III.

In came a lady, looking every inch a Mrs. Chillingby-Harkworth--tall, portly, middle-aged, richly dressed. As she eyed me through a pair of long-handled spy-gla.s.ses her volubility was amazing.

"May I inquire your name, sir?"

"Burley is my name, madam."

"Then, Mr. Burley, I have to inform you I was never treated with so much indignity before. I come here in answer to an advertis.e.m.e.nt, at great personal inconvenience to myself, and I am shown into a room with a number of most extraordinary characters; and one person, who, I am sure, was the worse for drink, asks me the most impertinent questions, and when I appeal for protection to another individual, he tells me that he has enough to do in attending to his own business without interfering with other people's, and I have positively to ring the bell twice before I can receive any proper attention."

"I am sorry that you should have suffered any unpleasantness in my house. May I ask if you have lost a purse?"

"I can't say I have--at least, not for years. I only lost one purse in my life, and that was when I was quite a child--I've always taken too much care of my things to lose them. But the friend of a niece of mine, who was staying with me a week or two ago, took her little boy to the Zoological Gardens, and she lost her purse. She hadn't the faintest notion where or how, and when I saw the advertis.e.m.e.nt I thought I would call and see if it was hers."

"May I ask you to describe the purse which your friend lost?"

"My good sir, I can't do anything of the kind. I only saw it for a moment in her hand as she was going out. You mustn't ask me to perform impossibilities."

"Perhaps your friend could describe it."

"Of course she could, if she were here, but she isn't; she's at the other end of the country. I've come to look at the purse which you have found, don't I tell you, and wasted a whole morning in doing so.

I daresay I shall be able to form a pretty shrewd idea as to whether it is hers, as those who know me best will tell you. My sense of observation has always been exceedingly keen."

I shook my head.

"I am afraid that that is what I cannot do. According to your own statement you have not lost a purse. I am unable to produce the one which I have found until I am furnished with a satisfactory description by the actual loser."

She stared.

"Good gracious, my good man, you don't mean to say that after bringing me here, and after what I have gone through, you refuse to show me the purse which you have actually advertised?"

I rang the bell.

"Possibly your friend will place herself in communication with me.

Saunders, show this lady out."

I fancy she was so taken aback by my manner that for the moment she was speechless. Anyhow, she went, and regained the use of her tongue when she got outside. I heard her rating Saunders soundly as she went downstairs. A young man came next, with something about him which smacked of a provincial town.

"My name's Parkins. You've got a pretty crowd downstairs. I didn't expect this sort of thing, or I wouldn't have come. A lot of Johnnies seem to be on the prowl for a purse. Was the one you found plain leather, with a single pocket, and three fivers inside?"

"Not the least like it."

"Oh! The fact is, I'm up in town for an holiday, and the night before last I went on the razzle, and some Johnny boned my purse, and I thought you might have got it."

I do not know what he meant, or if he intended to insult me--he seemed to be a simple sort of youth--but he was gone before I had a chance of asking him. He was followed by an elderly gentleman, whom I had reason to suppose, before I had got rid of him, was either a seasoned liar, or more or less insane. He seated himself--uninvited by me--crossed his legs, and nursed his silk hat and umbrella.

"I suppose it is a purse you've found?"

"Of course it is. Have you lost one?"

"It isn't a Gladstone bag?"

"A Gladstone bag?" I was a little dazed by my efforts to grasp the man's meaning, and the question was such an absurd one.

"I take it that if it had been a Gladstone bag I should have mentioned it in my advertis.e.m.e.nt. I am still able to distinguish between the one and the other."

"Nor a silk umbrella with a silver mount and a crest on top, like this?"

He held out the one he had been holding.

I stiffened my back, suspecting him of a humorous intention.

"My time is valuable, as, having just come from downstairs, you must be aware. May I ask if I am indebted for the pleasure of your presence here to the fact of your having lost a purse?"

"_A_ purse? On my soul and honour, sir, in my time I've lost hundreds--hundreds! Positively hundreds!"

I believe I gasped--he spoke with an airy indifference as if that kind of thing were commonplace.

"As I was saying to some of those fellows downstairs, if there's a man in England who has lost more things than I have, I should like to meet him. It's a genius I have; as sure as I get a thing I lose it. And the more it costs, the more it's lost. As for purses, they're my strongest point. I suppose I lost more than a score last year, and already more than a dozen this. Only last week my wife bought a steel chain with a steel purse at the end of it. She chained it round me. If you will believe me, sir, the very next day I went to a Turkish bath and left it there--never set eyes upon it since. I take it it isn't that purse you've found?"

"It is not."

"Nor a large square trunk, iron-bound, weighing about two tons, which I left on the Boulogne Quay a fortnight last Thursday?"

"It is not that, either. Pardon me if I appear to interrupt you, but, since you seem to have been unfortunate on so large a scale, I fear I must ask you to go home and have a list printed of the purses which you have lost at different times, and send it to me at your leisure. I shall then be able to perceive if it is one of them which I have found. But I beg you will not include in it any ironbound trunks.

Good-day."

I rang the bell; the man sat still.

"It isn't only trunks and purses which I lose--I lose everything. The day before yesterday I went into the City to buy groceries; filled two great parcels four feet square; had them put with me into the cab so that I might keep them well in sight; got out on the road to have a drink; when I had had it got into the wrong cab; never discovered the mistake till I reached my own doorstep. Those groceries haven't yet come to hand----"

"These anecdotes----"

"Excuse me, I'll tell you another thing I've lost. Six months ago I lost my wife. Took her for a run on the Continent; on the way home dined at a restaurant on the Boulevards; went out to buy a cigar; forgot all about my wife; left her eating an ice; came over by the night boat; never noticed she was missing till I was between the sheets in bed." He paused, as if to meditate. "She wasn't a dead loss; turned up afterwards, as I've reason to remember."

Whether the man was or was not mad, or whether he was merely amusing himself at my expense, is more than I can say. We had the greatest difficulty in getting rid of him. By the time I had interviewed another dozen applicants I came to the conclusion that, if I had to go through much more of that kind of thing, my brain would turn. One red-headed man came into the room with a huge portfolio under his arm.

Before I could stop him he had unfolded it before my astonished eyes.

"I have here one of the finest works ever issued from the press. It is a universal gazetteer and general encyclopaedia of information, and contains 22,000 more references than any other work of the kind which has been previously produced. It is most superbly ill.u.s.trated, in the most lavish manner, by the greatest artists, two or more full-page ill.u.s.trations to each part, besides innumerable smaller ill.u.s.trations, splendid maps, and magnificent coloured pictures, which are quite worthy of being framed. It is issued in monthly parts price sevenpence, and with the first part is presented a free gift----"

It was all I could do to prevent myself kicking him downstairs. He was not by any means the only offender in this direction. One young woman, after beating about the bush in a manner which, although I was becoming familiar with it, was none the less maddening, explained that she had come to solicit contributions towards providing a day in the country for some ragam.u.f.fins at the other end of the town.

IV.

The worst of it was that, though I scampered through the applicants as fast as ever they would let me, the number of them, instead of diminishing, increased. The clamour of their voices filled the house.

Saunders and the maids were becoming alarmed--for the matter of that so was I. The people swarmed into the house like flies. The downstair rooms were full, the hall was blocked, the stairway choked, a continually increasing crowd was on the pavement. Everyone wanted to see me at once. Judging from the noise quarrels were frequent. I had heard of the astonishing number of the applications which are received for an advertised vacant clerkship; judging from results I might have advertised not for one clerk, but for half a dozen.

"I think," suggested Saunders, pale, though heated, "that we had better send for the police."