choice between jam and marmalade.' I pitied him, and was silent. But at last he made up his mind that he ought to shoot. I wonder if it had struck him that I had made up mine in half the time that he ought not.

'Toho! Ponto, toho, you brute!' shouted my affectionate nephew, rushing harum-scarum up to the dog, while I was beginning to make a quiet circuit in order to head the birds. Bang, bang! By Jove he's down! by Jove he ain't! ma-a-a-rk! hold up, good dog! Wher'll they go, keeper?' It is useless to go into details. If firing into coveys, winging birds, loading in a jogtrot, talking and shouting, chaffing the keeper, and asking if the old duffer was anything of a shot, sipping sherry, and carrying the gun on full-cock are exasperating, I had every right to be exasperated. I can just tolerate the man who, fully aware of his danger, deliberately chooses to hover between life and death by keeping his gun cocked; but I feel nothing but disgust and indignation when an arrant coward like Muffikin has neither head enough to perceive the extent of his peril, nor sense enough to provide against it. Once on that day his cowardice was conspicuous.

We

were getting over into a cow-pasture. 'Uncle,' said a voice, 'are there any bulls here?' 'I dare say,' replied I, wondering what he was driving at. 'Are they not very dangerous creatures?' he rejoined. 'Well, they are likely enough to run at a fellow in scarlet stockings.' Upon this my nephew refused to go into a field where there were cattle, and was just a little ashamed of his get-up. For my own part, I hate knickerbockers. I know a certain person who shall be nameless, who had something more than mere apologies for calves at Muffikin's age, but who would have scorned to parade them. No! he had too much sense and modesty for that. Mrs. B. says she likes them. I wish they had been going in my day, and then perhaps she would have married some one who wore them, and never become

a thorn in the flesh to your humble servant.

I had a fresh trial or two after my day's shooting. At nine o'clock I entered the drawing-room for a cup of tea. There I found my friend Robert, hopping about like a waterwagtail, handing cups, and making himself so agreeable to the ladies. 'Miss Bloke, I hope your father was not over-fatigued with his exertions; I was sadly afraid of tiring him; I can walk any distance myself, and sometimes am stupid enough to forget that others are not able to do so. Miss Lee, you must really not leave the piano; now do let us have "She sat beside the mountain spring." I am afraid you will think me very importunate, but I dote upon music.' One incident more, perhaps, is worth relating. Of course I went to see the pointers after their day's work. I found John in the saddle-room, busy with Muffikin's gun. John spoke first with unwonted familiarity, "Mr. Robert is rather a poor shot, sir, but a nice civil-spoken gentleman,' while all the time his hand kept fumbling in his pocket.. I eyed him sternly. I felt that both he and my dogs had been demoralized by a wealthy booby from London. 'John,' said I, 'as soon as you have cleaned that abominable breech-loader you may put Ponto's feet in salt and water.' John moved off at once, and I heard him soon after mutter to the coachman, Master's in an awful way about summut;' upon which the other rejoined, Name o' dear! it's missis as has been vexing him again. He is under petticoat government, he is.' Well, perhaps my servant tells the truth; but for all that a certain puppy who answers to the name of Robert Muffikin will never again adorn my drawing-room, nor shoot in my twenty-acre piece, even though there should be a row in the camp. For once I will make a stand, so help me the remembrance of my past injuries!

I am, sir, yours respectfully,
BILBURY BLOKE.

us to have been favoured with personal experiences in relation to the world of ghosts. This idea might have been due to the fact that less was really known about him than about the others, most of whom had been intimately connected with each other from quite schoolboy times, whereas Venn was comparatively a recent acquaintance. He was older than the rest, with a more decided manner; was somewhat taciturn, while we were inclined to be talkative; with no affectation of being blasé, he was apt to maintain a deliberate serenity while our spirits were at their highest and wildestwas, indeed, especially quiet and calm when we were most boisterous. But at the same time it must be said of him, that if he never yielded to our exhilaration, so also he never was deeply affected by our depression; and we had the usual juvenile propensity of oscillating with exceeding rapidity between ecstatic joy and abject despondency.

No one knew much about Venn. He was an artist, he had passed the greater part of his life abroad, and was now perhaps thirty years old or so. Within the last few years he had settled in London, and had gradually been introduced into the small group of men-art-students for the most part, and intimate friends who were now assembled round the fire talking about ghosts. Though we were bound by no rules, and our meetings were the result of little pre-arrangement, and were irregular and accidental enough, we formed, in truth, a sort of club of young men, bound together by similar pursuits and inclinations. We met in each other's studios from time to time, talked art, smoked pipes, discussed each other's achievements and aspirations, had a turn now and then with the gloves or a bout at single-stick, and emptied tumblers of punch. We were decidedly young men, as you will perhaps have already concluded from this report of our proceedings; and we gladly opened our ranks to admit George Venn. He was older, more experienced, was clever, good-tempered, and could give us valuable information about the methods and manners

of continental art and artists. Moreover, the fact that he presented a type of character dissimilar to the general was in itself an urgent reason for his acceptance amongst us with promptness and goodwill.

Yes, decidedly I thought he was the very man to have seen a ghost. The more I considered him, the more I grew fixed in that opinion. Who should have seen a ghost if George Venn had not? That calm manner of his, which nothing seemed to affect that settled repose, from which nothing could rouse himthose deep, yet hollow tones-those steady, earnest, dark eyes of his-all pertained appropriately to a man who had, it may be, looked into the other world, and was not, therefore, to be startled by the incidents of this -who was, as it were, en rapport with the supernatural, and therefore little likely to be affected by the normal occurrences of life. If a stranger of ordinary capacity had been introduced into the room at that moment, and asked to select from among us the man who had seen a ghost, I felt positive that he would have singled out George Venn. The pretensions of the others in such respect were contemptible, compared to Venn's.

Not that his appearance was remarkable, otherwise than by a simplicity of toilet that was perhaps a little studied. We, after the manner of young art-students, were a little prone to eccentricities of dress, to certain fanciful exuberances in our modes of arranging our hair, training our moustaches, and shaping our beards. (We did not all possess those last-named appendages: all, however, affected a growth, more or less downy in quality and slight in quantity, upon the upper lip.) But Venn, if he had ever been subjected to such weaknesses, had now, at any rate, outgrown and got rid of them. He never appeared in the picturesque, brightly-lined, many-buttoned velvet painting-jackets which were favourites with us. He wore generally a simple suit of tweed, and looked rather as though he were going shooting or on a pedestrian expedition than merely to work at his easel. In fact he never seemed

to pose himself as a painter, whereas I think we were fond of attitudinizing a good deal in that character. He had possibly passed through that first stage of excited pride in his profession to which the student is prone. He wore no beard whatever, shaving close; though, to judge by the blue-black shades about his chin and lips, he might, had he so listed, have indulged in hirsute decoration on a most liberal scale. His hair was clipped close, the forelock drooping a little over his broad forehead, something after the fashion made memorable by the first Napoleon. Indeed, now I come to think of it, Venn had a good deal of the straightruled brow, the olive complexion, the sunken but steady eyes, and the regularity of feature of the great Emperor. Perhaps, upon the whole, his face was a little more aquiline in mould; while his figure, without being less broad, was taller, and more lithe and sinewy; and he was without the tendency to corpulence which spoilt the contour of le petit caporal, especially as he advanced in life.

'You've seen a ghost, Venn?' some one asked. 'Really?'

'I have,' he answered, simply.
'Where?'

In this studio.'

We received this announcement with quite a gasp of astonishment.

I should have said, perhaps, that we were sitting in Venn's paintingroom. We had a habit of meeting now at Frank Ripley's, now at Tom Thoroton's, now at Venn's, now at my studio. There was no settled plan about the thing, no precise invitation issued; but at times a sort of understanding seemed to pervade our small society that on a particular night Frank, or Tom, or George, or Harry, as the case might be, would be in his rooms at home,' when men were expected to look him up' accordingly. Somehow the information circulated rapidly amongst us. We were too intimate to stand upon much ceremony with each other. No one waited for any further or more official intimation on the subject, but, when the night arrived, forthwith proceeded to his

friend's abode, with unquestioning acceptance of the idea that he would find a host prepared to give him welcome. So it happened that it was in Venn's studio, on Venn's chairs, round Venn's fire, that we met on the evening under mention, smoking Venn's tobacco, drinking Venn's grog, and talking about ghosts in the manner already alluded to.

Now there was this to be said about Venn, that he never did anything quite as anybody else would do it. His arrangements in connection with the practice of his profession were differently ordered to those of other students. We were for the most part content with furnished apartments, improvising as convenient studios as we could; Venn had taken a whole house to himself.

'After all, it costs very little more,' he one day explained in his quiet way, while the advantages are enormous. Sometimes I like to be quiet, very quiet; with other people living in the house, you know, that's not possible. Occasionally it happens that I prefer to be noisy, particularly noisy: it occurs to me that I want to ascertain whether I've lost my aim, whether my nerve is steady, and my eye correct; and then I blaze away with my revolver at a mark on the wall for hours, sometimes for days together; or, feeling a passion for exercise, I pile up my furniture, and amuse myself with taking a flying leap over it, or jumping down a whole flight of stairs, coming down sometimes rather loudly and heavily, I can tell you. Other lodgers in the house might reasonably object to that kind of thing. They could no more stand me than I could tolerate them, in fact. Wo should never agree. We could never come to terms as to being noisy or quiet at quite the same times. In fact, I've tried life in lodgings, and found it a dead failure. The landlady always came up to give me notice to quit just as I was thinking of going down to let her know that I couldn't endure to stop under her roof any longer. So now I'm on a different plan. I've a house of my

own. A man's house is his castle. This is my castle-Venn Castle, if you like; and I can do what I like in it: play the drum or the organ, or leap-frog; fire off anything, from a popgun to an Armstrong; be as quiet as a mouse or noisy as Verdi's orchestra; and there's no one to interfere with me or say me nay. It's a capital good house; wants a great deal doing to it, I admit; in fact, it's terribly out of repair: but then that makes it cheap. I've got it for the fag end of a lease: the landlord won't do anything until the lease falls in; and of course no reasonable-I was going to say no respectable tenant would take a place upon which he had to spend no end of money to make it decently habitable, especially as he couldn't be certain of having his term renewed. But I'm not particular; it suits me very well. I don't mind cracked ceilings, or broken cornices, or uneven floors; and so long as there are stairs, I don't think banisters matter much; for cobwebs, I'm rather partial to them, and we all know that dirt's picturesque. So here I've pitched my tent, and I shall get on well enough if I can only persuade the public to buy my pictures. After all, that's the main desideratum of an artist's life.'

Certainly it was a queer old place, was Venn's Castle, built at a time when London houses were allowed a little more elbow room than at present. The rooms were large and numerous, the entrance wide; it belonged to the days when there were halls,' real halls, and not 'passages' merely; the staircase solid and spacious, ascending gently, with large landings, and wooden globes at the corners of the banisters. The house was situate in a street near Soho Square, and had been once the abode of wealth and fashion, no doubt, but these had long since departed, leaving few traces behind them. "Venn's Castle' was shouldered by public - houses and hucksters' shops: the neighbourhood had sadly lost caste, and consideration, and money too, I should think. Decidedly it had a very down-at-heel, out-at-elbow,

to

impecunious, insolvent look. The scavengers didn't do their duty by the street, nor the paving commissioners, if there are such functionaries, nor the gas companies. It was always muddy, the roadway most uneven, and the lamps few and far between, emitting the feeblest of rays. Poverty had taken possession of the precinct, and was left to have its own way, to do its best or its worst there, undisturbed and unassisted. Proceeding Venn's, you felt sure that you were entering a district certain to be described in parliamentary and registrar- general reports as 'thickly populated and very poor.' The evidence was clear on the subject: to be quite satisfied, you had only to look aloft at the number of birdcages, at the pigeons perched on the coping-stones or the chimneystacks, at the vermilioned flowerpots, the bright-green mignonette boxes upon the window-sills, or below at the mangles, to be arrived at down the area steps, and the clothes hanging up to dry in the areas; or all round at the coal-sheds, the beer-shops, the numberless bells on the door-posts, and zinc plates on the doors. And then the tide of children that flooded the streets and broke into waves on the kerbstones: the children for ever singing shrill choruses, or performing wild dances, or playing strange games, very noisy, and dirty, and ill clad, and bareheaded, wanting, perhaps, fresh air and more food, and yet apparently very happy and highspirited notwithstanding! Arriving at Venn's door, it was always necessary to break the ranks of a brigade of children drawn up in very close order, and holding possession of the steps against all comers. Having reached the knocker, and obtained entrance into the house, the brigade instantly re-formed in your rear, as though effectually to prevent your retreat by the same road. A thorough conviction must have occupied the minds of the juvenile population that to them belonged, by the right of long custom, Venn's doorsteps a great deal more than to Venn, and that if there was any permission required in the matter, he had to seek