huge hat looped up in front, wearing a sword in a scabbard shabby and
huge, and looking blacker than the darkness, riding on a lean horse
slowly up to the inn. Whether his were the emeralds, or who he was,
or why he rode a lame horse on such a night, I did not stop to
discover, but went at once from the inn as he strode in his great
black riding coat up to the door.

And that was the last that was ever seen of the wayfarer; the
blacksmith, the carpenter or the postman's son.




THE OLD BROWN COAT

My friend, Mr. Douglas Ainslie, tells me that Sir James Barrie once
told him this story. The story, or rather the fragment, was as
follows.

A man strolling into an auction somewhere abroad, I think it must have
been France, for they bid in francs, found they were selling old
clothes. And following some idle whim he soon found himself bidding
for an old coat. A man bid against him, he bid against the man. Up
and up went the price till the old coat was knocked down to him for
twenty pounds. As he went away with the coat he saw the other bidder
looking at him with an expression of fury.

That's as far as the story goes. But how, Mr. Ainslie asked me, did
the matter develop, and why that furious look? I at once made
enquiries at a reliable source and have ascertained that the man's