all."

Claws wiped the trace of Turkish coffee and the beginnings of a
smile from his lips, and slowly lowered his dexter eyelid. Which,
being interpreted, probably meant, "I DON'T think!"




TOBERMORY



It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that
indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold
storage, and there is nothing to hunt--unless one is bounded on
the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully
gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemley's house-party was not
bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a
full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this
particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the
season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in
the company of that fatigued restlessness which means a dread of
the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The
undisguised openmouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on
the homely negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all
her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the
vaguest reputation. Some one had said he was "clever," and he had
got his invitation in the moderate expectation, on the part of his
hostess, that some portion at least of his cleverness would be