In the course of a few days, the genteel inhabitants of the square
began to remark the customs of their neighbour.  The sight of a
young gentleman discussing a clay pipe, about four o'clock of the
afternoon, in the drawing-room balcony of so discreet a mansion;
and perhaps still more, his periodical excursion to a decent tavern
in the neighbourhood, and his unabashed return, nursing the full
tankard:  had presently raised to a high pitch the interest and
indignation of the liveried servants of the square.  The disfavour
of some of these gentlemen at first proceeded to the length of
insult; but Somerset knew how to be affable with any class of men;
and a few rude words merrily accepted, and a few glasses amicably
shared, gained for him the right of toleration.

The young man had embraced the art of Raphael, partly from a notion
of its ease, partly from an inborn distrust of offices.  He scorned
to bear the yoke of any regular schooling; and proceeded to turn
one half of the dining-room into a studio for the reproduction of
still life.  There he amassed a variety of objects,
indiscriminately chosen from the kitchen, the drawing-room, and the
back garden; and there spent his days in smiling assiduity.
Meantime, the great bulk of empty building overhead lay, like a
load, upon his imagination.  To hold so great a stake and to do
nothing, argued some defect of energy; and he at length determined
to act upon the hint given by Mrs. Luxmore herself, and to stick,
with wafers, in the window of the dining-room, a small handbill
announcing furnished lodgings.  At half-past six of a fine July
morning, he affixed the bill, and went forth into the square to
study the result.  It seemed, to his eye, promising and
unpretentious; and he returned to the drawing-room balcony, to
consider, over a studious pipe, the knotty problem of how much he
was to charge.

Thereupon he somewhat relaxed in his devotion to the art of
painting.  Indeed, from that time forth, he would spend the best
part of the day in the front balcony, like the attentive angler
poring on his float; and the better to support the tedium, he would
frequently console himself with his clay pipe.  On several
occasions, passers-by appeared to be arrested by the ticket, and on
several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very doorstep by
the carriageful; but it appeared there was something repulsive in
the appearance of the house; for with one accord, they would cast
but one look upward, and hastily resume their onward progress or
direct the driver to proceed.  Somerset had thus the mortification
of actually meeting the eye of a large number of lodging-seekers;
and though he hastened to withdraw his pipe, and to compose his
features to an air of invitation, he was never rewarded by so much
as an inquiry.  'Can there,' he thought, 'be anything repellent in
myself?'  But a candid examination in one of the pier-glasses of
the drawing-room led him to dismiss the fear.

Something, however, was amiss.  His vast and accurate calculations
on the fly-leaves of books, or on the backs of playbills, appeared
to have been an idle sacrifice of time.  By these, he had variously
computed the weekly takings of the house, from sums as modest as
five-and-twenty shillings, up to the more majestic figure of a
hundred pounds; and yet, in despite of the very elements of
arithmetic, here he was making literally nothing.

This incongruity impressed him deeply and occupied his thoughtful
leisure on the balcony; and at last it seemed to him that he had
detected the error of his method.  'This,' he reflected, 'is an age
of generous display:  the age of the sandwich-man, of Griffiths, of
Pears' legendary soap, and of Eno's fruit salt, which, by sheer
brass and notoriety, and the most disgusting pictures I ever
remember to have seen, has overlaid that comforter of my childhood,
Lamplough's pyretic saline.  Lamplough was genteel, Eno was
omnipresent; Lamplough was trite, Eno original and abominably
vulgar; and here have I, a man of some pretensions to knowledge of
the world, contented myself with half a sheet of note-paper, a few
cold words which do not directly address the imagination, and the
adornment (if adornment it may be called) of four red wafers!  Am
I, then, to sink with Lamplough, or to soar with Eno?  Am I to
adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming in a duke? or to
take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the
tradesman and the poet?'

Pursuant upon these meditations, he procured several sheets of the
very largest size of drawing-paper; and laying forth his paints,
proceeded to compose an ensign that might attract the eye, and at
the same time, in his own phrase, directly address the imagination
of the passenger.  Something taking in the way of colour, a good,
savoury choice of words, and a realistic design setting forth the
life a lodger might expect to lead within the walls of that palace
of delight:  these, he perceived, must be the elements of his
advertisement.  It was possible, upon the one hand, to depict the
sober pleasures of domestic life, the evening fire, blond-headed
urchins and the hissing urn; but on the other, it was possible (and
he almost felt as if it were more suited to his muse) to set forth
the charms of an existence somewhat wider in its range or, boldly
say, the paradise of the Mohammedan.  So long did the artist waver
between these two views, that, before he arrived at a conclusion,
he had finally conceived and completed both designs.  With the
proverbially tender heart of the parent, he found himself unable to
sacrifice either of these offsprings of his art; and decided to
expose them on alternate days.  'In this way,' he thought, 'I shall
address myself indifferently to all classes of the world.'

The tossing of a penny decided the only remaining point; and the
more imaginative canvas received the suffrages of fortune, and
appeared first in the window of the mansion.  It was of a high
fancy, the legend eloquently writ, the scheme of colour taking and
bold; and but for the imperfection of the artist's drawing, it
might have been taken for a model of its kind.  As it was, however,
when viewed from his favourite point against the garden railings,
and with some touch of distance, it caused a pleasurable rising of
the artist's heart.  'I have thrown away,' he ejaculated, 'an
invaluable motive; and this shall be the subject of my first
academy picture.'

The fate of neither of these works was equal to its merit.  A crowd
would certainly, from time to time, collect before the area-
railings; but they came to jeer and not to speculate; and those who
pushed their inquiries further, were too plainly animated by the
spirit of derision.  The racier of the two cartoons displayed,
indeed, no symptom of attractive merit; and though it had a certain
share of that success called scandalous, failed utterly of its
effect.  On the day, however, of the second appearance of the
companion work, a real inquirer did actually present himself before
the eyes of Somerset.

This was a gentlemanly man, with some marks of recent merriment,
and his voice under inadequate control.

'I beg your pardon,' said he, 'but what is the meaning of your
extraordinary bill?'

'I beg yours,' returned Somerset hotly.  'Its meaning is
sufficiently explicit.'  And being now, from dire experience,
fearful of ridicule, he was preparing to close the door, when the
gentleman thrust his cane into the aperture.

'Not so fast, I beg of you,' said he.  'If you really let
apartments, here is a possible tenant at your door; and nothing
would give me greater pleasure than to see the accommodation and to
learn your terms.'

His heart joyously beating, Somerset admitted the visitor, showed
him over the various apartments, and, with some return of his
persuasive eloquence, expounded their attractions.  The gentleman
was particularly pleased by the elegant proportions of the drawing-
room.

'This,' he said, 'would suit me very well.  What, may I ask, would
be your terms a week, for this floor and the one above it?'

'I was thinking,' returned Somerset, 'of a hundred pounds.'

'Surely not,' exclaimed the gentleman.

'Well, then,' returned Somerset, 'fifty.'

The gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement.  'You
seem to be strangely elastic in your demands,' said he.  'What if I
were to proceed on your own principle of division, and offer
twenty-five?'

'Done!' cried Somerset; and then, overcome by a sudden
embarrassment, 'You see,' he added apologetically, 'it is all found
money for me.'

'Really?' said the stranger, looking at him all the while with
growing wonder.  'Without extras, then?'

'I--I suppose so,' stammered the keeper of the lodging-house.

'Service included?' pursued the gentleman.

'Service?' cried Somerset.  'Do you mean that you expect me to
empty your slops?'

The gentleman regarded him with a very friendly interest.  'My dear
fellow,' said he, 'if you take my advice, you will give up this
business.'  And thereupon he resumed his hat and took himself away.

This smarting disappointment produced a strong effect on the artist
of the cartoons; and he began with shame to eat up his rosier
illusions.  First one and then the other of his great works was
condemned, withdrawn from exhibition, and relegated, as a mere
wall-picture, to the decoration of the dining-room.  Their place
was taken by a replica of the original wafered announcement, to
which, in particularly large letters, he had added the pithy
rubric:  'NO SERVICE.'  Meanwhile he had fallen into something as
nearly bordering on low spirits as was consistent with his
disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the
laughable turn of his late interview, and the judicial blindness of
the public to the merit of the twin cartoons.

Perhaps a week had passed before he was again startled by the note
of the knocker.  A gentleman of a somewhat foreign and somewhat
military air, yet closely shaven and wearing a soft hat, desired in
the politest terms to visit the apartments.  He had (he explained)
a friend, a gentleman in tender health, desirous of a sedate and
solitary life, apart from interruptions and the noises of the
common lodging-house.  'The unusual clause,' he continued, 'in your
announcement, particularly struck me.  "This," I said, "is the
place for Mr. Jones."  You are yourself, sir, a professional
gentleman?' concluded the visitor, looking keenly in Somerset's
face.

'I am an artist,' replied the young man lightly.

'And these,' observed the other, taking a side glance through the
open door of the dining-room, which they were then passing, 'these
are some of your works.  Very remarkable.'  And he again and still
more sharply peered into the countenance of the young man.

Somerset, unable to suppress a blush, made the more haste to lead
his visitor upstairs and to display the apartments.

'Excellent,' observed the stranger, as he looked from one of the
back windows.  'Is that a mews behind, sir?  Very good.  Well, sir:
see here.  My friend will take your drawing-room floor; he will
sleep in the back drawing-room; his nurse, an excellent Irish
widow, will attend on all his wants and occupy a garret; he will
pay you the round sum of ten dollars a week; and you, on your part,
will engage to receive no other lodger?  I think that fair.'

Somerset had scarcely words in which to clothe his gratitude and
joy.

'Agreed,' said the other; 'and to spare you trouble, my friend will
bring some men with him to make the changes.  You will find him a
retiring inmate, sir; receives but few, and rarely leaves the
house, except at night.'

'Since I have been in this house,' returned Somerset, 'I have
myself, unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone abroad except in
the evening.  But a man,' he added, 'must have some amusement.'

An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset
sat down to compute in English money the value of the figure named.
The result of this investigation filled him with amazement and
disgust; but it was now too late; nothing remained but to endure;
and he awaited the arrival of his tenant, still trying, by various
arithmetical expedients, to obtain a more favourable quotation for
the dollar.  With the approach of dusk, however, his impatience
drove him once more to the front balcony.  The night fell, mild and
airless; the lamps shone around the central darkness of the garden;
and through the tall grove of trees that intervened, many warmly
illuminated windows on the farther side of the square, told their
tale of white napery, choice wine, and genial hospitality.  The
stars were already thickening overhead, when the young man's eyes
alighted on a procession of three four-wheelers, coasting round the
garden railing and bound for the Superfluous Mansion.  They were
laden with formidable boxes; moved in a military order, one
following another; and, by the extreme slowness of their advance,
inspired Somerset with the most serious ideas of his tenant's
malady.

By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the
pavement; and from the two first, there had alighted the military
gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters.  These
proceeded instantly to take possession of the house; with their own
hands, and firmly rejecting Somerset's assistance, they carried in
the various crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and
transferred to the back drawing-room the bed in which the tenant
was to sleep; and it was not until the bustle of arrival had
subsided, and the arrangements were complete, that there descended,
from the third of the three vehicles, a gentleman of great stature
and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder of a woman in a
widow's dress, and himself covered by a long cloak and muffled in a
coloured comforter.

Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into
the back drawing-room; the other men departed; silence redescended
on the house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before half-
past ten, and, with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent
public-house in the neighbourhood, Somerset might have still
supposed himself to be alone in the Superfluous Mansion.

Day followed day; and still the young man had never come by speech
or sight of his mysterious lodger.  The doors of the drawing-room
flat were never open; and although Somerset could hear him moving
to and fro, the tall man had never quitted the privacy of his
apartments.  Visitors, indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk,
sometimes at intempestuous hours of night or morning; men, for the
most part; some meanly attired, some decently; some loud, some
cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset, displeasing.  A
certain air of fear and secrecy was common to them all; they were
all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military
gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at
all; and as for the doctor who attended the sick man, his manners
were not suggestive of a university career.  The nurse, again, was
scarcely a desirable house-fellow.  Since her arrival, the fall of
whisky in the young man's private bottle was much accelerated; and
though never communicative, she was at times unpleasantly familiar.
When asked about the patient's health, she would dolorously shake
her head, and declare that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful
condition.

Yet somehow Somerset had early begun to entertain the notion that
his complaint was other than bodily.  The ill-looking birds that
gathered to the house, the strange noises that sounded from the
drawing-room in the dead hours of night, the careless attendance
and intemperate habits of the nurse, the entire absence of
correspondence, the entire seclusion of Mr. Jones himself, whose
face, up to that hour, he could not have sworn to in a court of
justice--all weighed unpleasantly upon the young man's mind.  A
sense of something evil, irregular and underhand, haunted and
depressed him; and this uneasy sentiment was the more firmly rooted
in his mind, when, in the fulness of time, he had an opportunity of
observing the features of his tenant.  It fell in this way.  The
young landlord was awakened about four in the morning by a noise in
the hall.  Leaping to his feet, and opening the door of the
library, he saw the tall man, candle in hand, in earnest
conversation with the gentleman who had taken the rooms.  The faces
of both were strongly illuminated; and in that of his tenant,
Somerset could perceive none of the marks of disease, but every
sign of health, energy, and resolution.  While he was still
looking, the visitor took his departure; and the invalid, having
carefully fastened the front door, sprang upstairs without a trace
of lassitude.

That night upon his pillow, Somerset began to kindle once more into
the hot fit of the detective fever; and the next morning resumed
the practice of his art with careless hand and an abstracted mind.
The day was destined to be fertile in surprises; nor had he long
been seated at the easel ere the first of these occurred.  A cab
laden with baggage drew up before the door; and Mrs. Luxmore in
person rapidly mounted the steps and began to pound upon the
knocker.  Somerset hastened to attend the summons.

'My dear fellow,' she said, with the utmost gaiety, 'here I come
dropping from the moon.  I am delighted to find you faithful; and I
have no doubt you will be equally pleased to be restored to
liberty.'

Somerset could find no words, whether of protest or welcome; and
the spirited old lady pushed briskly by him and paused on the
threshold of the dining-room.  The sight that met her eyes was one
well calculated to inspire astonishment.  The mantelpiece was
arrayed with saucepans and empty bottles; on the fire some chops
were frying; the floor was littered from end to end with books,
clothes, walking-canes and the materials of the painter's craft;
but what far outstripped the other wonders of the place was the
corner which had been arranged for the study of still-life.  This
formed a sort of rockery; conspicuous upon which, according to the
principles of the art of composition, a cabbage was relieved
against a copper kettle, and both contrasted with the mail of a
boiled lobster.

'My gracious goodness!' cried the lady of the house; and then,
turning in wrath on the young man, 'From what rank in life are you
sprung?' she demanded.  'You have the exterior of a gentleman; but
from the astonishing evidences before me, I should say you can only
be a greengrocer's man.  Pray, gather up your vegetables, and let
me see no more of you.'

'Madam,' babbled Somerset, 'you promised me a month's warning.'

'That was under a misapprehension,' returned the old lady.  'I now
give you warning to leave at once.'

'Madam,' said the young man, 'I wish I could; and indeed, as far as
I am concerned, it might be done.  But then, my lodger!'

'Your lodger?' echoed Mrs. Luxmore.

'My lodger:  why should I deny it?' returned Somerset.  'He is only
by the week.'

The old lady sat down upon a chair.  'You have a lodger?--you?' she
cried.  'And pray, how did you get him?'

'By advertisement,' replied the young man. 'O madam, I have not
lived unobservantly.  I adopted'--his eyes involuntarily shifted to
the cartoons--'I adopted every method.'

Her eyes had followed his; for the first time in Somerset's
experience, she produced a double eye-glass; and as soon as the
full merit of the works had flashed upon her, she gave way to peal
after peal of her trilling and soprano laughter.

'Oh, I think you are perfectly delicious!' she cried.  'I do hope
you had them in the window.  M'Pherson,' she continued, crying to
her maid, who had been all this time grimly waiting in the hall, 'I
lunch with Mr. Somerset.  Take the cellar key and bring some wine.'

In this gay humour she continued throughout the luncheon; presented
Somerset with a couple of dozen of wine, which she made M'Pherson
bring up from the cellar--'as a present, my dear,' she said, with
another burst of tearful merriment, 'for your charming pictures,
which you must be sure to leave me when you go;' and finally,
protesting that she dared not spoil the absurdest houseful of
madmen in the whole of London, departed (as she vaguely phrased it)
for the continent of Europe.

She was no sooner gone, than Somerset encountered in the corridor
the Irish nurse; sober, to all appearance, and yet a prey to
singularly strong emotion.  It was made to appear, from her
account, that Mr. Jones had already suffered acutely in his health
from Mrs. Luxmore's visit, and that nothing short of a full
explanation could allay the invalid's uneasiness.  Somerset,
somewhat staring, told what he thought fit of the affair.

'Is that all?' cried the woman.  'As God sees you, is that all?'

'My good woman,' said the young man, 'I have no idea what you can
be driving at.  Suppose the lady were my friend's wife, suppose she
were my fairy godmother, suppose she were the Queen of Portugal;
and how should that affect yourself or Mr. Jones?'

'Blessed Mary!' cried the nurse, 'it's he that will be glad to hear
it!'

And immediately she fled upstairs.

Somerset, on his part, returned to the dining-room, and with a very
thoughtful brow and ruminating many theories, disposed of the
remainder of the bottle.  It was port; and port is a wine, sole
among its equals and superiors, that can in some degree support the
competition of tobacco.  Sipping, smoking, and theorising, Somerset
moved on from suspicion to suspicion, from resolve to resolve,
still growing braver and rosier as the bottle ebbed.  He was a
sceptic, none prouder of the name; he had no horror at command,
whether for crimes or vices, but beheld and embraced the world,
with an immoral approbation, the frequent consequence of youth and
health.  At the same time, he felt convinced that he dwelt under
the same roof with secret malefactors; and the unregenerate
instinct of the chase impelled him to severity.  The bottle had run
low; the summer sun had finally withdrawn; and at the same moment,
night and the pangs of hunger recalled him from his dreams.

He went forth, and dined in the Criterion:  a dinner in consonance,
not so much with his purse, as with the admirable wine he had
discussed.  What with one thing and another, it was long past
midnight when he returned home.  A cab was at the door; and
entering the hall, Somerset found himself face to face with one of
the most regular of the few who visited Mr. Jones:  a man of
powerful figure, strong lineaments, and a chin-beard in the
American fashion.  This person was carrying on one shoulder a black
portmanteau, seemingly of considerable weight.  That he should find
a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night, recalled some odd
stories to the young man's memory; he had heard of lodgers who thus
gradually drained away, not only their own effects, but the very
furniture and fittings of the house that sheltered them; and now,
in a mood between pleasantry and suspicion, and aping the manner of
a drunkard, he roughly bumped against the man with the chin-beard
and knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor.  With a
face struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard
called lamentably on the name of his maker, and fell in a mere heap
on the mat at the foot of the stairs.  At the same time, though
only for a single instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the
Irish nurse popped out like rabbits over the banisters of the first
floor; and on both the same scare and pallor were apparent.

The sight of this incredible emotion turned Somerset to stone, and
he continued speechless, while the man gathered himself together,
and, with the help of the handrail and audibly thanking God,
scrambled once more upon his feet.

'What in Heaven's name ails you?' gasped the young man as soon as
he could find words and utterance.

'Have you a drop of brandy?' returned the other.  'I am sick.'

Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man
with the chin-beard; who then, somewhat restored, began to confound
himself in apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness,
the result, he said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having
taken leave with a hand that still sweated and trembled, he
gingerly resumed his burthen and departed.

Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep.  What, he asked himself,
had been the contents of the black portmanteau?  Stolen goods? the
carcase of one murdered? or--and at the thought he sat upright in
bed--an infernal machine?  He took a solemn vow that he would set
these doubts at rest; and with the next morning, installed himself
beside the dining-room window, vigilant with eye; and ear, to await
and profit by the earliest opportunity.

The hours went heavily by.  Within the house there was no
circumstance of novelty; unless it might be that the nurse more
frequently made little journeys round the corner of the square, and
before afternoon was somewhat loose of speech and gait.  A little
after six, however, there came round the corner of the gardens a
very handsome and elegantly dressed young woman, who paused a
little way off, and for some time, and with frequent sighs,
contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion.  It was not the
first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it, like
our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had
already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage,
and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye.  He
hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little
nearer to the window to enjoy the sight.  What was his surprise,
however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted
the steps and tapped discreetly at the door!  He made haste to get
before the Irish nurse, who was not improbably asleep, and had the
satisfaction to receive this gracious visitor in person.

She inquired for Mr. Jones; and then, without transition, asked the
young man if he were the person of the house (and at the words, he
thought he could perceive her to be smiling), 'because,' she added,
'if you are, I should like to see some of the other rooms.'
Somerset told her he was under an engagement to receive no other
lodgers; but she assured him that would be no matter, as these were
friends of Mr. Jones's.  'And,' she continued, moving suddenly to
the dining-room door, 'let us begin here.'  Somerset was too late
to prevent her entering, and perhaps he lacked the courage to
essay.  'Ah!' she cried, 'how changed it is!'

'Madam,' cried the young man, 'since your entrance, it is I who
have the right to say so.'

She received this inane compliment with a demure and conscious
droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the
mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the
wonders of the two apartments.  She gazed upon the cartoons with
sparkling eyes, and a heightened colour, and in a somewhat
breathless voice, expressed a high opinion of their merits.  She
praised the effective disposition of the rockery, and in the
bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to defend the
entry, she fairly broke forth in admiration.  'How simple and
manly!' she cried:  'none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is
so detestable in a man!'  Hard upon this, telling him, before he
had time to reply, that she very well knew her way, and would
trouble him no further, she took her leave with an engaging smile,
and ascended the staircase alone.

For more than an hour the young lady remained closeted with Mr.
Jones; and at the end of that time, the night being now come
completely, they left the house in company.  This was the first
time since the arrival of his lodger, that Somerset had found
himself alone with the Irish widow; and without the loss of any
more time than was required by decency, he stepped to the foot of
the stairs and hailed her by her name.  She came instantly,
wreathed in weak smiles and with a nodding head; and when the young
man politely offered to introduce her to the treasures of his art,
she swore that nothing could afford her greater pleasure, for,
though she had never crossed the threshold, she had frequently
observed his beautiful pictures through the door.  On entering the
dining-room, the sight of a bottle and two glasses prepared her to
be a gentle critic; and as soon as the pictures had been viewed and
praised, she was easily persuaded to join the painter in a single
glass.  'Here,' she said, 'are my respects; and a pleasure it is,
in this horrible house, to see a gentleman like yourself, so
affable and free, and a very nice painter, I am sure.'  One glass
so agreeably prefaced, was sure to lead to the acceptance of a
second; at the third, Somerset was free to cease from the
affectation of keeping her company; and as for the fourth, she
asked it of her own accord.  'For indeed,' said she, 'what with all
these clocks and chemicals, without a drop of the creature life
would be impossible entirely.  And you seen yourself that even
M'Guire was glad to beg for it.  And even himself, when he is
downhearted with all these cruel disappointments, though as
temperate a man as any child, will be sometimes crying for a glass
of it.  And I'll thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.'
Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed
dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband.  Then
she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet,
made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her
head upon the lobster, fell into stertorous slumbers.

Somerset mounted at once to the first story, and opened the door of
the drawing-room, which was brilliantly lit by several lamps.  It
was a great apartment; looking on the square with three tall
windows, and joined by a pair of ample folding-doors to the next
room; elegant in proportion, papered in sea-green, furnished in
velvet of a delicate blue, and adorned with a majestic mantelpiece
of variously tinted marbles.  Such was the room that Somerset
remembered; that which he now beheld was changed in almost every
feature:  the furniture covered with a figured chintz; the walls
hung with a rhubarb-coloured paper, and diversified by the
curtained recesses for no less than seven windows.  It seemed to
himself that he must have entered, without observing the
transition, into the adjoining house.  Presently from these more
specious changes, his eye condescended to the many curious objects
with which the floor was littered.  Here were the locks of
dismounted pistols; clocks and clockwork in every stage of
demolition, some still busily ticking, some reduced to their dainty
elements; a great company of carboys, jars and bottles; a
carpenter's bench and a laboratory-table.

The back drawing-room, to which Somerset proceeded, had likewise
undergone a change.  It was transformed to the exact appearance of
a common lodging-house bedroom; a bed with green curtains occupied
one corner; and the window was blocked by the regulation table and
mirror.  The door of a small closet here attracted the young man's
attention; and striking a vesta, he opened it and entered.  On a
table several wigs and beards were lying spread; about the walls
hung an incongruous display of suits and overcoats; and conspicuous
among the last the young man observed a large overall of the most
costly sealskin.  In a flash his mind reverted to the advertisement
in the Standard newspaper.  The great height of his lodger, the
disproportionate breadth of his shoulders, and the strange
particulars of his instalment, all pointed to the same conclusion.

The vesta had now burned to his fingers; and taking the coat upon
his arm, Somerset hastily returned to the lighted drawing-room.
There, with a mixture of fear and admiration, he pored upon its
goodly proportions and the regularity and softness of the pile.
The sight of a large pier-glass put another fancy in his head.  He
donned the fur-coat; and standing before the mirror in an attitude
suggestive of a Russian prince, he thrust his hands into the ample
pockets.  There his fingers encountered a folded journal.  He drew
it out, and recognised the type and paper of the Standard; and at
the same instant, his eyes alighted on the offer of two hundred
pounds.  Plainly then, his lodger, now no longer mysterious, had
laid aside his coat on the very day of the appearance of the
advertisement.

He was thus standing, the tell-tale coat upon his back, the
incriminating paper in his hand, when the door opened and the tall
lodger, with a firm but somewhat pallid face, stepped into the room
and closed the door again behind him.  For some time, the two
looked upon each other in perfect silence; then Mr. Jones moved
forward to the table, took a seat, and still without once changing
the direction of his eyes, addressed the young man.

'You are right,' he said.  'It is for me the blood money is
offered.  And now what will you do?'

It was a question to which Somerset was far from being able to
reply.  Taken as he was at unawares, masquerading in the man's own
coat, and surrounded by a whole arsenal of diabolical explosives,
the keeper of the lodging-house was silenced.

'Yes,' resumed the other, 'I am he.  I am that man, whom with
impotent hate and fear, they still hunt from den to den, from
disguise to disguise.  Yes, my landlord, you have it in your power,
if you be poor, to lay the basis of your fortune; if you be
unknown, to capture honour at one snatch.  You have hocussed an
innocent widow; and I find you here in my apartment, for whose use
I pay you in stamped money, searching my wardrobe, and your hand--
shame, sir!--your hand in my very pocket.  You can now complete the
cycle of your ignominious acts, by what will be at once the
simplest, the safest, and the most remunerative.'  The speaker
paused as if to emphasise his words; and then, with a great change
of tone and manner, thus resumed:  'And yet, sir, when I look upon
your face, I feel certain that I cannot be deceived:  certain that
in spite of all, I have the honour and pleasure of speaking to a
gentleman.  Take off my coat, sir--which but cumbers you.  Divest
yourself of this confusion:  that which is but thought upon, thank
God, need be no burthen to the conscience; we have all harboured
guilty thoughts:  and if it flashed into your mind to sell my flesh
and blood, my anguish in the dock, and the sweat of my death agony-
-it was a thought, dear sir, you were as incapable of acting on, as
I of any further question of your honour.'  At these words, the
speaker, with a very open, smiling countenance, like a forgiving
father, offered Somerset his hand.

It was not in the young man's nature to refuse forgiveness or
dissect generosity.  He instantly, and almost without thought,
accepted the proffered grasp.

'And now,' resumed the lodger, 'now that I hold in mine your loyal
hand, I lay by my apprehensions, I dismiss suspicion, I go further-
-by an effort of will, I banish the memory of what is past.  How
you came here, I care not:  enough that you are here--as my guest.
Sit ye down; and let us, with your good permission, improve
acquaintance over a glass of excellent whisky.'

So speaking, he produced glasses and a bottle:  and the pair
pledged each other in silence.

'Confess,' observed the smiling host, 'you were surprised at the
appearance of the room.'

'I was indeed,' said Somerset; 'nor can I imagine the purpose of
these changes.'

'These,' replied the conspirator, 'are the devices by which I
continue to exist.  Conceive me now, accused before one of your
unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the
singular variety of their reports!  One will have visited me in
this drawing-room as it originally stood; a second finds it as it
is to-night; and to-morrow or next day, all may have been changed.
If you love romance (as artists do), few lives are more romantic
than that of the obscure individual now addressing you.  Obscure
yet famous.  Mine is an anonymous, infernal glory.  By infamous
means, I work towards my bright purpose.  I found the liberty and
peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future smiles upon
that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the existence of a hunted
brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell's
dexterities.'

Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before
him, and listened to his heated rhapsody, with indescribable
bewilderment.  He looked him in the face with curious
particularity; saw there the marks of education; and wondered the
more profoundly.

'Sir,' he said--'for I know not whether I should still address you
as Mr. Jones--'

'Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland,
by all or any of these you may address me,' said the plotter; 'for
all I have at some time borne.  Yet that which I most prize, that
which is most feared, hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found
in your directories; it is not a name current in post-offices or
banks; and, indeed, like the celebrated clan M'Gregor, I may justly
describe myself as being nameless by day.  But,' he continued,
rising to his feet, 'by night, and among my desperate followers, I
am the redoubted Zero.'

Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed
surprise and gratification.  'I am to understand,' he continued,
'that, under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?'
{3}

The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.

'I do,' he said.  'In this dark period of time, a star--the star of
dynamite--has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise
its use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such
incredible difficulties and disappointments, few have been more
assiduous, and not many--'  He paused, and a shade of embarrassment
appeared upon his face--'not many have been more successful than
myself.'

'I can imagine,' observed Somerset, 'that, from the sweeping
consequences looked for, the career is not devoid of interest.  You
have, besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide and
seek.  But it would still seem to me--I speak as a layman--that
nothing could be simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal
machine and retire to an adjacent county to await the painful
consequences.'

'You speak, indeed,' returned the plotter, with some evidence of
warmth, 'you speak, indeed, most ignorantly.  Do you make nothing,
then, of such a peril as we share this moment?  Do you think it
nothing to occupy a house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a
word, literally tottering to its fall?'

'Good God!' ejaculated Somerset.

'And when you speak of ease,' pursued Zero, 'in this age of
scientific studies, you fill me with surprise.  Are you not aware
that chemicals are proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as
capricious as the very devil?  Do you see upon my brow these
furrows of anxiety?  Do you observe the silver threads that mingle
with my hair?  Clockwork, clockwork has stamped them on my brow--
chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks!  No, Mr. Somerset,' he
resumed, after a moment's pause, his voice still quivering with
sensibility, 'you must not suppose the dynamiter's life to be all
gold.  On the contrary, you cannot picture to yourself the
bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like
mine.  I have toiled (let us say) for months, up early and down
late; my bag is ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried
with white face to deposit the instrument of ruin; we await the
fall of England, the massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and
execration; and lo! a snap like that of a child's pistol, an
offensive smell, and the entire loss of so much time and plant!
If,' he concluded, musingly, 'we had been merely able to recover
the lost bags, I believe with but a touch or two, I could have
remedied the peccant engine.  But what with the loss of plant and
the almost insuperable scientific difficulties of the task, our
friends in France are almost ready to desert the chosen medium.
They propose, instead, to break up the drainage system of cities
and sweep off whole populations with the devastating typhoid
pestilence:  a tempting and a scientific project:  a process,
indiscriminate indeed, but of idyllical simplicity.  I recognise
its elegance; but, sir, I have something of the poet in my nature;
something, possibly, of the tribune.  And, for my small part, I
shall remain devoted to that more emphatic, more striking, and (if
you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb.  Yes,' he
cried, with unshaken hope, 'I will still continue, and, I feel it
in my bosom, I shall yet succeed.'

'Two things I remark,' said Somerset.  'The first somewhat staggers
me.  Have you, then--in all this course of life, which you have
sketched so vividly--have you not once succeeded?'

'Pardon me,' said Zero.  'I have had one success.  You behold in me
the author of the outrage of Red Lion Court.'

'But if I remember right,' objected Somerset, 'the thing was a
fiasco.  A scavenger's barrow and some copies of the Weekly Budget-
-these were the only victims.'

'You will pardon me again,' returned Zero with positive asperity:
'a child was injured.'

'And that fitly brings me to my second point,' said Somerset.  'For
I observed you to employ the word "indiscriminate."  Now, surely, a
scavenger's barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the
very acme and top pin-point of indiscriminate, and, pardon me, of
ineffectual reprisal.'

'Did I employ the word?' asked Zero.  'Well, I will not defend it.
But for efficiency, you touch on graver matters; and before
entering upon so vast a subject, permit me once more to fill our
glasses.  Disputation is dry work,' he added, with a charming
gaiety of manner.

Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a stalwart
grog; and Zero, leaning back with an air of some complacency,
proceeded more largely to develop his opinions.

'The indiscriminate?' he began.  'War, my dear sir, is
indiscriminate.  War spares not the child; it spares not the barrow
of the harmless scavenger.  No more,' he concluded, beaming, 'no
more do I.  Whatever may strike fear, whatever may confound or
paralyse the activities of the guilty nation, barrow or child,
imperial Parliament or excursion steamer, is welcome to my simple
plans.  You are not,' he inquired, with a shade of sympathetic
interest, 'you are not, I trust, a believer?'

'Sir, I believe in nothing,' said the young man.

'You are then,' replied Zero, 'in a position to grasp my argument.
We agree that humanity is the object, the glorious triumph of
humanity; and being pledged to labour for that end, and face to
face with the banded opposition of kings, parliaments, churches,
and the members of the force, who am I--who are we, dear sir--to
affect a nicety about the tools employed?  You might, perhaps,
expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister Gladstone, the rigid
Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error.
Our appeal is to the body of the people; it is these that we would
touch and interest.  Now, sir, have you observed the English
housemaid?'

'I should think I had,' cried Somerset.

'From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,'
returned the conspirator politely.  'A type apart; a very charming
figure; and thoroughly adapted to our ends.  The neat cap, the
clean print, the comely person, the engaging manner; her position
between classes, parents in one, employers in another; the
probability that she will have at least one sweet-heart, whose
feelings we shall address: --yes, I have a leaning--call it, if you
will, a weakness--for the housemaid.  Not that I would be
understood to despise the nurse.  For the child is a very
interesting feature:  I have long since marked out the child as the
sensitive point in society.'  He wagged his head, with a wise,
pensive smile.  'And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of
our trade, let me now narrate to you a little incident of an
explosive bomb, that fell out some weeks ago under my own
observation.  It fell out thus.'

And Zero, leaning back in his chair, narrated the following simple
tale.



ZERO'S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB. {4}



I dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a
private chamber at St. James's Hall.  You have seen the man:  it
was M'Guire, the most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself
expert in our contrivances.  Hence the necessity of our meeting;
for I need not remind you what enormous issues depend upon the nice
adjustment of the engine.  I set our little petard for half an
hour, the scene of action being hard by; and the better to avert
miscarriage, employed a device, a recent invention of my own, by
which the opening of the Gladstone bag in which the bomb was
carried, should instantly determine the explosion.  M'Guire was
somewhat dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him:  and
pointed out, with excellent, clear good sense, that should he be
arrested, it would probably involve him in the fall of our
opponents.  But I was not to be moved, made a strong appeal to his
patriotism, gave him a good glass of whisky, and despatched him on
his glorious errand.

Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square:  a
spot, I think, admirably chosen; not only for the sake of the
dramatist, still very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English
race, in spite of his disgusting political opinions; but from the
fact that the seats in the immediate neighbourhood are often
thronged by children, errand-boys, unfortunate young ladies of the
poorer class and infirm old men--all classes making a direct appeal
to public pity, and therefore suitable with our designs.  As
M'Guire drew near his heart was inflamed by the most noble
sentiment of triumph.  Never had he seen the garden so crowded;
children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and
fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old, sick
pensioner sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a
stick with which he walked (for he was disabled by wounds)
reclining on his knee.  Guilty England would thus be stabbed in the
most delicate quarters; the moment had, indeed, been well selected;
and M'Guire, with a radiant provision of the event, drew merrily
nearer.  Suddenly his eye alighted on the burly form of a
policeman, standing hard by the effigy in an attitude of watch.  My
bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and there,
at different points of the enclosure, other men stood or loitered,
affecting an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the shrubs,
feigning to talk, feigning to be weary and to rest upon the
benches.  M'Guire was no child in these affairs; he instantly
divined one of the plots of the Machiavellian Gladstone.

A chief difficulty with which we have to deal, is a certain
nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of
some design draws near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to
suffer some revulsion of intent; and frequently despatch to the
authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, but vague anonymous
warnings.  But for this purely accidental circumstance, England had
long ago been an historical expression.  On the receipt of such a
letter, the Government lay a trap for their adversaries, and
surround the threatened spot with hirelings.  My blood sometimes
boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those who sell
themselves for money in such a cause.  True, thanks to the
generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a very
comfortable stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts
me quite beyond the reach of any peddling, mercenary thoughts;
M'Guire, again, ere he joined our ranks, was on the brink of
starving, and now, thank God! receives a decent income.  That is as
it should be; the patriot must not be diverted from his task by any
base consideration; and the distinction between our position and
that of the police is too obvious to be stated.

Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged;
the Government had craftily filled the place with minions; even the
pensioner was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our
emissary, without other aid or protection than the simple apparatus
in his bag, found himself confronted by force; brutal force; that
strong hand which was a character of the ages of oppression.
Should he venture to deposit the machine, it was almost certain
that he would be observed and arrested; a cry would arise; and
there was just a fear that the police might not be present in
sufficient force, to protect him from the savagery of the mob.  The
scheme must be delayed.  He stood with his bag on his arm,
pretending to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there flashed
into his mind a thought to appal the bravest.  The machine was set;
at the appointed hour, it must explode; and how, in the interval,
was he to be rid of it?

Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot.  There
he was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life,
for he is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him;
and now condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by
dynamite!  The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope;
he saw the Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled
against the railing.  It is probable he fainted.

When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.

'My God!' he cried.

'You seem to be unwell, sir,' said the hireling.

'I feel better now,' cried poor M'Guire:  and with uneven steps,
for the pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his
footing, he fled from the scene of this disaster.  Fled?  Alas,
from what was he fleeing?  Did he not carry that from which he fled
along with him? and had he the wings of the eagle, had he the
swiftness of the ocean winds, could he have been rapt into the
uttermost quarters of the earth, how should he escape the ruin that
he carried?  We have heard of living men who have been fettered to
the dead; the grievance, soberly considered, is no more than
sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him who should
be linked, like poor M'Guire, to an explosive bomb.