legs crashed against the desk, so that Northover only got a blow on the elbow as he sprang up with clenched fists, only to be seized by the united rush of the rest of us. The chair had fallen clattering on the empty floor.
“Let me go, you scamps,” he shouted. “Let me—”
“Stand still,” cried Rupert authoritatively. “Major Brown's action is excusable. The abominable crime you have attempted—”
“A customer has a perfect right,” said Northover hotly, “to question an alleged overcharge, but, confound it all, not to throw furniture.”
“What, in God's name, do you mean by your customers and overcharges?” shrieked Major Brown, whose keen feminine nature, steady in pain or danger, became almost hysterical in the presence of a long and exasperating mystery. “Who are you? I've never seen you or your insolent tomfool bills. I know one of your cursed brutes tried to choke me—”
“Mad,” said Northover, gazing blankly round; “all of them mad. I didn't know they travelled in quartettes.”
“Enough of this prevarication,” said Rupert; “your crimes are discovered. A policeman is stationed at the corner of the court. Though only a private detective myself, I will take the responsibility of telling you that anything you say—”
“Mad,” repeated Northover, with a weary air.
And at this moment, for the first time, there struck in among them the strange, sleepy voice of Basil Grant.
“Major Brown,” he said, “may I ask you a question?”
The Major turned his head with an increased bewilderment.
“You?” he cried; “certainly, Mr. Grant.”
“Can you tell me,” said the mystic, with sunken head and lowering brow, as he traced a pattern in the dust with his sword-stick, “can you tell me what was the name of the man who lived in your house before you?”
The unhappy Major was only faintly more disturbed by this last and futile irrelevancy, and he answered vaguely:
“Yes, I think so; a man named Gurney something—a name with a hyphen—Gurney-Brown; that was it.”
“And when did the house change hands?” said Basil, looking up sharply. His strange eyes were burning brilliantly.
“I came in last month,” said the Major.
And at the mere word the criminal Northover suddenly fell into his great office chair and shouted with a volleying laughter.
“Oh! it's too perfect—it's too exquisite,” he gasped, beating the arms with his fists. He was laughing deafeningly; Basil Grant was laughing voicelessly; and the rest of us only felt that our heads were like weathercocks in a whirlwind.
“Confound it, Basil,” said Rupert, stamping. “If you don't want me to go mad and blow your metaphysical brains out, tell me what all this means.”
Northover rose.
“Permit me, sir, to explain,” he said. “And, first of all, permit me to apologize to you, Major Brown, for a most abominable and unpardonable blunder, which has caused you menace and inconvenience, in which, if you will allow me to say so, you have behaved with astonishing courage and dignity. Of course you need not trouble about the bill. We will stand the loss.” And, tearing the paper across, he flung the halves into the waste-paper basket and bowed.
Poor Brown's face was still a picture of distraction. “But I don't even begin to understand,” he cried. “What bill? what blunder? what loss?”
Mr. P. G. Northover advanced in the centre of the room, thoughtfully, and with a great deal of unconscious dignity. On closer consideration, there were apparent about him other things beside a screwed moustache, especially a lean, sallow face, hawk-like, and not without a careworn intelligence. Then he looked up abruptly.
“Do you know where you are, Major?” he said.
“God knows I don't,” said the warrior, with fervour.
“You are standing,” replied Northover, “in the office of the Adventure and Romance Agency, Limited.”
“And what's that?” blankly inquired Brown.
The man of business leaned over the back of the chair, and fixed his dark eyes on the other's face.
“Major,” said he, “did you ever, as you walked along the empty street upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for something to happen—something, in the splendid words of Walt Whitman: 'Something pernicious and dread; something far removed from a puny and pious life; something unproved; something in a trance; something loosed from its anchorage, and driving free.' Did you ever feel that?”
“Certainly not,” said the Major shortly.
“Then I must explain with more elaboration,” said Mr. Northover, with a sigh. “The Adventure and Romance Agency has been started to meet a great modern desire. On every side, in conversation and in literature, we hear of the desire for a larger theatre of events for something to waylay us and lead us splendidly astray. Now the man who feels this desire for a varied life pays a yearly or a quarterly sum to the Adventure and Romance Agency; in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes to surround him with startling and weird events. As a man is leaving his front door, an excited sweep approaches him and assures him of a plot against his life; he gets into a cab, and is driven to an opium den; he receives a mysterious telegram or a dramatic visit, and is immediately in a vortex of incidents. A very picturesque and moving story is first written by one of the staff of distinguished novelists who are at present hard at work in the adjoining room. Yours, Major Brown (designed by our Mr. Grigsby), I consider peculiarly forcible and pointed; it is almost a pity you did not see the end of it. I need scarcely explain further the monstrous mistake. Your predecessor in your present house, Mr. Gurney-Brown, was a subscriber to our agency, and our foolish clerks, ignoring alike the dignity of the hyphen and the glory of military rank, positively imagined that Major Brown and Mr. Gurney-Brown were the same person. Thus you were suddenly hurled into the middle of another man's story.”
“How on earth does the thing work?” asked Rupert Grant, with bright and fascinated eyes.
“We believe that we are doing a noble work,” said Northover warmly. “It has continually struck us that there is no element in modern life that is more lamentable than the fact that the modern man has to seek all artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he wishes to float into fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to soar into heaven, he reads a book; if he wishes to slide down the banisters, he reads a book. We give him these visions, but we give him exercise at the same time, the necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down long streets from pursuers—all healthy and pleasant exercises. We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under the splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that godlike time when we can act stories, be our own heroes, and at the same instant dance and dream.”
Basil gazed at him curiously. The most singular psychological discovery had been reserved to the end, for as the little business man ceased speaking he had the blazing eyes of a fanatic.
Major
