attachment--my first genuine love, so to speak, and my last. And she’s a girl to whom I can tell my secret; I feel that. Susan would believe anything. She will see me through the next two years or so, and then she will be left free to marry again. Yes, we are engaged. Socially it is a bit of a come-down from Mabel Talbot, but I don’t want to found a family or go in for a swagger connection. The girl loves me, and that’s quite good enough for me."

"Who is she, grandpapa?"

"Nobody; at least I don’t know anything about her family. She doesn’t ever mention them, and I make no enquiries. I don’t want to be within the radius of another mother-in-law again at my time of life--I know them. We’re going to be married privately, and then run out to America. Susan keeps a stall at the Crystal Palace. She’s a model girl, and sells chocolate and sweetstuff generally. You might go and see her without saying anything. Just stop in a casual way and hear her talk. Buy a pennyworth of something and study the girl a little. She’s a perfect treasure of a woman in my opinion. I’ve reached an age now when goodness outweighs beauty and everything. But she is beautiful too. She hangs out under that statue of the lady and the horse--lady and horse both dressed alike. You’ll find her there, and you’ll recognise her if you go this afternoon by this bracelet, which she’ll have on by that time. Draw her out and you’ll find I’m right. She would cling to me and comfort my declining years. I shall tell her I’m going away to London for the afternoon; then you will have it all to yourself and see what a girl she is."

I obeyed him, and that afternoon visited the Palace, found Lady Godiva without difficulty, and Susan Marks selling chocolate below. I saw the bracelet immediately. It was on the wrist of a big, dark girl, very showily dressed. She had bold, black eyes, that twinkled at the men as they passed, and a hard voice, which she endeavoured to make seductive as she lured visitors to the chocolate. She was talking to a young man when I arrived, and kept me waiting a considerable time. But I did not mind that; I was listening to some interesting conversation.

"Yes, it ain’t a bad bangle; my little mash, Dan Dolphin, gave it to me. He’s fairly gone on me--that’s straight. I’ve got fal-lals to the tune of three or four hundred quid out of him, and a promise of marriage."

"Promise what you like, Sue, but no kid. Mind what you said. I ain’t jealous, but I’m No. 1, mind. He’s only No. 2."

"No. 2! He’s No. 20 more like. You’re a fool, Tom, and you _are_ jealous. And I like to see you angry. You know well enough, Tommy, that I never loved none but you. The fools come and the fools go, but Tom goes on for ever. This little chappie ought to be good for a hundred or two more--then we’ll be married, you and me, and I’ll cut the chocolate and the butterflies."

Had they arranged their conversation expressly for my benefit, neither could have made a more conclusive, satisfactory, and at the same time disgraceful statement.

My blood boiled when I thought of my grandfather’s boyish passion being wasted on this minx.

"What are you starin’ at?" asked the girl rudely, suddenly realising that I was standing by the stall.

"I’m waiting to be served," I answered. "I want one of those penny sticks of Cadbury’s chocolate, when you can make it convenient to attend to me."

She gave me the refreshment, and I heard her utter a vulgar jest at my expense as I turned away. But, for all that, I hastened home with a light heart. Once more was I in a position to save grandpapa.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

_*ON THE RIVER.*_

It is not easy to describe grandpapa’s indignation when I detailed the result of my interview with Susan Marks. I told him all about the young man to whom she had been talking, and he recognised the youth as one Tomkins. He had already quarrelled with Susan about him.

"But why, dear grandfather," I asked, "did you give this wretched woman your real name?"

"It was a safe thing to do," he answered. "All the old fusses have blown over. Besides, I should have had to give it when I married her. I meant most honourably by the jade, and this is the result. They’re all alike, confusion take ’em. That’s the last. I’ve done with women now. They don’t interest me as they used to do. I shall go on amusing myself with the cats for another six months or so, till I’m a few years younger, but I’m blest if I ever take ’em seriously again. They’re not worth it--excepting you. You’re a good old daisy, Martha, and I’m much obliged to you."

Two days afterwards he gave Miss Marks a bit of his mind, and had it out with Tomkins, down among the firework apparatus. It appears that he punched Tomkins on the head, and then kicked him when he was down, and finally dropped him into one of the fountains.

"After that," said grandfather, as he gleefully narrated the circumstances to me, "I made tracks and hid among those great stone pre-adamite beasts at the bottom of the grounds. I squirmed down alongside of an ichthyosaurus or some such brute, and sat tight there until dark. Then I dodged out with the crowd. But they’ll want me to-day, so I guess we must be toddling."

We talked the matter out, and he decided to go and rent lodgings somewhere near the river. He was now twenty-two, by the New Scheme, and his old love for athletics had returned.

"No more tomfoolery for me," said grandfather. "I’ve passed the silly stage now. I shall take up rowing again and join a cricket club, and lead a quiet, wholesome life. As the end approaches so rapidly, I begin to lose interest in worldly affairs. Let us go to the river, and I will row you about, over the peaceful waters, under the trees, among the swans. If I find I have kept any of my old form with the sculls, I shall very likely enter for the ’Diamonds’ at Henley. It would be a record for a man of nearly one hundred and eight to win ’em. But I doubt how I should shape in these gimcrack, new-fangled wager-boats."

I encouraged his simple, boyish ambition, and we took our way to Twickenham. Grandpapa, finding himself better and happier for the peaceful life, actually thought once more of reformation. It was summer time, and a sort of holy calm would settle on my beloved grandfather, as he paddled me about the river and drew up sometimes in the cool shadows of overhanging trees.

He was a handsome boy of one-and-twenty now. His face grew tanned by the sun. He wore a picturesque green and yellow "blazer," with a blue handkerchief round his waist and a big sunflower embroidered on his grey felt hat. He began to get quite simple in speech, and his interest revolved about the river races and the cricket field. He seemed to forget the past, and I often prayed that the past would forget him. But grandpapa had sown the wind and the whirlwind was beginning to spring up. Time did not fly as quickly with the world as it seemed to do with us. The young fellow with his simple athletic interests and ambitions, training quietly for the Diamond Sculls, was not destined to escape the fruits of those many indiscretions committed in his maturer years; and it is hardly the least of my griefs and regrets that, in a measure, I was the cause of keeping grandpapa’s name before the world, and before divers more or less malicious women, who refused to forget his past relationships with them. I thought that by the quiet waters of the Thames, hidden in snug but comfortable lodgings at Twickenham, we should have escaped notice; but I soon found my mistake, for the river is a highway, a pleasure ground (so to speak) whereon all meet. Representatives of every London suburb pass and repass; respectable and questionable rub shoulders in every lock, exchange repartees at every bend, drift side by side in every backwater.

We were out one day after lunch, and I, steering carelessly, nearly ran into a boatload of ladies and gentlemen. Grandpapa reprimanded me, and apologised to the other party. Then somebody said:

"Positively it is--it is Miss Dolphin."

The speaker was Mrs. Bangley-Brown. She insisted on stopping and asking after grandpapa; and the old man, like a fool, forgetting the altered conditions, answered:

"_I’m_ all right. Glad to see you again. Jove! how well the gals look. And you as blooming as a four-year-old. D----d if I don’t think you’re going backwards too!"

Mrs. Bangley-Brown glared at the youth, and grandpapa, with wonderful readiness, explained himself.

"Awfully sorry. Thought you must know me. My pals call me ’grandfather,’ ’cause I’m a bit old-fashioned. No offence meant, none taken I hope."

She turned from him with disgust, and the two girls in the boat and some young men looked at my escort and tittered.

"Where is your grandfather?" said Mrs. Bangley-Brown to me, leaning over the edge of the boat and whispering. "I have been wanting his address for five years. Perhaps you can favour me with it. There is something fatal about the name, I think. I have heard it often of late, associated in every case with some broken-hearted woman."

"He treated you badly, I know," I answered, also under my breath. "It was a bitter grief to me at the time. But things are better as they are. He would not have made you happy."

"Probably not," she answered bitterly, "but he might have made me comfortable. And it is not too late. We need not discuss his conduct. I know what an English jury would think of it. Give me his address, if you please."

"Don’t do anything of the sort, Martha," said grandpapa, in a great state of excitement. He had overheard Mrs. Bangley-Brown’s last remark, and now turned to her.

"I’m only a youngster," he began craftily, "but I know the rights of that story. I heard it from the old man, and it don’t do you any credit. You’re an awful designing woman, and ought to know better. I daresay you’ve been after a dozen old fogeys since that."

"You little horror!" screamed Mrs. Bangley-Brown, "if I could get to you I’d box your ears."

She rose and made the boat shake, and her daughters implored her to sit down, or they would all be in the river.

"Yes, you’re a bad old lady--a regular old fossil-hunter, and no mistake," said grandpapa, shaking his head at her. "Shocking example for the gals!" Then he began to row away.

"Follow them! Don’t lose sight of them!" cried the angry woman; but grandpapa was a fine oar and had a light load. He simply laughed at their efforts to keep pace with him, and fired off all sorts of jokes at the pursuers. Finally he spurted when near the "rollers," had our boat over them in a twinkling, and setting to work, bustled me up to Kingston with extraordinary celerity. After dark we paddled quietly home again.

"It is a warning to me," said grandpapa. "In future if we meet old friends, I am your young nephew from Oxford; and your grandfather, should they ask after him, has been dead for some years. I wish that was true."

*CHAPTER XVII.*

_*PHYLLIS.*_

Misfortunes never come singly. After the meeting with Mrs. Bangley-Brown I was nervous of going on the river at all, but upon the following Sunday grandpapa persuaded me to accompany him. Most young men would have chosen the society of their own sex, but grandfather was loyal to his old granddaughter; and I will say that with regard to my growing weakness for stimulant, he did everything in his power to shame me out of it. I tried my best, but alcohol had become a necessity, and, as I have said elsewhere, was the only thing I could rely upon to keep my nerves steady at a crisis.

To return, we proceeded that Sunday to Teddington Lock, when suddenly, alongside of us, waiting for the lock to open, appeared Susan Marks and the young man Tomkins. The woman recognised us both instantly, and proclaimed the fact.

"Lor! if that ain’t that little beast Dolphin! Look, Tommy; and it was that old Guy Fawkes as ’eard me ’n you talking. She split an’ told him. But it shan’t wash; I swear it shan’t. He’s promised marriage, you know that; and all the old grandmothers in the world shan’t save him!"

"Who are you, you brazen creature? I don’t know you--never saw you before in my life," said grandfather, calmly.

"Don’t you talk to me like that, you wretch," bawled the virago, "or I’ll come over and wring your neck."

"Poor soul! Take her out of the sun and send for a medical man," said my grandfather.

Then Tomkins spoke. He was a small, weak person.

"You can’t bounce it like that, you know," he said. "You’re Dan Dolphin, engaged to Miss Marks; I ought to know you well enough; I’ve had a summons out against you for three months. You’d better give me your address, and not make a scene here."

"You’re labouring under a case of mistaken identity," said grandfather, not taking any notice of the intimation to give his address. "And as for that beauty there, if she’s engaged to me or some other fellow, what are you doing with her here on the river? Now row away, and try and behave yourselves. I’m afraid you’re no better than you ought to be, either of you."

In this cool manner, with a quiet air of experience and superiority, did grandfather cow the man Tomkins. The woman Marks, however, was not cowed. She shook her fist and raved and disgraced her sex and made a scene; but grandfather only laughed and proceeded. As he truly remarked, they had got "precious little change" out of him.

Not less than an hour later, I saw another of grandpapa’s old flames; one whom I had never met before. The Princess Hopskipschoff, with a party of younger sons and music-hall artistes, passed us in a steam-launch. Grandpapa was very excited, and his admiration for her, which waxed at forty-five and dwindled to nothing at thirty, now at twenty-one, burst out anew.

"A glorious woman--a goddess, by Jove! How sickening she must find the twaddle of those boys!" said grandpapa. "Ah, she doesn’t know, as she glances at me from under her dark lids, that the young fellow in the yellow and green ’blazer’ was once engaged to marry her. How sweet and fresh she is still! I wonder if she’ll be at Henley?"

Then he sighed and caught a "crab" in the wash of the steamer. I was amazed to hear him talk thus, and ventured to expostulate.

"The big woman under the red-and-white parasol? Why, grandpapa, she’s forty, and painted up to the eyes!"

"Don’t blaspheme," he said. "Don’t discuss her. You needn’t be jealous of the princess. To think that she has never forgotten me, that she seeks me yet! But her dream would be rather rudely shattered if she knew. Well, well, let us talk of something else. What fiend made me leave her? To think of all I lost!"

From which I have since drawn the curious conclusion that very young men and quite middle-aged ones are often attracted by the same sort of women.

"A fellow cannot get on without woman’s love," said grandpapa, suddenly, after a long silence. "At least, some fellows can’t--I can’t for one."

"A mother’s love is what you will soon be needing, dear one. I shall do the best I can."

"Bosh!" he said angrily. "That’s not love at all; it’s instinct. And I don’t want you to fuss over me when I become a child, mind that. Just keep me clean and tidy, and give me toys and tell me Bible stories. But don’t pretend you’re my mother then, because that’s outraging the laws of Nature, and people will laugh at you. I’m not talking of those matters now; I’m alluding to love."

"You said, when you left Upper Norwood, that you had done with that for ever."

"Yes, very likely; young men say foolish things. You can’t help fate. Marriages are made in heaven wholesale, though I admit they never guarantee the quality, and turn out a lot of goods that don’t wear. You observe that lock ahead? We’re going to lunch there. The lock-keeper is called Rose, and he has a daughter named Phyllis. She’s the daintiest, most exquisite, human thing I ever saw. No brains, thank God--I’ve had enough of clever women--but the disposition of an angel, eyes like grey rainclouds with sunshine in ’em, hair brown, lily-white hands, tiny feet, and everything complete. What’s more, the girl understands me."

"I may assume, then, grandfather, that you are engaged?"

"I will not deceive you, Martha; we are."

"How far has it gone?"

"To the ’second time of asking.’ I mean business this journey. We’re to be married after Henley. I didn’t tell you, because it would only have worried you, and, I fear, make you take kinder than ever to stimulant. I’ve arranged it all. We’re going to Scotland. Then, when I get a bit younger, I shall leave her a letter with all my money in it, and clear out and make away with myself. I was only pretending just now. I couldn’t stand childhood again, not even with you, let alone as a married man. I want you to be friends with her, and live with her after I am gone."

His voice broke, and, at the same moment we reached the lock.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

_*I FORBID THE BANNS.*_

"There you are!" said a soft, musical voice above us, and glancing up I saw Phyllis Rose. She was in truth a beautiful girl, dressed in her Sunday clothes, looking the pink of health and happiness.

"I’ve watched you ever so long, dear Dan; and this is your dear, dear grandmother? Oh, I hope she will let me love her for your sake."

She kissed me, and, I confess, my heart warmed to her. She was as pretty and tender a little soul as ever lived to make sunshine for other people. I soon found that she worshipped the ground my grandfather trod upon. She slipped her little hand into his as she walked up to her father’s cottage, and talked pleasantly and happily with a London accent.

At her modest habitation an excellent meal and a bottle of very passable red wine were prepared. The girl’s parents seemed delighted to see us, and welcomed me in a most hearty, but at the same time respectful manner. I tried to banish the real, fatal aspect of the position and live in the passing hour. Grandpapa seemed very cheerful.

"Were the banns called again to-day?" he asked.

"That they was," said Mr. Rose; "and Phyllis, the little silly, got as red as a peony, and her mother, no better, blushed like a school-girl, too. That’s the second time of asking. Don’t you have no more fruit pie, Dan. Remember Henley."

But my grandfather explained he had not gone into regular training yet. "Sam Sturgess and I begin hard work together on Monday week," he said. "We’re both very fit, and if I don’t pull off the ’Diamonds,’ I ought to go near winning the ’double sculls’ with Sam. It’s a month next Monday."

The young things went off together presently, and I had a thimbleful of cold punch with Mr. and Mrs. Rose, and chatted to them. It was seldom I got an opportunity to talk to my fellow-creatures now, and I must admit that I enjoyed doing so. They were quite willing to listen, and tried to turn our talk to grandfather; but I said as little on that head as possible.

"What d’ you think of her?" my grandfather asked, as he rowed me home in the evening.

"She is a pearl of a girl. But it must not be, grandfather. You contemplate a most wicked action. I pray you abandon the idea. Stop till Henley, if you must; then let us hurry away. We can write and break it off, and send her a present in money. They are poor, and it would be very welcome."

"You may talk yourself inside out, Martha, but it won’t alter me," he said, with quiet determination. "This is the only girl I’ve ever really loved, and the Devil himself won’t stop me. For that matter, he’s the last who ’d try to, no doubt."

"It is necessary to have your banns called in your own parish as well, grandpapa."

"I know, I know. I wasn’t married three times without getting a pretty good knowledge of the ropes. My banns have been called twice at St. Jude’s. You never go to church now, or you’d have heard ’em."

"St. Jude’s is not much patronised. The service is long and low, and the church half empty."

"So much the better."

Then he changed the subject, and as the moon rose and made the river look romantic, grandpapa tried to invent a bit of poetry about Phyllis, and failed.

"Oh, Phyllis mine, come let us twine our arms about each other’s necks," he began. Then he turned to me and said--

"Put that flask away, Martha; you think I can’t see you, but I can. ’Our arms about each other’s necks.’ Then, let me see, what rhymes with ’necks’?"

"Cheques," I answered, humouring him.

"Ah, that would come in if this was an ordinary, modern sort of love match, but it isn’t. I want something pastoral or idyllic. Let me see, where ’d I got to? ’Come, Phyllis mine, and let us twine our arms about each other’s necks.’ Wrecks, decks, specks, flecks, pecks. Necks is ’off.’ Let’s try ’each other’s waists.’ Waste, raced, paste, taste, graced, laced, haste----"

Then he ran into the bank and abandoned verse, and fell back upon lurid prose, which he applied to me and my management of the rudder lines.

"What d’ you think you’re doing, you muddle-headed old mummy? Sit straight and look at the river, not at the moon. I’ll make you sign the pledge to-morrow, blessed if I don’t! You’ll have more water with your whisky than you want in a moment. Oh, Lord! never again--never. Pull the right string--the right. Holy mouse! On Sunday evening too!"

Finally I gave up the lines, being really far from well, and he unshipped the rudder and made me sit in the bottom of the boat. I don’t know what possessed me, but I felt quite happy in spite of my passing dizziness, and when a boat went by us, with a young man in it playing on a banjo and singing, I sang too. It was the first time I had done so for forty years.

"Shut up, you ruin!" gasped grandfather. "Stop it, for the love of the Lord. D’ you think I want the whole river to know? It’s like a cargo of corncrakes. You’re enough to frighten a steam launch!"

I stopped then and cried at his cruelty.

"Don’t be harsh, grandfather--don’t be brutal to your only grandchild," I sobbed.

"Behave yourself, then. When you take to singing in public it’s about time I spoke out."

We got home somehow, and never returned to the subject. He did not desire to be reminded of his poetry, and therefore was careful not to allude to my passing indisposition.

But I never hesitated to speak on the subject of poor Phyllis. I implored him, by everything that was sacred, to abandon this undertaking. Each day throughout that week I attacked him, until in sheer despair and rage he would take his hat and fly from the house. But nothing availed--grandfather would not alter his intention; and I therefore determined to forbid the banns. The thought was naturally very distasteful to me, but I could see no alternative. Grandpapa, never dreaming of such a thing, rowed up the river as usual on the following Sunday, and I went to St. Jude’s.

In due course the minister published the banns of marriage "between Daniel Dolphin, of this parish, bachelor, and Phyllis Rose, of"--somewhere else, I forget the name of the place--"spinster." It was for the third and last time of asking.

I got up, grasped the pew in front of me, and exclaimed:

"This--this mustn’t go on. I forbid the banns!"

"Which?" asked the minister. He had read out a string of names.

"Those between my grand--between Daniel Dolphin and Phyllis Rose."

"Will the individual who has forbidden these banns of marriage meet me in the vestry at the end of the service?" said the clergyman. Then he proceeded.

In the vestry he asked me for particulars.

"In the first place," I answered, "Mr. Dolphin is not a bachelor at all. He is married. He has been married three times."

"D’ you mean to say that mere boy’s been married three times?"

"It’s the solemn truth."

"No wife alive, I trust?"

"Oh, no--the last died sixty years ago--at least--that is----"

"Woman," said the pastor sternly, "what do you mean? Mr. Dolphin came to see me himself. He is twenty, so he says, but does not look that. You have told me a transparent lie. Do you know Mr. Dolphin?"

"Know him! He’s my grandfather."

The Vicar looked round to see if the coast was clear. He prepared to escape if I should grow violent. His manner instantly changed.

"Keep cool, dear madam. I quite understand. Let me get you a glass of water to drink."

Then he withdrew, and I heard him whispering to an old woman who opened the pews. He bid her run for a doctor and a policeman. Upon this I rose and came home.

To my surprise, grandpapa rowed back pretty early in the afternoon. He was in a terribly depressed and agitated condition, so I did not tell him just then what I had clone.

"What’s the matter, grandfather? Phyllis is well?"

"No, she’s not well. A brute got up at her wretched church and forbid the banns. She fainted, and her father met the person and somebody else afterwards. Whether it was Tomkins, or Talbot, or Rogers, or the Princess, I don’t know. But it’s all up. Old Rose is going to arrange an action for breach of promise. His wife came home from church and gave me the particulars, and some pretty peppery criticism at the same time. We must clear out of this, but I’ll row for the ’Diamonds’ if the heavens fall. Get your traps. We’ll go up the river by easy stages, and lie low in the day-time. I can enter for the regatta under a feigned name."

Thus had my poor grandparent’s banns been forbidden at both places of worship simultaneously.

*CHAPTER XIX.*

_*COUNSEL’S OPINION.*_

Grandpapa decided that Sunbury would be a likely sort of place to "lie low" in, so we went up after dark that same Sunday evening, reached our new halting-place soon after midnight, and took some lodgings by the water-side. The affair was in the papers next day, and the name of Daniel Dolphin echoed in people’s mouths once more.

Grandfather now called himself Elisha Spratt, and he entered under that name at Henley. By a curious coincidence, the first heat for the Diamond Sculls fell on grandpapa’s birthday. Nearly a month, however, had yet to pass by before that elate. Mr. Rose’s added another to the long list of indictments against grandfather, but the old man cared nothing. He went on steadily and quietly with his practice and training, and the harder he trained, the younger he began to look.

A painful incident, out of which arose another still more trying, has here to be recorded. Grandpapa, while discussing the different processes at law which he had incurred, told me, in some glee, of matters I did not know.

"I did a smart thing recently," he began. "Of course, a man must help his chums where he can, and I’ve been able to do so without any hurt to myself. People on the river think I’ve got pots of money, because I spend very freely. On the strength of this I’ve been asked to lend my security on about twenty different occasions. I never refused. Men thought I was a fool, but I knew what I was about very well."

The old, cunning look came back into his eyes once more. It had a very painful appearance on the face of so young a man.

"What have you done now, dear grandfather? Hide nothing from me," I said.

"I’ve backed a lot of bills, and gone security for thousands and thousands. A good few of the Johnnies can’t pay, and they’ll come down on me like a ton of bricks. Ha, ha!"

"I don’t see what there is to laugh at, grandpapa. So little amuses you now."

"Why, _I’m under age_. That’s where the laugh comes in. I’m a legal infant, or something of that sort. They can’t touch me."

"A legal infant! Why, grandfather, you’re a hundred and eight years old in a few weeks’ time."

"Not by the New Scheme."

"What’s the New Scheme got to do with the money-lenders? They’ll fight it out on the Old Scheme, and trace you back and back, and confront you with your past career. It was madness to do such a thing."

The old man grew rather wretched and uneasy, but he soon cheered up again.

"I thought it was such a smart move; and, after all, no harm’s done, for I haven’t got the money. In fact, fifteen hundred or less is about my limit now. I’m safe enough if you don’t go and give me away. People recognise you, but, of course, I shall begin changing and dwindling at a deuce of a rate, after Henley. To think that my mental powers will begin to fade, too--that’s what cuts me up."

What he called his mental powers had already begun to fade. He was stupid for his age now, and would be a mere clown of a boy in six months’ time. But I did not tell him so. I said nothing; and soon afterwards he went to bed.

In the morning he came down to breakfast, fired with an extraordinary new project. And yet, in justice to myself, I cannot say strictly that it was a fresh idea. I had advised him to take the step he now contemplated any time this five years.

"I have been reading the agreement," said grandpapa, "and, upon my soul, it looks to me, duffer though I am, as if the thing didn’t hold water. I don’t know anything about law, but the question is simply a legal one, after all; and if there’s a flaw anywhere, I don’t see why I shouldn’t benefit by it. Any way, it’s good enough to get an opinion on. I shall go up to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and see Messrs. Tarrant and Hawker. They helped me in the matter of the Automatic Postcard swindle, if you remember. I shall pretend the agreement is a joke, and, of course, they won’t know me from Adam. Just think if they discovered a flaw, now, at the eleventh hour, so to speak!"

"Go, by all means, grandpapa, but don’t buoy yourself, my dearest. Recollect Who wrote that agreement. He may not be skilled in legal matters himself, but he must have had ample opportunities for submitting the draft to experts."

"That’s the point," answered grandpapa. "He expressly said he’d drawn it up himself. It was a new thing in agreements, even for him. He fancied it too. But there may be a slip somewhere. I want a day off the river, and I’ll go up with this document after lunch. You sit tight at home and don’t show yourself. If people see you--Rose or any of the rest--they’ll know I’m not far off."

"And take care yourself, grandpapa. They are on the look out, no doubt. If you are arrested, I shall go mad."

He started, and I spent the afternoon reading disquieting paragraphs about Daniel Dolphin. Many papers made mention of him, and certain of the comic organs printed what they doubtless regarded as jokes. My name appeared. There was much diversity of opinion about me. Some said that I was his daughter; others that we were brother and sister; others, again, that Daniel Dolphin’s mother or grandmother or great-aunt assisted him in his pernicious career. The _Star_ fancied that Daniel Dolphin often masqueraded as an old woman. Everybody agreed that the truth would soon be known, because the police had an undoubted clue, and the matter was in most experienced hands.

My grandpapa returned to dinner. He wept into his plate all through that meal, and showed me in a thousand ways that his enterprise had produced no good results.

"Speak, my treasure!" I cried at length, unable to bear the suspense; "is it as bad as you thought?"

"A million times worse!"

"Worse! What could be worse, grandpapa?"

"I’ll explain. This fool--Nick, I mean--has drawn out the thing single-handed, and defeated his own object, and wrecked me utterly. I saw Mr. Hawker himself. He studied the agreement for an hour, then gave judgment on it. He said, tapping it with his eyeglass, ’Now this document is curious--very much so. The--the person who wrote it appears to have had a certain smattering of law terms, which he sprinkles over his remarks without any legal knowledge, without any familiarity with their forensic significance. The most remarkable thing about this agreement, however, is that by the processes to be applied to Daniel Dolphin, the said gentleman will absolutely cease to exist at the end of the specified time. The deed is amateurish in many respects, but in none more than this. It defeats its own object, for on the completion of the period herein set out, _there will be nothing of Mr. Daniel Dolphin left to go anywhere_! He said that, and I thanked him and paid six-and-eightpence, and came away, feeling about as cheap as a bad egg."

My grandfather flung himself on a sofa, and cried again.

"Then you can’t go to--to--!" I said, with a thrill of exultation.

"I can’t go anywhere at all," he moaned; "I go out like gas when it’s turned off at the tap. You don’t understand--it’s terrible, it’s unheard of. I’d rather have gone down below than nowhere at all--anybody would. But now--now I shall become as extinct as the dodo. He’s spoofed himself, and squelched me. Talk about justice!"

I cannot dwell upon his sufferings. He had always believed firmly in a life beyond the grave. Now it was snatched from him by a juggling, muddle-headed, self-sufficient fiend, who ought never to have been allowed the use of writing materials. The matter was a logical one; the end of the New Scheme simply meant eternal annihilation for my unhappy old grandfather.

*CHAPTER XX.*

_*A CLIMAX.*_

Grandfather had little time to concern himself with his new and terrible sorrows. All his hopes and ambitions now centred in the race at Henley; but adequate training became very difficult, because we were marked people now, despite the fact that we had changed our names. Detectives were constantly watching us and taking photographs of us in a hand-camera, and doing all they could to identify grandpapa with Daniel Dolphin. We moved higher up the river, then proceeded above Henley, then retreated back again to Kew. This threw the police out for awhile, but as time went on they found us again, and finally the first writ arrived. But this and others concerned money affairs, and grandpapa brushed them away with contempt. Anon, however, a more serious injunction fell upon us. Mr. Rose, satisfied that grandfather was no other than Daniel Dolphin, and doubtless advised by those familiar with the law, brought an action in the name of his daughter for breach of promise of marriage.

"It’s pretty rough on me," said grandpapa, "that the one girl of the lot that I really was faithful to, and wanted to marry, and meant to marry, should jump on me like this. I couldn’t help the banns being forbidden. And now I have got to appear in the Queen’s Bench Division, and very likely get run in for all I’m worth, and a bit over."

"D’you observe the date?" I asked, after looking at the document.

"By Jove! my twentieth birthday by the New Scheme--same date as first heat of the ’Diamonds.’ Well, I can’t attend, that’s all. They’ll have to put it off."

A sort of fatality attached to subsequent summonses for grandpapa. The Salisbury people got wind of his address too, and he was ordered to repair to that city on divers charges. I think about six detectives, all working in different interests, were now employed upon grandfather. He was commanded to appear in the Queen’s Bench Division on no less than three different counts, for Marie Rogers brought a case against Daniel Dolphin, and Mrs. Bangley-Brown did the same.

"They’ll look pretty complete fools, those women," said grandpapa grimly, "when I do turn up in the box--a callow, lanky lout of twenty. The detectives have marked you down, Martha, and associate you with the missing Daniel Dolphin. So they think they are on the right track. You’ll have to come and swear anything I tell you to."

But I had my own troubles. There were several summonses out against me for "aiding and abetting" grandpapa in his different enterprises.

"Shall you employ a solicitor?" I asked.

"Not I," he answered. "No good chucking money away. I shall plead infancy, and if that won’t wash, I shall throw myself on the mercy of the Court. I shall get up some legal expressions, like _ultra vires_, and _sub judice_, and _suggestio falsi_, and _prima facie_, and so on. With these I shall endeavour to conduct my own case. As a last resort I shall try an alibi. But my own impression is that these fools of women will cry off the moment they see me. I don’t want to drag in the New Scheme if I can possibly help it. What a cur Nick is not to lend a hand at a time like this!"

"And what am I to do, grandfather?"

"Well, you’ll have to stand your trial. As far as I can see, you’ll get about five years if they’re lenient. You might bounce it with an alibi. After all, what does it matter? Quiet rest in a prison cell would be luxury after this life. I’ve foreseen it for some time. In your case it might be the best thing that could happen. You’ll have to be steady there. It’s about the only thought that really worries me, to remember that when I’m a defenceless babe I shall be in the hands of a woman who drinks."

"Grandpapa! you know how I try."

"I know how you succeed. Any excuse is good enough for a whack with you now. Every time a new injunction or process or writ drops in, off you go to the brandy bottle and carouse, as though they were matters to rejoice about. What was the good of signing the pledge if you never meant to keep it?"

"I find my system must have stimulant now, and I take it medicinally."

"Oh, of course--the same old lie that’s been on people’s tongues ever since Noah invented it. It’s your business after all, only you might look on ahead a little. Not long ago you were always telling me to do so. One of these days, after I’m a poor bawling infant in arms, you’ll see purple centipedes or something just when I want your attention, and I shall get left."

The subject dropped, and I turned the conversation to a pleasanter theme. We were within a week of the race, and grandpapa, in the pink of condition, only hoped and prayed that the law would not put violent hands upon him before Henley Regatta. The complications of the position had now become impossible to describe in words. We were lodging at Henley, and already letters, signed "Verax" and "Scrutator," were appearing in the sporting papers hinting at matters mysteriously connecting the young sculler, Elisha Spratt, with the scoundrel, Daniel Dolphin. Mr. Rose was responsible for these; at least, grandpapa thought so.

But nobody interfered with him. He wound up his training, and backed himself with a thousand pounds, which was all we had left in the world. On the night before the race some policemen made an endeavour to arrest grandpapa, but he escaped, and joined me at a mean hotel near the river, where with great difficulty we succeeded in getting two adjoining bedrooms. A good night’s rest was absolutely necessary for him.

"You see, I’ve got to win the Sculls at Henley, and answer for myself at Salisbury and in the Queen’s Bench Division, and before a magistrate at Twickenham, and in three police-courts elsewhere, so I shall be fairly busy to-morrow," he said, with a rather pathetic smile. Then he kissed me, and went to bed in perfect good-temper. He was happily too young now to thoroughly realise his awful position.

*CHAPTER XXI.*

_*MY NIGHTMARE.*_

I did not sleep that night for many hours, and when I finally slumbered there came to me a nightmare, involving grandpapa, which took ten years off my life.

I dreamed that the morning had come, and that I went into grandfather’s room to wish him many happy returns of the day--a thing I should certainly not have done in reality. But I was in the spirit, and never shall I forget the spectacle which greeted me as I stood by the old man’s pillow. Instead of the ruddy, healthy boy I had left over-night--instead of the muscular, deep-chested, deep-voiced young athlete who was that day to row at Henley, there sat up in the bed an uncanny, wrinkled, decrepit mummy of a creature. It was bald, save for a thin tangle of white eyebrow over each bleared eye. Its mouth was a mere slit, its nose and chin nearly met, its cheeks had fallen in. One thin skeleton of a claw held the bedclothes up to its scraggy neck. Its head shook, its under jaw dropped, its back was round as a wheel; the thing manifested indications of profoundest age.

"What--what is this? Who are you?" I gasped, turning faint and clutching at a chair-back for support.

It laughed a little squeaky, wheezy laugh, and a cunning expression came into its dim eyes.

"Keep your nerve," it said. "The show’s bust up; the New Scheme’s broken down!"

"Grandpapa!"

"He--he--he! Yes. A hundred and eight, not twenty. I’ve downed him."

"Downed him, grandpapa?"

"That means bested him, beaten him, scored off him. Lord! Lord! You’d have laughed to see what went on here last night. Nick swore and cussed and stormed and stamped round and perspired brimstone; but it wasn’t any manner of use. He’d given himself away by his own foolishness."

"Tell me, grandfather, tell me all about it. This is a happy day indeed!"

In my dream I gave the old hero an egg-and-milk with a little brandy. Then he sat up, and in a weak, trembling voice, broken with fits of senile chuckling, he told me about his interview.

"Nick came in just for a chat. He always goes to Henley. He mentioned the ’Diamonds,’ and guaranteed I should win ’em. He was friendly as you please, and hoped I’d had a good time, and didn’t regret my bargain.

"Then I told him of my visit to the lawyers, rapped out at him for a blundering, unbusiness-like ass, got the agreement out, went through it with him, and showed him what he’d really done. He was fairly mad, but he couldn’t get away from facts. I said:

"’The point lies in a nutshell. There’ll be nothing of me left to go anywhere; and even you cannot arrange for the eternity of a non-existent being, can you?’

"He had to admit he couldn’t. He was properly cross. He tore the agreement to little pieces, and stamped on it. He argued some time with me, and pointed out a fact that I had fully grasped already. He said:

"’Yes, it’s pretty clear I’ve over-reached myself. My fiendish conceit’s always tripping me up. I ought to have got my lawyers to help me; but I thought I could thrash a simple thing like that out alone.’

"He said that much, and then I made some satirical remark which stung him, for he turned on me, about as short and nasty as they make ’em, and said:

"’Blest if I know what _you_ want to snigger for! You don’t seem to realise what a unique fix you’re in. You _won’t go anywhere_ now! That’s what’s the matter with you. Nothing to chortle about, I should think?’

"’I’m not chortling at that,’ I answered, ’I’m merely smiling a bit to see you getting so warm. You’d better listen to reason and leave the past alone. Is there any way out of this? Of course, I want to go somewhere. I’ve got a strong objection to becoming extinct. How would you like it? I suppose even you would rather hang on where you are than be blotted out altogether.’

"’We can’t get away from a signed agreement,’ he said sulkily.

"Yes we can, if we draw out another, cancelling the first,’ I answered.

"’No more writing for me,’ he said.

"’Well, then, let us have an oral understanding,’ I suggested.

"’I’ll entertain any proposal in reason,’ he replied.

"But, of course, I was unprepared with suggestions. The interview had been sprung upon me, and I had not bestowed a moment’s thought upon preparations.

"’You’re in a fix, I know,’ he remarked, ’a mere temporal quandary, only involving certain ladies and so forth, but still troublesome so far as it goes. I might do this; I might quash all these earthly suits by the simple expedient of restoring you to your real age. As it is, you will upset a good many of them, because old Bangley-Brown, for instance, is on the look-out for a man of seventy-five; and the publican’s daughter, Marie Rogers, expects a man of five-and-forty or fifty. But, by returning to the ripe old age of one hundred-and-eight, you reduce the whole series of proceedings to a farce, and leave the different police courts and places without a stain on your character. In any case, you can only live one year more, but the difference is this: that if you go on as you’re going, you go out altogether; whereas, if you consent to my alternative, you’ll die in your bed, and have a future.’

"As you may imagine, Martha, I grew very excited.

"’A future--where?’ I enquired, in my dream.

"Exactly. Where? There’s the rub," grandfather answered. "I asked Nick the same question, and he said:

"’I wonder you can inquire. If you’ve got any sense of justice or gratitude, you ought to feel the extent of your debt and not hesitate to pay it. In any case, whatever your private ambitions may be, your past record is such that, if you go anywhere at all, your destination is practically determined.’

"I did not argue upon this point," continued grandfather, "feeling it would be better tact to slur it over, and leave a loop-hole, but he held me to it, and finally got me to promise that I would never attempt to reform or amend my ways during the last year of my life. He insisted all the time that it would not alter the result, but I could see, from his great anxiety upon the point, that he knew there might be plenty of opportunity for me to turn over a new leaf, and make a good end, if I chose to do so. However, I promised him to lead as abandoned and dissolute a life as could be expected from a man of one hundred and eight, so we effected the compromise. He was nervous about it to the last, but felt it to be the only way out of the _cul-de-sac_ his own stupidity had placed him in. Then the change was made. I went to sleep a boy and woke as you find me. I’m all here, but stiff about the legs, and deucedly rheumatic. Go out and get me a tall hat and some black, ready-made clothes, and some easy felt boots and a few walking sticks, and the strongest spectacles you can buy. Then I’ll get up."

So ended my clear grandpapa’s astounding statement, but my dream went on. I made him some bread-and-milk, fed him with it, and then hurried out to purchase necessaries.

The world, had turned upside down for me. I expected the newspaper boys to be yelling out "Failure of the New Scheme!"

*CHAPTER XXII.*

_*THE DWINDLING OF GRANDPAPA.*_

But there was no truth in the vision. I awoke unrested--rose, and, of course, found grandpapa under the New Scheme, as usual. He had arranged to hide somewhere in a backwater, and only paddle out when the race for the Diamond Sculls was beginning. I tried hard to dissuade him from making the attempt. I pointed out that arrest was sure to follow the struggle, and that, once taken, there would be sufficient legal complications all over the country to last him much more than the remainder of his life. I said:

"In a year’s time you will be ten; in two years you will be nothing. Let us hide this tragedy if we can. Publicity now means that the concluding catastrophes of your life will be watched by the whole of England--perhaps by the entire civilised world. Surely that would add another sting to extinction? Let me implore of you, dear one, to give up this aquatic enterprise. We will fly together. I have done up the accounts this morning, and find we have exactly nine hundred and ninety-eight pounds left. This is ample provision for your approaching childhood. Come and dwindle by the sea--at Margate or somewhere. Or let us go abroad, if that idea gives you pleasure."

"Not me," he said. "I shall flicker out in the old country. And as to not rowing, that’s absurd. This race is my last flutter. In six months I shall be a boy of fifteen. I must make my final adult appearance to-day. It’s jolly lucky there’s only one other entry besides myself, as I certainly shall have no chance of appearing more than once. However, this morning I mean to row the course, and then keep on the river and pull quietly into the backwater, and lie low till dark. Meantime you can go to Margate if you like and find new diggings, and I’ll join you to-morrow."

With this arrangement I had to be content. I took a train to London, and managed to escape comfortably in it with my box. I journeyed to Margate, took three fair rooms overlooking the sea, and waited with deepest anxiety for grandfather’s arrival. On the following morning I purchased the _Sportsman_, to find that the dear old man had managed to elude the detectives and win the Diamond Sculls! I felt that this was probably the last piece of real joy he would ever have. But the report in the _Sportsman_ quickly quenched my passing happiness. Satisfaction, indeed, was turned into black despair, when I read what my grandfather had done on the completion of the boat-race.