He was not, however, prepared to hear of the arrest of the Mouffetish
before another sunset, and then of his hugger-mugger death, of which the
world talks to this day; though the manner of it is only known to a few,
and to them it is an ugly memory.






ALL THE WORLD'S MAD

Up to thirty-two years of age David Hyam, of the village of Framley, in
Staffordshire, was not a man of surprises. With enough of this world's
goods to give him comfort of body and suave gravity of manner, the figure
he cut was becoming to his Quaker origin and profession. No one
suspected the dynamic possibilities of his nature till a momentous day in
August, in the middle Victorian period, when news from Bristol came that
an uncle in chocolate had died and left him the third of a large fortune,
without condition or proviso.

This was of a Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first
startling act--he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl
in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day,
and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting--for Mistress
Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she
was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly
accepted David, at the same time taunting him softly with the fact that
he had recklessly declared he would never marry, even saying profanely
that upon his word and honour he never would! She repeated to him what