Part 7

"Challice!" his tutor clapped him on the shoulder. "I haven't seen you since you took your degree. Splendid, my boy! But it might have been better. I hear you are reading Law--good. With the House before you? Good again! Let me look at you. Humph!" He grunted a little disappointment. "You don't look quite so--quite so--what? Do you take exercise enough?"

"Plenty of exercise--plenty," replied the young scholar, who looked so curiously dull and heavy.

"Well, let us walk together. You are doing nothing for the moment."

They walked together; Nelly between them.

"Father," she said, when they arrived at their lodgings in Albemarle Street, "what has come over that poor man? He has gone stupid with his success. I could not get a word out of him. He kept staring at me without speaking."

Was he a lumpish log, or was he a man all nerves and electricity?

In the morning Will Challice partly solved the question, because he called and showed clearly that he was an insensible log and a lumpish log. He sat for an hour gazing at the girl as if he would devour her, but he said nothing.

In the evening Cousin Tom called, bringing Will Challice again--but how changed! Was such a change really due to evening dress? Keen of feature, bright of eye, full of animation. "Why, Will," said Nelly, "what is the matter with you sometimes? When you were here this morning, one could not get a word out of you. Your very face looked heavy."

He changed colour. "I have times when I--I--lose myself--thinking--thinking of things, you know."

They passed a delightful evening. But when Will went away, the girl became meditative. For, although he had talked without stopping, on every kind of subject, there was no hungry look in his eye, such as she had perceived with natural satisfaction in the morning. Every maiden likes that look of hunger, outward sign and indication of respect to her charms.

They were up in town for a month. Every morning Will called and sat glum but hungry-eyed, gazing on the girl and saying nothing. Every evening he called again and talked scholarship and politics with her father, his face changed, his whole manner different, and without any look of hunger in his eyes.

One day after a fortnight or so of this, Will the Animal stood up after breakfast and spoke.

"There has got to be a change."

"You are changing, in fact," replied the other with a sneer.

"I am in love. I am going to marry a girl. Now hold your tongue," for the Intellectual Half bounded in his chair. "You have left me very little power of speech. Let me try to explain what I--I want to say." He spoke painfully and slowly. "Let me--try--I have lost, bit by bit, almost everything. I don't want to read--I can't play any more. I don't care about anything much. But this girl I do care about. I have always loved her, and you--you with your deuced intellect--cannot kill that part of me. Be quiet--let me try to think. She loves me, too. She loves me for myself, and not on account of you and your success. She is sorry for me. She has given me--I don't know how--the power of thinking a little. When I am married to her, she will give me more. Let us part absolutely. Take all my intellect and go. Nell will marry a stupid man, but he will get something from her--something I am sure. I feel different already; I said something to-day which made her laugh. What are you glaring at me for?"

"I am not glaring. I am thinking. Go on."

"This has got to stop. Now find some way of stopping it, or--or--"

"What can you do?"

"I can drink," he said, with awful meaning. "I can ruin you. And I will, unless you agree to part."

The Intellectual Half was looking at him with a strangely softened face. There was neither scorn nor hatred in that face. "Dimidium Animæ," he said, "Half of my Soul, I have something to say as well. Confess, however, first of all, that I was right. Had it not been for this step--the most severe measure possible, I admit--nothing would have been achieved. Eh?"

"Perhaps. You _would_ work, you see."

"Yes. Well--I have made a discovery. It is that I have been too thorough. I don't quite understand how, logically and naturally, anything else was possible. I wanted, heaven knows, all the intellect there was; you were, therefore, bound to become the Animal, pure and simple. Well, you see, we are not really two, but one. Can't we hit upon an agreement?"

"What agreement?"

"Some agreement--some _modus vivendi_. I shall get, it is true, some of the Animal; you will get some of the Intellectual, but we shall be united again, and after all----" He looked very kindly upon himself, and held out his hand. So they stood with clasped hands looking at each other.

"I found it out through Nell," the Intellectual Half went on. "You went to see her every morning--I went every evening. You were always brimful of love for her; I, who knew this, was not moved in the slightest degree by her. Oh! I know that she is the best girl that the world, at this moment, has to show; I am fully persuaded of that: yet she has ceased to move me. I think of her Intellect, which is certainly much lower than my own, and I cannot even admire her. In other words, I cannot be moved by any woman. This terrifies me."

"Why?"

"It threatens my future. Don't you see? He who cannot be moved by woman is no longer man. But man can only be moved by brother man. If I cannot move men my career is at an end. What they call magnetism belongs to the animal within us. When that is gone, I now perceive, when the animal is killed, the rest of the man has no longer any charm, any attraction, any persuasion, any power of leading, teaching, compelling, or guiding. His success, whatever he does, is all glitter--evanescent glitter. He may sit down and hold his tongue, for he can do no more good."

"I only half understand."

"Intellect, in short, my lower Half, is of no use without human passion. That is what it means. We have gone too far. Let us end it."

"How? You despise the man who is only animal."

"No--no! The animal is part of man. I understand now. I have done wrong--brother Half--to separate myself so much from you. Only, you carried it too far. You _would_ not work: you would not give me even a decent show. Suppose--I say suppose--we were united once more. Could I count on being allowed to work?"

"Yes," said the Animal, "I have had a lesson too. You shall work," he hesitated and shuddered, "in reason, of course--say all the morning, and, if you go into the House, all the evening."

"I would not be hard upon you. I would let you have a reasonable amount of indolence and rest. My success will be less rapid, on your account, but it will be more solid. Do you think that if we were to be lost again in each other, I should once more feel for that girl as--"

"Why," said the Animal, "you would be--Me; and what I feel for her is, I assure you, overwhelming."

That evening Will Challice sat at the open window in the dark, Nellie's hand in his. "My dear," he murmured, "tell me, do you love me more because I have realized some of our old dreams?"

"Will; how can I tell you? I love you, not your success. If you had not done so well, it would have made no difference. Your success is only an accidental part of you." Oh! the metaphysician! "You are not your success. Yet, of course, I don't love you for your fine degree, you conceited boy, and yet it is for yourself."

He kissed her forehead. "The old dream time was pleasant, wasn't it? when we chose to be Archbishop of Canterbury one day and Lord Chancellor the next. To be Leader of the House of Commons is the present ambition. It is a most splendid thing"--the dreamer's eyes looked up into space with the old light in them--"a most splendid thing--to lead the House--to sway the House. But I don't know," he sighed, "it will take an awful lot of work. And the Cambridge business did take it out of one most tremendously. I didn't believe, Nell, that I had such an amount of work in me."

"You have been so gloomy lately, Will. Was that fatigue?"

"Ambition on the brain, Nell," he replied, lightly--as lightly as of old--success had not destroyed the old gaiety of heart. "I've consulted a learned physician, Dr. Sydenham Celsus Galen, Wimpole Street. He says that an engagement with the right girl--he is extremely particular on that point, so that I do hope, Nell, we have made no mistake--is a sovereign remedy for all mopey, glum, dumpsy, moody, broody, gloomy, sulky, ill-conditioned vapours. It is, he confessed, the only medicine in his pharmacopoeia. All his clients have to follow that prescription. You will very soon find that those glum, dumpsy moods have vanished quite away. You will charm them away. Oh! I live again--I breathe--I think--I don't work so infernally hard--I am once more human--because I love, and because--" The girl's head rested upon his arm, and he kissed her forehead.

_Portraits of Celebrities at Different Times of their Lives._

W. CLARK RUSSELL.

BORN 1844.

Mr. Clark Russell was born in New York of English parents. His literary taste is a natural gift, his mother being a niece of Charles Lloyd, the poet, and a cousin of Christopher Wordsworth, the late Bishop of Lincoln, and herself known as a poetess, and the authoress, among other things, of "The Wife's Dream." Mr. Clark Russell went to sea as a middy before he was fourteen, and during the next eight years picked up the thorough knowledge of seafaring life which he afterwards turned to such good use in his novels. His first book was "John Holdsworth," but it was his second story, "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," which he wrote in little more than two months and sold to a publisher for fifty pounds, which marked a new era in the evolution of the nautical novel. Since that time Mr. Clark Russell has had the sea to himself, and his descriptions of sea-scenery, and his pictures of real-life sailors, are not likely soon to find a rival. Mr. Clark Russell's latest story, "List, Ye Landsmen"--one of his very best--is now appearing in _Tit-Bits_.

PRINCESS MARIE OF EDINBURGH.

BORN 1875.

The marriage of Princess Marie, the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, to Prince Ferdinand of Roumania, which is fixed to take place on January the 10th, will almost coincide with the appearance of these portraits of the young Princess at different ages. A more charming set we have never had the privilege of publishing.

In offering our sincere congratulations and best wishes to the youthful pair, we are sure that every reader of THE STRAND MAGAZINE will cordially join us.

PRINCE FERDINAND OF ROUMANIA.

BORN 1865.

Prince Ferdinand of Roumania, second son of the reigning Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern and Princess Antonia, Infanta of Portugal, was born in Sigmaringen on the 24th of August, 1865. After several years of private tuition under the parental care, he joined, together with his brothers, the gymnasium of Düsseldorf. He was appointed by the Emperor William a lieutenant in the Infantry Life Guards. He then joined the military school at Kassel, and after a regular course of studies, obtained his commission as officer in the army. In November, 1886, he went to Bucharest with his father, and after participating in a brilliant review, was nominated by King Charles I. a lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry Regiment. On the 14th of March, 1889, he was proclaimed Heir Presumptive to the Crown of Roumania by the unanimous vote of the Senate.

THE LATE MR. FRED. LESLIE.

BORN 1855.

After leaving Dr. Quine's school at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in 1872, making his _début_ on the London stage in the character of _Colonel Hardy_ in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London he created the character of the _Duke_ in "Olivette." Shortly after this, in 1882, in the title rôle of "Rip Van Winkle" at the Comedy, he came prominently into public notice. In this character he proved himself a worthy disciple of Joseph Jefferson. Then came a second visit to America, from which Mr. Leslie returned after a year to fill his old part when "Rip Van Winkle" was again revived. Early in the spring of 1885 he moved to the Opera Comique, and in the December of that year joined the Gaiety Company, in which his loss will be very severely felt. As a dramatic author he wrote under the name of A. C. Torr, a derivation from the word "Actor."

MISS DOROTHEA GERARD

(MADAME LONGARD)

Dorothea Mary Stanislaus Margaret Gerard, born August 9th, 1855, at Rochsoles House, Lanarkshire, N.B. The following is a brief autobiography of this well-known and popular novelist, with which she has been good enough to supply us: "My father's name was Archibald Gerard. My mother was _née_ Euphemia Erskine Robison. In 1876, being in a deadly dull Hungarian country town, my eldest sister (Madame de Laszowska) and I took to writing in despair, conjointly, and merely as a means of passing the time, signing ourselves 'E. D. Gerard.' Considerably to our astonishment we found a publisher for our first attempt--'Reata.' This was followed by 'Beggar My Neighbour' and 'The Waters of Hercules' (all three published by Messrs. Blackwood), after which our literary partnership ceased. Since then I have written 'Lady Baby' and 'Recha' (Blackwood), and 'Orthodox' (first appeared in 'Longman's Magazine'), and now 'A Queen of Curds and Cream' (Messrs. Eden and Co.), all these under the signature 'Dorothea Gerard.' On April 17th, 1887, I was married to Captain (now Lieut.-Colonel) Julius Longard, of the 7th Austrian Lancers."

THE RIGHT HON. STUART KNILL,

LORD MAYOR. BORN 1824.

Mr. Stuart Knill, whose election to the Mayoralty this year was invested with unusual interest, is the son of the late Mr. John Knill, of Fresh Wharf, London Bridge, to whose business he succeeded. He was educated at the Blackheath Proprietary School, and at the University of Bonn. He entered the Corporation in 1885 as Alderman of the Ward of Bridge, and served the office of Sheriff in 1889-90. He is a member of the Goldsmiths' Company, and is now Master of the Guild of Plumbers for the second time. In this capacity he has taken great interest in all matters connected with sanitation and hygiene. He is a leading member of the Roman Catholic laity in England.

_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._

XIV.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE CARDBOARD BOX.

BY CONAN DOYLE.

In choosing a few typical cases which illustrate the remarkable mental qualities of my friend, Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to select those which presented the minimum of sensationalism, while offering a fair field for his talents. It is, however, unfortunately, impossible to entirely separate the sensational from the criminal, and a chronicler is left in the dilemma that he must either sacrifice details which are essential to his statement, and so give a false impression of the problem, or he must use matter which chance, and not choice, has provided him with. With this short preface I shall turn to my notes of what proved to be a strange, though a peculiarly terrible, chain of events.

It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the sunlight upon the yellow brickwork of the houses across the road was painful to the eye. It was hard to believe that these were the same walls which loomed so gloomily through the fogs of winter. Our blinds were half-drawn, and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and rereading a letter which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and a thermometer at 90 was no hardship. But the morning paper was uninteresting. Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion, neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation I had tossed aside the barren paper and, leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.

"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a most preposterous way of settling a dispute."

"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then suddenly realizing how he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and stared at him in blank amazement.

"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I could have imagined."

He laughed heartily at my perplexity.

"You remember," said he, "that some little time ago when I read you the passage in one of Poe's sketches in which a close reasoner follows the unspoken thoughts of his companion, you were inclined to treat the matter as a mere _tour-de-force_ of the author. On my remarking that I was constantly in the habit of doing the same thing you expressed incredulity."

"Oh, no!"

"Perhaps not with your tongue, my dear Watson, but certainly with your eyebrows. So when I saw you throw down your paper and enter upon a train of thought, I was very happy to have the opportunity of reading it off, and eventually of breaking into it, as a proof that I had been in rapport with you."

But I was still far from satisfied. "In the example which you read to me," said I, "the reasoner drew his conclusions from the actions of the man whom he observed. If I remember right, he stumbled over a heap of stones, looked up at the stars, and so on. But I have been seated quietly in my chair, and what clues can I have given you?"

"You do yourself an injustice. The features are given to man as the means by which he shall express his emotions, and yours are faithful servants."

"Do you mean to say that you read my train of thoughts from my features?"

"Your features, and especially your eyes. Perhaps you cannot yourself recall how your reverie commenced?"

"No, I cannot."

"Then I will tell you. After throwing down your paper, which was the action which drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a vacant expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly-framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead very far. Your eyes flashed across to the unframed portrait of Henry Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious. You were thinking that if the portrait were framed, it would just cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture over there."

"You have followed me wonderfully!" I exclaimed.

"So far I could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was thoughtful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was well aware that you could not do this without thinking of the mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of the Civil War, for I remember your expressing your passionate indignation at the way in which he was received by the more turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it, that I knew you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that also. When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture, I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your hands clenched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle. But then, again, your face grew sadder; you shook your head. You were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life. Your hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this method of settling international questions had forced itself upon your mind. At this point I agreed with you that it was preposterous, and was glad to find that all my deductions had been correct."

"Absolutely!" said I. "And now that you have explained it, I confess that I am as amazed as before."

"It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity the other day. But I have in my hands here a little problem which may prove to be more difficult of solution than my small essay in thought reading. Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Susan Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?"

"No, I saw nothing."

"Ah! then you must have overlooked it. Just toss it over to me. Here it is, under the financial column. Perhaps you would be good enough to read it aloud."

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me, and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, "A Gruesome Packet."