THE MISSING LINK

BY

EDWARD DYSON
1922



CHAPTER I.

DR. CRIPS'S HEALING MIXTURE.

HIS Christian name was Nicholas but his familiars called him Nickie the
Kid. The title did not imply that Nicholas possessed the artless gaiety,
the nimbleness, or any of the simple virtues of the young of the common
goat. Kid was short for "kidder," a term that as gone out recently in
favour of "smoodger," and which implies a quality of suave and
ingratiating cunning backed by ulterior motives.

The familiars of Mr. Nicholas Crips were a limited circle, and all
"beats," that is to say, gentlemen sitting on the rail dividing honest
toil from open crime. They were not workers, neither were they thieves,
excepting in very special circumstances, when the opportunity made
honesty almost an impertinence. The sobriquet coming from such a source
acquires peculiar significance. The god-fathers of Nickie the Kid were
all experts, and obtained bed and board mainly by exercising the art of
dissimulation. To stand out conspicuously as a specialist in such company
one needed to possess very bright and peculiar qualities.

Mr. Nicholas Crips was blonde, bony man perhaps five feet nine in height,
but looking taller because of the spareness of his limbs. This spareness
was not cultivated, as Nickie the Kid was partial to creature comforts,
but was of great assistance to him in a profession in which it was often
necessary to profess chronic sickness and touching physical decrepitude.
Mr Crips despised whiskers, but, as shaving was an extravagant
indulgence, his slightly cadaverous countenance was often littered with a
crisp, pale stubble, not unlike dry grass.

To-day Nickie wore a suit of black cloth. It had once been a very
imposing suit, and had adorned a great person, but having fallen on evil
days, was dusty and rusty, while the knees of Mr. Crips poked familiarly
through a long slit in each leg of the stained trousers. The frock coat
went badly with the damaged tan boots and the moth-eaten rag cap Nicholas
was wearing.

Mr. Crips was making back-door call, and telling housewives what the
doctors at the hospital had said about his peculiar ailment which, it
appears, was an interesting heart weakness.

"Above all, I must be careful never to over-exert myself, madam--those
are the doctor's orders," said Nickie, in his sad, calm way. "The
smallest excitement, the slightest strain, and my life goes out like
that." Nickie puffed an imaginary candle with dramatic significance.

This was the preliminary to a mild appeal for creature and medical
comforts, and it had two objects--to open the soul to compassion, and bar
all considerations of manual labour.

Our hero's manner with women was a gentle manly deference; his begging
showed no trace of servility, but he was always polite. He accepted
failure with good grace, and did not resent scorn, abuse, or even
violence from intended victims. He was rarely combative. Fighting was not
his special gift; he met misfortune with patient passivity Resistance he
found a mistake. But for all this a certain sense of superiority was,
never wanting in Nickie the Kid; the shabbiest clothes, a deplorable hat,
fragmentary boots, shirtlessness, the most distressing situations all
failed to wholly eliminate a touch of impudent dignity, a trace of rakish
self-satisfaction which as a rule escaped the attention of his clients;
but, here and there, a student of human nature found it delightfully
whimsical. Sometimes it appeared that this spice of egotism sprang from a
blackguardly sense of humour that found joy in the abounding weaknesses
and simplicity of the people he imposed upon, but, on the other hand, it
would be sufficient to show that Mr. Crips was inspired only with gross
selfishness or to comprehend that the stability of society depends upon
fair dealing and faithful labour.

Nevertheless there were occasions when Nickie the Kid deliberately
undertook to earn his daily bread. For a week he served as waiter in a
six penny restaurant. He had been a "super" in drama and a practical
crocodile in pantomime and was long in the employ of a fashionable
undertaker as second in command on the hearse. In this latter billet he
had to keep his hair dyed a presentable black, but otherwise the duties
were light, and Nickie might still have been useful mute, only that he
had the misfortune to get drunk at the funeral of an eminent politician
and behaved himself in a way obnoxious to the other mourners.

Some credit must be given to Crips for the above in view of the fact that
he had long, since discovered how unnecessary work was to a man free of
prejudices and unhampered with conscience. Every man should be master of
his own conscience, and the exactions of conscience should be subordinate
to the needs of the body. That was a large part of Nickie's philosophy,
and he had acted up to it with marked success, but this morning
housewives were incredulous and tough, and our hero was faring badly.

He entered the yard of Ebonwell, the chemist, and was about to knock,
when his eye fell upon a well-worn Gladstone bag full of small bottles.
In the course of long experience as a beat, Nickie had learned the value
of prompt action. He gently snapped up the bag, and jauntily to the gate.
Here he collided with a female entering in a hurry.

"Was yeh wantin' anythin', mister?" said the woman suspiciously.

"Good morning, madam," said Nickie, with unction. "Can I tune your piano
this morning?" His manner was most courteous, he smiled kindly, but he
did not invite attention to the bag.

"No yeh can't," snapped the woman, "an' a good reason why--coz we ain't
got a pianner to toon."

"A pity," said Nickie, suavely, "a pity, madam. No home should be without
the refining influence of good music."

The woman passed in as Nickie passed out, and the latter looked back over
the gate, and said, "Good morning, lady," with profound respect.

Nickie must have forgotten all about his weak heart; the dash he made out
of that right-of-way, across the street, down a second right-of-way, and
into a public garden, would not have discredited a trained pedestrian. An
hour later Mr. Crips was seated in a secluded spot on the river bank,
taking stock. He possessed one very second-hand black bag and four dozen
four-ounce bottles. The Kid's intention in the first place had been to
dispose of the loot at the nearest marine store, but Nickie was a man of
ideas, and one had come to him there in his loneliness. He hid his bag of
bottles, and wandered into the city. After several misses he succeeded in
begging sixpence to buy cough drops for his influenza.

He paid threepence for the cough drops at a convenient hotel, and took
them in bulk. With his change he purchased threepence worth of small
corks. Back at the Yarra Nickie the Kid dissolved one of three gingernuts
he had taken from the bar lunch in a two pound jam tin of river water,
and started to fill his bottles. He filled one dozen.

Having explained to a small knot of brother professionals that he needed
change of air and scenery, Nickie the Kid started out of town that
afternoon. We next discover him seated under a spreading gum in a
pleasant sweep of sunny landscape at Tarra, with his trousers in his
hands, carefully and systematically repairing and renovating the same.
The frock coat had been "restored," the rag cap was abandoned in favour
of a limp bell-topper, contributed by the family of a benevolent
clergyman, and the tan boots were artistically blacked with stove polish.
Nickie the Kid warbled at his work with the innocent gaiety of a bird.

It was not yet sundown, and Nicholas Crips was clothed, and stood with
his black Gladstone in his right hand, prepared for the campaign. He had
had a clean shave, and his face had a sort of calm dignity touched with
benevolence. He turned round, examining himself, and the coat-tails
floated gracefully in the breeze.

"Eminently satisfactory," said Mr. Crips. "And now for business." He
cleared his throat, as if about to commence an oration, and set off at a
smart pace towards the farm-house whose chimneys peeped over the hill.

A dog barked surlily as Nickie passed up the garden walk, but Nickie knew
the character and quality of dogs, no beat better, and he recognised this
one as harmless to man. A woman came to the door, wiping her fat, red
arms on a canvas apron.

"A very good day to you, madam," said Mr. Crips, lifting his belltopper
with some grace, and bowing slightly. "I have taken the liberty of
calling upon you to bring under your attention my celebrated
medicine--Dr. Crips's Healing Mixture, for coughs, colds, consumption
indigestion, biliousness and all bronchial complaints."

He took a bottle from his bag and shook it invitingly, his voice was
respectful and very persuasive, but by no means subservient. Nickie's
voice was his most valuable possession; it had a note so winning, so
appealing, that it was only with strong effort that ordinary people could
resist it.

"No," said the woman, "we ain't got any o' them complaints."

"Headache, earache, toothache, lumbago, Bright's disease?" said Nickie,
suggestively.

"No." The woman shook her head. "We ain't got nothin' in the 'ouse but
rhoomertism in me ole man's back. He's bin laid up three weeks with it."

"Dr. Crips's Rheumatic Balm!" exclaimed Nickie, with decision, restoring
the first bottle to the bag, and producing another of exactly the same
mixture. "Cures rheumatism in two hours. Gives instant relief in cases of
neuralgia and sciatica. A little to be rubbed on the affected parts night
and morning."

The woman took the bottle, examined it closely, shook it up, and said,
"It looks good."

"It's invaluable, madam," replied Nickie, with quiet conviction. "No
family should be without it. Two shillings, if you please."

The woman took a bottle, and when leaving, Nickie the Kid turned and
said, "I shall be back this way in a week, and shall do myself the honour
of calling on you for a testimonial, if I may?"

At the next farm-house Nickie had a man to deal with. The man began by
wanting to throw Dr. Crips over the fence, and ended by buying a bottle
of his Infallible Hair Restorer, and paying him half-a-crown for
professional advice in the case of a brown cow afflicted with mumps.

Nickie the Kid had put in the busiest day of his varied career, and here
he rested from his labours. With six and six in his pocket he could
afford luxuries. That night he slept in a bed at the Harrow Hotel, and
next morning breakfasted on grilled bacon and boiled eggs. Before
leaving, he sold the publican two bottles of the world-famous Healing
Mixture as a pick-me-up.

On the second day the doctor set out to cover as much ground as possible.
He was astute enough to recognise the wisdom of moving on before his
customers had time to compare notes. Before noon, he sold six bottles of
the Healing Mixture for influenza, two bottles of the Rheumatic Balm, and
one bottle of the same as a certain cure for a peculiar disorder in pigs.

Nickie was going along the main road, heading north, branching off to the
farm-houses by the way to sell his cure-all. He sold one guileless
housewife a bottle, assuring her that it would convert brass spoons into
real silver. A little mercury in a rag helped this trifling deception. On
the third day Nickie had to buy some gingernuts to make a fresh supply of
the Healing Mixture, and bottles were running short. He saw fortune
staring him in the face.

It was about eleven, and Mr. Crips was trudging contentedly along, the
road, swinging his bag and singing his tender lay, at peace with the
world, and buoyed with great hopes, when a trap drove up and a voice out
of the accompanying dust said:--

"That's 'im. That's the bloke!" A man jumped down and advanced to Nickie,
and laid hands on him.

"You're that doctor bloke what's selling the Rheumatic Balm, ain't yeh?"
he asked.

Nickie said nothing. Retribution had overtaken him. He knew that. His
fair dreams fell from him, he sighed deeply, and philosophically, as was
his wont, abandoned himself to the inevitable.

There were two young men in the trap. They hoisted Nickie to the seat
behind, and drove on. No explanation was offered, and Mr Crips expected
none. They would come, he imagined, along with the familiar penalties.
One of the young men did remark, with cheerful enthusiasm: "You're in fer
it all right, blokie," but Nickie the Kid only sighed.

Crips recognised the farm-house they drove to as that of the farmer with
rheumatism in the back, his first customer. One young man ran in with the
news, and presently reappeared in company with a large, elderly,
energetic man, who was crying, excitedly: "Where is he? Bring him to me!"

This large man dashed at Nickie the Kid, and fell on him bodily. He was
followed by the housewife who purchased the Rheumatic Balm, and she also
fell upon Nickie, who put up a short prayer. But to the doctor's immense
surprise he found presently that he was not being assaulted, but hugged,
that it was not curses, but blessings the old couple were showering upon
his head.

"Lor love yeh, I'll never forget yeh fer this," cried the farmer.

"Come inside an' have a bit to eat," exclaimed his wife.

The pair literally dragged Nickie into the house and dumped him down at a
loaded table. He was waited upon by a rather nice-looking girl of twenty.

"This is him, Millie," said the farmer, with enthusiasm. "This is Dr.
Crips what cured yer old dad. Gord bless you, sir."

The girl shook Nickie by the hand, and smiled on him sweetly, and said
she could never forget the man that cured her dear pa, and all Nickie's
happiness and his great content came back to him like refreshing waters.
Dr. Crips stood up straight, he shook hands enthusiastically with farmer
Dickson.

"So the Rheumatic Balm has set you up again?" he said, heartily.

"Hasn't it, by gum! Look at this." The farmer capered about the room.
"Every bit o' pain's gone. I'll buy every drop of that balm you've got.
That's why I had you brought back. But sit down, and eat, man--eat!"

They simply squandered hospitality on Nickie the Kid that night; they had
neighbours in to see him; they had music, and Dr. Crips sang, and danced,
and drank, and made love to Miss Dickson out under the elderberries. Out
under the elderberries, for the edification of Millie Dickson, Nicholas
Crips was a medical man of high attainments, but the victim of
extraordinary vicissitudes. It was very touching, most romantic. Nickie
lied with great splendour. He displayed no little aptitude in the
character of Don Juan too. Miss Dickson thought him a perfect dear.

Returning to the house for supper, Nickie and the ingenuous Millie
loitered by the open kitchen window, and Nickie saw and heard things of
no little interest to him professionally. Farmer Dickson and three
neighbours were comparing bottles of Dr. Crip's Celebrated Healing
Mixture.

"Anyhow," said one, "I'll swear his nibs sold me this ez a cure fer pip
in chickens."

"And he told me this was a dead sure cure fer corns 'n' ingrowin'
toe-nail," ejaculated another.

"I bought this bottle fer me diabetes," explained Coleman. "He said it ud
root out diabetes in nine hours."

Farmer Dickson shook his bottle, and looked at it very dubiously. "It
seems t' me it's all the same mixture," he said. "It looks like it,
tastes like, 'n' it smells like. Now I come t' think iv it, I ain't too
sure 'bout these blanky rheumatics o' mine." He reached down his back and
rubbed himself anxiously.

"I thought my diabetes was a-movin', but they're all back at me agin,"
said Coleman.

"The chicken died what I gave the mixture to," explained Anderson.

Dickson scowled and felt himself, for as far as he could reach up and
down his spine. "I'm pretty certain the rheumatics 're comin' back," he
murmured. "Wow!" he gasped, as a bad twinge took him. "It is back!"

"Tell yeh what," Anderson remarked plaintively, "we've been done."

"He's a blanky fraud!"

"A robber!"

"Let's look him up, 'n' 'ave a word or two."

The farmers seized their sticks. They moved towards the door, but already
Nickie had begged to be excused, and passed into the night. The stillness
and mystery of the bush enveloped him.

Next day the neighbours compared notes and bottles, and found that the
medicine for influenza, consumption, liver disease, indigestion and cold
feet, the embrocation for rheumatism, sprains, corns, bruises and
headaches, the cure for pigs, the wash for silvering spoons, and the
hair-restorer were all the same mixture. Then a great popular demand for
Dr. Crips set in at Tarra, but by this time Nickie the Kid was back in
town, amazing his friends with his lavish hospitality in threepenny bars.



CHAPTER II.

A FAMILY MATTER.

EVEN Nickie's intimates of the wharves and the river banks knew nothing
of his ancestors or relations. Nickie was naturally reticent about his
own business; On the point of family connections he was dumb. It was
assumed that he had had a father and mother at some stage of his career,
but the evolution of Nickie the Kid from a schoolboy, with shining
morning face, to a homeless rapscallion, living on his impudence, was
never dwelt upon by our hero, which is a great pity, as the process of
degeneration must have been highly interesting.

Certainly, Nickie did not regret his respectable past, if he were ever
respectable, and it is equally certain that he had no craving for high
things in the way of tall hats and two-storey houses. He appreciated the
value of money, since it enabled him to gratify his tastes, but it must
be admitted his tastes were scandalous in the main.

However, at Banklands Nickie solicited work, laborious and painful work.
Moreover, he went to the job of his own free will, when sober and in his
right mind. This seemed to imply an awakening of conscience, a dawning
sense of his utter uselessness to the body politic, and a desire to
figure as a useful member of society. On the other hand, it may have been
a symptom of brain-softening. But it happened to be neither; it was in
fact a means to a wicked end. On the fading end of a superior suburb,
where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned off and dwindled,
and were lost among the gum trees of the original wilderness, Nickie
found his billet.

The suburb was coming ahead. The motor-car had made it easy and
accessible to the rich. Splendid dwellings were going up all over the
place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the
stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.

Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched the
busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within
himself.

"Do these people expect to live a thousand years?" mused Mr. Crips, "that
they build such solid houses? Or do they regard them as monuments? Look
at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack under four boards!"

Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake, with
plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolous as those of a Chinese
pagoda. It stood within capacious grounds, and proclaimed aloud the fact
that its proprietor was a rich man, ostentatious of his riches.

"I expect there's a matter of thirty rooms in that house," mused Nicholas
Crips, "and after all, a man can get just as drunk in a threepenny bar."

Nickie put in a couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well,
but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate
making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon induced
him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound reflection
lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man working on
the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion, and seating
himself on the broken metal, entered into conversation with the two-inch
mason wielding the hammer.

"Pretty hard work this," ventured Nicholas.

"Blanky hard," assented the stonebreaker.

"Did you ever try the softening influence of beer?" asked Nickie, drawing
a bottle from his pocket.

"Well, I won't make yeh force it on me," said the stonebreaker.

They divided the liquor like brothers dear, and the stonebreaker
developed a sudden affection for Nicholas Crips, who after twenty minutes
casual conversation, introduced his plea.

"Must be splendid exercise for the liver, stoneknapping," he said. "I've
been troubled with liver complaint lately. Living too high. Could you
give a man a job?"

"Well," said the breaker, "I got a sorter contrac' t' break so many
yards. If you'll do it at bob a yard you can get gain' on the other end
iv th' 'eap."

The price was far below current rates for cutting metal, but Nickie was
not penurious and grasping. He threw off his tattered coat, and, draped
in fragments of a shirt, in a pair of trousers, half of which fluttered
in the breeze, and boots that looked like a collection of fragments, he
set to work.

Certainly Nicholas Crips did not show any disposition to work himself to
death. After an hour his employer told him he wasn't likely to earn
enough to keep a rag-gatherer in toilet soap, but Nickie explained again
that he was merely exercising his liver, and had no intention of making
an independence as a breaker of road metal.

Nickie's heap was right opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the
cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house
from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping
at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He was
particularly interested in a tall, `severe-looking, fair-haired woman,
who appeared on the balcony for a moment.

Mr. Crips had been at work for about three hours, during which time he
had perspired a good deal and gathered much dust, for Nickie was
habitually easy going, and his task, although pursued with no diligence,
had "taken it out of him" to some extent. He was certainly a deplorable
scarecrow. A fine, polished carriage, with rubber tyres, drawn by a
splendid pair of chestnuts, was driven down the side drove by a livened
menial. It drew up near the centre gates, and Nickie leaned on his hammer
and waited.

The tall, dignified lady, accompanied by a short, important man in
immaculate black, came along the path, and approached the open door of
the vehicle. Nickie advanced carelessly, and intercepted them. He bowed
grotesquely.

"Good day, Billy," he said, familiarly. He lifted his hat pointedly to
the lady. "'Ow's yerself Jinny?" he asked.

The lady and gentleman stared at him in utmost astonishment for a moment,
then consternation seized them, and they made a dive for the vehicle.
Nickie followed to the door.

"So long, if yer mus' be goin', Willyum," he said, pleasantly. "So long,
Jinny. How's the old man's fish business?"

"Drive on!" gasped the gentleman. He had the scared expression of one who
had seen a spectre.

The liveried menial whipped up, and the carriage was swept away. Nickie
returned to his heap, and for fully two minutes Stub McGuire, his
employer, gazed at him in speechless, open-mouthed amazement.

"Well, of all the blarsted cheeks!" gasped McGuire, when speech came to
him.

"Don't mention it," said Nickie.

"Don't mention it!" yelled Stub. "No, iv course not, but what price his
nibs in the noble belltopper mentionin' it t' th' Johns, an' gettin' you
seven days fer disgustin' behaviour?"

Nickie smiled inscrutably, and continued his work. When the carriage
returned, he made an adroit movement, and courteously opened the door.

"'Low me, Jinny, my dear," he said, offering his grimy hand.

The lady stepped down, and passed him disdainfully. The gentleman brushed
him aside.

"'Ope yeh 'ad er pleasant ride in yer cart, Billy?" said Nicholas.

He followed them to the gate, and called through the bars.

"Very sorry, Jinny, but I carn't haccept yer pressin' invitation ter
dinner, havin' er previous engagement."

He returned to his work again, smiling sweetly. He seemed to enjoy Stub
McGuire's horror.

"'Ere, 'ere," said McGuire, "off this job you go if you don't know better
than to insult people that way. You'll be gettin' me inter mischiff."

"Not at all," said Nickie, "not at all. Surely a man may offer ordinary
civilities to his friends. Bless my soul, you wouldn't have me cut old
Billy in the streets, would you? If I didn't speak to Jinny she'd think I
was angry with her, and cry her eyes out. She has a tender heart, poor
girl. She is a sensitive soul, and craves for social distinction. She
looks to me to secure them a footing in exclusive circles, Mr. McGuire."

"I don't know what y're talkin' about," Stub grumbled, "but that's enough
of it, see?"

Nickie took no notice of his employer's admonitions, however, and when a
clergyman drove up in a buggy an hour later, our hero intercepted him at
the gate.

"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "Would you mind tellin' Willyum inside
there how Nickie sends him his compliments, and 'opes Jinny's quite
well."

"My good fellow, you must not be insolent," ejaculated the minister.

"They won't take it as hinsolence," Nicholas explained. "They've er very
touchin' regard fer me. Tell them. I arsked after 'em, won't yer?"

Even Stub McGuire noticed that Nickie, whose speech was usually
excellent, adopted the vulgar tongue in addressing the man he called
Billy, or any of his friends or relations.

Next day, Nickie inveigled three children, who were playing on the lawn,
and entertained them at the gate with frivolous conversation for nearly
ten minutes, when the state of affairs was discovered by their dignified
mamma, who sent a maid flying to the rescue. Nickie took off his hat to
the maid.

"Tell Willyum," he said, "that bein' 'andy, I'll drop in ter lunch t'
day, but Jinny's not on no account t' put up a big spread fer me. I'll
jist take what's goin'."

He finished these remarks at the top of his voice, the girl being
half-way back to the house.

When the important man in immaculate black came out a little later,
Nickie saluted him gravely, as between gentlemen, but without deference.

"'Ow's it, Billy?" he said. "You might drop in an' see me this evenin'.
I'm livin' under th' blackberry hedge back o' your stables."

The stout man passed in silence, and with a great show of dignity. Nickie
had a busy afternoon. Evidently it was the dignified lady's "day." Quite
a crowd of people drove up to the gates during the afternoon, and Nickie
entrusted each with an affectionate and familiar message to Jinny. All
were horrified at the insolence of the disgusting man, and one young
fellow kicked Mr. Crips, but our' hero did not seem to mind. He merely
warned his assailant that he would issue a County Court writ for any
damages done to his trousers.

On the following morning at about 11 o'clock Nickie entered the grounds,
his rags fluttering in the breeze, marched to the door and rang the bell.
To the Napoleonic man-servant who opened to him, he gravely presented a
tomato can half-full of water, and said:

"Will yer please arsk Bill or Jinny if they'll be so good as to bile my
billy at the drorin'-room fire. Tell 'em it's Nicholas Crips what makes
the request. No, thanks, I won't come in, I'm afraid my motor car might
bolt."

The Napoleonic man-servant threw Nickie off the verandah, and threw his
billy after him, but this did not deter Nicholas from an attempt to enter
into familiar conversation bearing on family matters, when he found the
dignified lady in a summer house.

The lady glared at him in stony horror. "How dare you?" she ejaculated.
"How dare you?"

"Why, what's wrong, Jinny, old girl." asked Crips innocently, assuming a
lounging attitude in the doorway. "You find the togs I'm wearin' a trifle
too negligee, so to speak. They're quite the thing in our set."

"Let me pass!" ejaculated the lady with crushing hauteur.

Nickie was not impressed. He smiled, and continued dreamily: "My word,
things have moved with you, Jinny. You're gone up like er rocket in er
reg'lar blaze iv glory, but I can still see yeh in the old shop days. You
blazed then too, old girl. It wasn't with di'monds, 'twas fish scales,
but you blazed. You could alwiz put on dog. You sold flathead, Jinny, but
I give the devil his due--you did it like a duchess."

At this point the Napoleonic footman intervened again. He took Nickie by
his rags and the nape of his neck, and running him tip-toe out of the
garden, tumbled him headlong on the grass-grown roadside. Nickie rejoined
Stub McGuire quite unconcerned.

"That's a new society game, my friend," he said. "The flunkey scored ten
points."

A few hours later the proprietor of the cement mansion came to his gate,
and beckoned Nicholas Crips off the heap. Nickie the Kid responded with
alacrity, and Stub McGuire gazed in cow-like wonder while the two
discussed matters in the gateway.

Nickie was calling him "Bill," "Billy," and "Willyum," indiscriminately.
Stub nearly fainted when he saw the gentleman draw a bank-note from his
pocket, and hand it to Nicholas Crips. Nickie lifted his deplorable hat,
and said:

"So long, Bill. I'm sorry I can't come an' stay a month. Some other time,
perhaps."

The gentleman went in, and slammed the gate behind him. Nickie returned
to the heap, and picked up his coat and donned it.

"I'm handing in my resignation, Mr. McGuire," he said. "You are welcome
to my earnings, as I intend to live on my means--temporary at least." He
held up the note.

"A tenner!" gasped McGuire.

"A tenner!" replied Nicholas, "presented by the kind gentleman on
condition that I emigrate from this suburb and absent myself permanently.
The worst thing about rich relations, Stub, is that they want whole
suburbs to themselves; the best is that you can make them pay for the
privilege of exclusiveness."



CHAPTER III.

THE MASK BALL.

NICKIE the Kid only observed his agreements and kept honourable promises
so long as some material advantage flowed from his complaisance. Within a
month he was again haunting the vicinity of the white mansion. One night
he leaned against the fence and watched a procession of guests alighting
from their vehicles. Splendid motors dashed up, and loads of
gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen quaintly caparisoned were discharged
at the great iron gates, and went trooping up the path to the flaring
white residence, blazing like a crystal palace in a fairy tale.

Nickie was not exactly envious, but looking through the iron railing at
the gay array of lanterns in the vast garden, and the glowing mansion,
and hearing the hubbub of cheerful voices and the laughter, he had a
dawning sense that respectability, especially well-to-do respectability,
had its compensations after all.

He walked to the gate for a better view, and discovered a strange object
lying on the path. It was a false nose, a large, red, boosy nose, with, a
length of elastic to hold it in its place. One of the guests had dropped
it. Nickie put it on in a waggish humour, and stood moralising as three
pretty Spanish dancers, in charge of a toreador, passed in.

Nickie loved gaiety, waster and rapscallion as he was--sunshine, colour,
flowers, beautiful women, life, music and laughter shook passions loose
within him. Another little kink in his brain might have made a poet of
him, just as the smallest turn of chance might have made a deadbeat of
almost any poet of parts.

Mr. Crips actually sighed over that vision of fair women, and longed to
be that happy toreador.

   "Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
   Before we, too, into the dust descend:
   Dust unto dust, and under dust to lie,
   Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End."

The quotation had just escaped our hero lips when a young fellow garbed
as Romeo, alighting from a hansom, dashed into him.

"By Jove, that was dooced awkward of me--yes, I beg your pardon, I'm
sure. Should have looked where I was going--what? said Romeo.

"Not at all," answered Nickie politely. "My fault in blocking the path.
My fault, entirely."

"By Jo-o-ve!" gasped Romeo; "that's a stunnin' make-up, old chap--what?
Nevah saw a bettah, by gad."

"Make-up?" said Nicholas. Mr. Crips had for gotten his false nose.

"Ya-as," said Romeo. "Your character, you know. A fellah 'd think you'd
just come from sleeping in a rubbish bin. Yes. Best Weary Willie I've
seen. But aren't you coming in, dear boy? You're a cart for Dolly's prize
for best-sustained character, eh?"

"Presently--presently." said Nicholas, smitten with a sudden idea.
"Waiting for a friend, you know."

Romeo went up the garden path, and Nickie the Kid retired under the
shadow of the hedge to allow his thoughts to revolve. Romeo's words had
suggested possibilities. Mr. Crips rarely wasted time making up his mind.
Three minutes later he was sauntering jauntily up the garden path on the
heels of a laughing Red Indian set.

It was a fancy dress ball. All the guests were masked or otherwise
disguised. Nickie had never encountered a softer thing. He determined to
make a night of it at the expense of the host of "White-cliff." To avoid
unpleasantness at the door, Nickie boldly climbed up the trellis of a
vine, and entered the noisy crowded ballroom through an open window,
rolling head over heels among the guests.

His appearance provoked a shout of laughter. This was the proper way for
a tramp to enter such a house. It was accepted as a quaint effort of
humour. Weary Willie was applauded, and his appearance, when he rose to
his feet, occasioned fresh merriment.

The "make-up" of Mr. Crips was certainly very effective, but with the
exception of the false nose it was nothing but his ordinary habit. He
wore a pair of old grey trousers, lashed up with one brace, and belted
with a strip of red material; between the fringed legs of this garment
and his broken canvas shoes the tops of socks, one white, the other
plaid, were plainly visible. The fact that they were only tops, and not
whole socks, was not to be missed, as they had worked up, and an inch of
bare ankle protruded. Nickie's coat was an old black Beaufort, from which
two buttons' hung on grey threads, which was split half-way up the back,
and from below the tails of which fluttered strips of torn lining. He
wore no vest, and had on a woman's faded pink print blouse as a shirt. He
had a linen collar that had long since lost all claims to whiteness and
all pretence of dignity, and his hat was a small round boxer, with
scarcely any rim. On one of the buttons of his Beaufort hung a strip of
ordinary sugar bag, on which he had written with a stub of pencil the
word "Program."

Mr. Nicholas Crips looked the part to the life. He had not shaved for a
week, and his lank hair was reaching out in all directions from under his
ridiculous hat, and from various strands dangled fragments of his last
couch under the boat shed. Nickie had nothing of the painted,
unconvincing theatrical accessories of the usual fancy dress tramp; he
looked real, and his success was instantaneous and complete.

I have endeavoured to show that Mr. Crips was not a diffident man; he did
not distress himself with scruples; fear of failure in an enterprise of
this kind never worried him. He walked across the grand ball-room,
swaggering in his rags, lifted his hat to a Watteau shepherdess who was
laughing at him from a settee in a recess, and said:

"Would yer darnce with er poor man, kind lydie?"

Again the crowd laughed. A tall Mary Queen of Scots peered at Nickie
through her lorgnette, and said.

"How very whimsical!" The little shepherdess was a merry spirit, and
bowed willingly. Nickie wrote "Milk Made" on his absurd programme, and
the quaintly assorted pair joined in the waltz. How, where and when
Nickie the Kid had learnt to dance Heaven knows, but he waltzed well, and
after that he danced with Mary Stuart in a set.

He was particularly attracted by Mary Stuart. She was a fine woman and
the rakish Nicholas had a discriminating eye where the sex was concerned.
Mary had a bold eye too, and a breezy manner. She took great joy in the
tramp.

A feature of Nickie's very humorous and original impersonation of the
Yarra-banker was his waggish begging. When he had danced, before leaving
his partner, he assumed a most lugubrious manner, and said:

"Dear lydie, would you kindly assist a pore decayed gent, what's got a
bedridden wife an' nine starvin' children, all twins? Just a copper,
lydie. The bailiffs is in, lydie, an' if I don't take 'orne nine-pence
for the rent they'll seize ther kerosene case, an' ther flour-sack, and
ther rest iv ther drorin-room furniture, kind lydie."

A gay vivandiere led Nickie to a portly Henry VIII. "Sire," she said,
"this poor man claims king's bounty for his three sets of triplets. I
humbly commend him to your majesty."

"Just a trifle to assist a poor man, kind gent," whined Nickie the Kid.
"Not a morsel iv turkey's passed me lips for seven days. Just a few
pence, sir, to buy champagne fer me widders and orphans. I don't care
about meself, kind sir."

King Henry promptly dropped half-a-crown into Nickie's hat. Two, or three
laughing guests standing about contributed silver. There was an
impression in the ballroom that the sum of the quaint tramp's collection
would go to a charity. None but Nickie himself knew the charitable object
to which the money was to be devoted.

Nickie danced with all sorts and conditions of women. Romeo slapped him
on the back.

"Splendid, deah boy!" he said. "We been thrown together, you know. Ran'
into you at the gate--what? By gad, you're doin it well. But I say, who
the devil are you?"

"I'm Willie' the Waster, kind young gentleman, and I'm residin' under No.
3 wharf, fifth plank from the corner. Would yer give er trifle towards me
time-payment furniture, please, sir."

Romeo contributed a shilling. "You're a sport," he said. "They're all on
to you. Dolly herself's delighted. Yes, you're right as rain for the
prize, but you might put me on--what?"

"I'm feather-legged Ned, with ther consumptive corf," said Nickie. "Would
you please give me a shillin' t' pay fer me medicine?"

"No, dash me if I do!" said Romeo, and he went off laughing.

Nickie took champagne with Sir Peter Teazie, Rip Van Winkle, Slender, and
Henry VIII., and under the influence of the good wine became more
audacious. He passed the hat with a characteristic complaint wherever a
few guests were assembled, and in view of the vast amusement he was
giving was allowed any license in reason. The offerings of the charitable
he deposited in the tail pocket of his coat, and presently the weight
dragged at him with a grateful pressure, and the silver clanked as he
walked. Fortune was not actually staring him in the face, but it was
hanging on behind.

By one o'clock in the morning Nickie was carrying round a champagne
bottle in his left hand, from which he refreshed himself, and he was no
longer able to walk a chalk line as wide as a tram with an certainty, and
had got into the way of clinging to the curtains and hangings; but this
was all accepted as part of an excellent piece of caricature, and earned
our hero some applause.

Just before supper a lady, dressed as Portia, came forward, and pinned a
neat design of gold laurel leaves and emeralds on the breast of Mr.
Nicholas Crips. It was the prize for the best sustained character, which
the host had offered his guests in a frivolous mood. Nickie bowed in
acknowledgment of applause, and then, with the bottle in one hand, and
his hat in the other, he appealed to Portia.

"Could you spare a copper, kind lydie, to assist a poor orphan what's
laid up with lumbago in the feet. I've bin bed-ridden fer ten years,
lydie, and I lost both me legs in th' battle of Waterloo. On'y a penny
for the battered 'ero good, kind lydie."

At supper Nickie declined to unmask. He would not remove his preposterous
false nose. He also excited doubts and misgivings by the depth of his
thirst and his almost miraculous capacity for food. After supper he was
simply impossible.

Nicholas Crips in his sober moments was quiet and unpretentious in his
rascalities, his temperament was naturally mild; but under the influence
of strong drink he always developed tremendous belief in his own
magnificence, strutted about and fondly fancied himself a king. He was
wholly and completely drunk when he charged into the ballroom at two in
the morning, brandishing a full bottle, and singing uproariously. He
staggered into the middle of the dancers, whirling his magnum.

"Room" he cried. "Room, there, for King Solomon in all his glory" He
whirled his bottle again, and the dancers broke before him. A Sir Toby
Belch got the thick end of the bottle in his natural fatness, and
collapsed with a groan. "Remove the body!" ordered Nickie, magnificently.
"D'ye hear me, there, minions? Remove these offensive remain from the
royal presence."

The guests had retreated against the walls, and Nickie held the floor.
Nobody believed this to be an artistic effort to sustain the character.
Weary Willie was as drunk as a lord. He tittered a wild Indian whoop, and
sang the chorus of "at the Old Bull and Bush," beating time with a leg of
turkey. Then he turned to the band.

"Play 'God Shave King'." he said. "If yeh don' play 'Go' Shave King' I'll
have ver heads off 'fore mornin'."

King Henry interposed, he put a restraining hand on Nickie, and spoke
soothingly to him and Nickie the Kid promptly knocked the poor monarch on
the head. Then rude hands seized Nickie: he was rushed from the house; he
was rushed down the path, and hurled into the street.

When all the guests had left the white mansion at Banklands, and daylight
was streaming in, a weary man-servant interviewed the master of
"Whitecliff."

"Please, sir," he said; "the--eh--gentleman who was thrown out last
night."

"Well, what of him?" asked the host, disgustedly.

"He's sleeping in the garden, sir."

The host went out. He found Nickie the Kid sleeping in the Pansy bed, and
Nickie was pulled to his feet.

"Nicholas!" he gasped.

"That'sh me, Willie," answered Nicholas Crips.

"You blackguard, you intrude into my house and insult my guests, and you
promised when I gave you that last £10 never to interfere with me again."

"Now Willie, Little Willie," said Nickie, "when did I ever keep my
promises?"

"Leave my grounds or I'll give you over to the police!"

"Chertainly," said Nickie. "Chertainly, I'll leave the grounds. There's
always room for me outside."

He took the skirt off his coat, heavy with the contributions of the
guests, in his hand, and strolled joyously through the gate.

"Ta-ta," he said. "Good-bye, Billy, dear ole Billy, dear, old,
fat-headed, bumptious Billy!"

Feeling like a king, Nickie the Kid passed down the road, and the morning
sun glittered on the emblem on his breast. He was still sustaining the
character.



CHAPTER IV.

A TEMPORARY REFORMATION.

NICKIE the Kid presented himself at the front door of a decorous villa in
an intensely respectable suburb, with sad story. Mr. Crips did not
address the lady as an unblushing mendicant, he spoke as a man of some
refinement and keen sensibility, whose bitter complaint was literally
dragged from him by adverse circumstances.

The lady was touched--her eye moistened.

"That is really very sad," she said. "Come right in, my poor man. You
must tell your story to my James. James will know how to help you."

Nickie followed the lady without the smallest compunction. She knocked
quietly at the door of a room and admitted Nicholas to a small apartment
fitted up like a study. At a table near the window a grave young man was
seated with writing materials before him.

"Well, mater" he said, "whom have we here? Another of your proteges?"

"I want you to listen to this poor fellow, James," said the lady, "his
story will touch you as it has touched me. My poor man, this is my son,
the Rev. James Nippit."

Nickie bowed with a grace that did not belong to his tramp's garments and
his insanitary and unshaven state.

"Thank God. I have met you, sir," he said, in the voice of a strong man
whose sorrows have about broken his proud spirit, "if your heart is as
gentle as that of this sweet lady."

The lady withdrew, and the Rev. James Nippit, who had been eyeing Mr.
Crips keenly, motioned hit to a chair.

"Be seated," he said, "and tell me your story."

"I am the only son of the Rev. Arthur Crips, of Bolton, Lancashire,
England," said Nickie. "My father held a good living. He intended to make
a doctor of me. He brought me up always with that intention, lavished
much money on me, and from the time I was fourteen I understood I was to
live the life of a gentleman. Before my education was completed my father
died, and I found that he had been led into speculation and we were
ruined. Not only ruined, but disgraced. The shock killed my mother. I
came to Australia. Unwittingly, without a chance of saving myself, I sank
and drifted till I found myself a mere tramp. For years I have been a
tattered, unclean, despised outcast. Yesterday I heard you preach; I was
outside under a window too despicable a creature to enter among you trim
flock. Your sermon reminded me of what I was, showed me to myself, made
the future horribly real to me. I was inspired to fight, to try and work
myself out of the slough into which I have drifted, and I have come to
you for help. I am here." Nickie the Kid opened his arms with a dramatic
gesture--his face was very sad.

"Liar!" said the young clergyman looking Nickie straight in the eye.
"Liar!" he repeated.

Nickie looked back into the eye of the clergyman. His face betrayed no
amazement. For a moment it was grave, almost reproachful, and then it
relaxed into a broad grin. The device had failed--there was no further
occasion for subterfuge.

"Well," Mr. Crips admitted, "I don't pretend to be a George Washington. I
may have been betrayed into errors of detail."

"It is as well you admit it," said the Rev. Nippit. "Because I did not
preach yesterday."

"Very remiss of you," said Mr. Crips.

"And, furthermore, I remember you well. Two years ago I was on a charity
committee that inquired into your case. You were then the son of a
Queensland Judge, reduced to poverty by wild living, but anxious to
return to respectable courses."

Nickie grinned again, and took up his hat. "It is as you say." he said,
"a truly delicious morning for a stroll. I think I'll go and watch the
grass grow. Good-day, Mr. Nippit."

The young clergyman arose and interposed between Nickie and the door.
"You will stay where you are," he said. "Sit down."

Nickie sat down. He placed his hat very carefully on the carpet, folded
his arms, and crossed his legs. "You are very kind," he said. "May I ask
if a compulsory lunch goes with this unwarrantable detention?"

"That remains to be seen," replied James. "I am going to offer you your
choice of two courses. You will either submit yourself to my deliberate
intention of making a good, clean, respectable, industrious member of
society of you, or you will walk out of this place into gaol."

Nickie's mind was made up instantly, but he did not capitulate in too
great a hurry; he talked of conditions, and asked for details of his
expected regeneration. The Rev. Nippit explained his belief that all men
had in them the elements of decency, order and religion. Those elements
only needed proper opportunities for development. He purposed giving
Nickie the opportunities. He needed a handy man about the house; Nickie
was to have the job. He would be expected to bathe every day, to shave
every day, and observe the decencies of the well-ordered home.

"And you are prepared to believe you can reform me?" said Nickie the Kid.

"I am not only prepared to believe it--I am determined to believe it,"
said the young clergyman, thumping the table.

Nickie smiled again. "I submit myself to the experiment" he said, "but
promise nothing. I don't think you will succeed. Your intentions are
good, but mine are not, and it takes two to make a bargain."

Nickie entered his new duties at once. After lunch he took a shovel into
the garden and toyed with the earth a while, and then he went to sleep
under a tree. The Rev. Nippit awakened him and talked with him in a firm
but kindly spirit on the virtues of honest dealings with one's employer,
and the necessity of industry to keep the world wagging, Nickie'
graciously admitted that it was all very true. But when set to clean out
the fowl-house he sat on a stone and held converse with an educated
cockatoo next door.

That evening, clean-shaven, freshly-bathed, dressed in a cast-off suit of
James Nippit's, whole if slightly rusty, and robbed of its clerical
significance, Nickie the Kid attended a religions function with his
reverend employer. Nickie was orderly, wakeful and fairly attentive. When
the plate came round he put threepence in, but he took a shilling out. It
was a useful trick, taught him by an expert in the art of rigging the
thimble and the pea. Nickie, when he had fairly good clothes, often
attended church merely to practise it. To-night the exploit was more an
act of unseemly and impious levity than a crime.

The Rev. Nippit had a theory which he believed would succeed with nine
malefactors out of ten if exerted under fair conditions it was based on
kindness, forebearance and the inculcation of excellent precepts.

It is distressing to have to report that Nickie took few pains to
encourage his preceptor. He was lazy, he sometimes forgot to shave, he
often forgot to bath, he was not always temperate; but the Rev. James
bore it all with unconquerable patience. If Nickie was lazy, he talked
with him like a brother of the twin virtues, industry and thrift; if he
were unwashed, he explained to him that cleanliness was next to
godliness: if he seemed to, have gazed too, long upon the wine when it
was red, or the beer when it foamed in the bowl, the clergyman pointed
out the advantage of strict sobriety, and earnestly besought Nicholas
Crips to strive for higher things and the true light.

The Rev. James Nippit was not discouraged. He saw Nickie often clean,
usually decently attired, generally fairly decent in his behaviour, and
always respectful in his manner, and believed the seed of righteous was
sprouting; but Nickie was living comfortably, he was being well fed and
well bedded, and was careful not to over-exert himself in the pursuit of
his duties; consequently, it was easy for him to maintain a certain show
of decorum.

After Nickie the Kid had been under the tutelage of the Rev. James for
about three weeks, the latter was puzzled to find that Mr. Crips was far
from penniless. Now Nickie was paid nothing his services, but every week
a small sum, representing his wages, was paid into the Savings Bank, and
the deposit was to be transferred to him when he gave proof of complete
and perfect regeneration. When asked to account for a bottle of whisky
found in his room, and for a burst of inebriety that represented a good
deal in spot cash, Nickie quibbled. The quibble was obvious even to an
innocent soul like James. James was hurt, but he persisted.

Nickie was content to have the experiment continue, but he held out no
great hopes. "You know," he said, "this is your scheme, not mine. You, as
it were, forced me to submit. You said you'd reform me in spite of
myself. Well, I am patient, and you are earnest, but we don't seem to
make much progress."

For seven weeks the Rev. James Nippit continued experimenting and never
once lost faith.

James Nippit's pet work was in connection with his reform movement, the
Young Men's Mission, a design for upraising the youths of the larrikin
and criminal classes. The Young Men's Mission had attracted some
attention, people were found willing to contribute to the good work, and
this fact gave rise to some imposition. Uncertified persons of bad
character were found to be collecting for the fund and appropriating the
money to their own use. This caused James much distress of mind.

One Sunday afternoon when driving from his Sunday School the Rev. Nippit
was hailed by a trusted friend, who said:

"For the last ten minutes I have been listening to a man preaching on the
sands down there. He represents himself as one of the leaders of the
Young Men's Mission Movement, and I am confident he is an impostor. If he
is, it is your duty to expose him."

The Rev. James took up the task eagerly. Leaving the buggy in charge of a
small boy, the two gentle men joined the crowd, and James soon recognised
that the speaker was delivering something very like a sermon of his own,
but seasoning it with a sort of quaint, insolent humour, that suited the
tastes of his hearers admirably. The crowd laughed and applauded.

"Brothers and sisters," said the speaker, "I have shown you that these
young men must be divorced from the long-sleever, and rescued from the
lures of the plump, peroxided barmaid, and the blandishments of Bung, the
reprobate who runs the pub. I have shown you they must be turned from the
joys of the 'pushes,' tobacco chewing, and stoushing in offensive
Chinamen with bricks, and now I appeal to you for the means of doing
things. Money is said to be the root of all evil, but it is also the
means of much good. If we want to go to heaven, we must pay the tram
fare. He who gives quickly gives twice, but it is better still to give
twice and to give quickly."

As he spoke he moved among the people, taking up a collection in his hat,
and the people responded liberally. He returned to his little eminence,
and the Rev. James Nippit forced his way through the crowd, and
confronted him, flushed, furious, over flowing.

"So," said James, "this is the reward of my kindness? This--"

Nickie was silent for a moment--for the preacher was Nicholas Crips,
garbed in an old suit of his master's--then he turned calmly and said:

"This gentleman, brothers and sisters, is the Reverend James Nippit, the
founder of our noble much desire to say a few words. I desire to say
mission. He desires to say a few words."

"Yes, my good people," cried James, "I do very that the Young Men's
Mission is one of the finest and most worthy institutions in this city to
and to express the abhorrence I feel for those villains who make use of
the credit the Mission has won for their own infamous purposes." He went
on to explain how the Mission was being robbed, and wound up dramatically
with the words: "And this man, this man at my side, this man who has
addressed you in the guise of a minister, is one of the most wicked and
detestable of the impostors."

But in consequence of his oratorical training, and his clergyman's
inability to come quickly to a point the denunciation lost its effect,
for Nickie was not at the speaker's side; he had gone. He had taken the
Rev. James Nippit's buggy, and driven off, and he carried the collection
with him.

The buggy was safe in the carriage-house when the Rev. James returned
home, but Nickie was seeking fields and pastors new.



CHAPTER V.

THE INCIDENT IN BIGGS'S BUILDINGS.

THE tall, spare man in rusty, clerical raiment was going from room to
room in one of the huge, city buildings where Business people, gregarious
as sparrows, nest in hundreds.

The tall, spare man was cleanly shaved, he wore a very white collar, his
expression combined benignity with a certain ascetic calm. He carried two
or three books in his left hand, pressed against his heart with a sort of
caress, an affection very common with gentlemen of the cloth, for
Nicholas Crips had a keen eye for character, and his various
impersonations were fairly true to type, and of no mean dramatic quality.

Nickie the Kid knocked gently at an office door, a peremptory voice
called "Come in," and he opened the door very softly, entered, closed the
door very gently behind him, placed his crippled belltopper (rim
uppermost) on the small counter that walled visitors off from the severe
gentleman dictating to a blonde typewriter and said, with clerical
unction.

"Good-day sir. Good-day my dear young lady."

"D-afternoon!" replied the severe gentleman severely.

"Sir. I am here on a mission of charity, if you don't mind. I am the Rev
Andrew Rowbottom. I am collecting subscriptions for the widow and family
of the late William John Elphinston, a worthy member of my congregation,
and a most estimable bricklayers labourer, killed, as you may remember,
in the execution of his duty on the 14th September last."

"Bless my soil, I can't be bothered with these matters in business
hours," said the gentleman, and is severity was something terrible, but
it did not appal the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom.

"I have here a subscription list," continued the intruder suavely. "You
will find upon it the name of some of our most prominent business
people."

"I'm busy." said the severe gentleman.

"Need I remind you, my very good sir, that the smallest contribution will
be thankfully received?"

"Be so good as to close the door after you."

"Certainly, brother, all in good time. Shall we say half-a-crown?
Half-a-crown is a nice sum. No? A shilling perhaps?"

"I suppose I shall have to pay for the privilege of being left in peace
to the pursuit of my affairs. Here!!" The severe man slapped a shilling
on the counter.

"Oh, thank you--thank you so much." said the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom
effusively. "What name?"

"Confound the name!" snapped the severe gentle man. "Good-day."

"Oh, to be sure, to be sure--good--day," said the Rev. Andrew, and he
smiled and bowed and slid I trough the half-open door.

Nicholas Crips called at many offices. In a few instances the occupants
evaded a levy. They were people who had no particular business in hand,
and could spare the time to hear all the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom persuasive
arguments and stubbornly resist each plea, but the majority of the men
were glad to buy the eloquent clergyman off with a small contribution.
Sometimes office boys were impertinent, and an occasional business man
was insolent and talked of throwing the suppliant out of the window, but
Mr. Rowbottom was always suave and conciliatory. He seemed to sympathise
with the angry individual whose privacy he was forced to break in pursuit
of a sacred duty.

Nickie the Kid reached the fourth floor. It was very quiet, and most of
the offices were deserted. He found a pale young typewriter, a slave of
the machine, in a room rather larger than an alderman's coffin, and
obtained threepence in coppers for the widow and family of the late
lamented William John Elphinston. He passed along a dim passage, and came
to one of the larger apartments fronting the main street. It was
evidently one of a suite. On the door was a brass plate bearing the name.
"Henry Berryman."

The Rev. Andrew Rowbottom knocked on his door a meek, appealing summons.
He received no reply. Confident that he had heard a movement in the room
Andrew knocked again. Still on answer. The Rev Andrew Rowbottorn turned
the knob, opened the door a foot or so, and thrust his benignant
countenance into the room.

The face when it first appeared to the occupant was lit with a smile,
suffused with a tender benevolence, a moment later it was stark and
white, drawn with horror, a horror that chilled the blood, and gripped at
the heart with a hand of iron.

What the Rev. Andrew Rowbottom saw was a tall, handsome,
fashionably-dressed woman of about thirty-six resting with her back to an
office table, the position was crouching, her fingers clung to the
table's edge; her eyes, large, dark, and instinct with mortal terror,
were fixed upon the stranger in the doorway. At her feet was the body of
a man, a stout man of perhaps forty. The body lay on its right side, the
face turned to the floor, and from somewhere in the breast flowed a red
stream that massed in a dark, clammy pool upon the slate coloured
linoleum.

Nickie saw a faint, flutter of movement in the limbs of the man on the
floor, and his eyes rose to the face of the woman again. Her dry tongue
passed over her parched lips, she seemed to be making an effort to speak.
On the table near her right hand was a knife.

Nicholas Crips slipped into the room, the door closed softly behind him.
He had recognised the woman. She was his Mary Stuart of the Mask Ball.
The man on the floor he remembered in the guise of Henry VIII.

For a terrible half-minute the two stared at each other over the dead
man.

"You killed him!" whispered Nickie.

The woman tried to moisten her lips again, made an effort to speak, and
her voice broke in her throat. She nodded dumbly.

"My God!"

"You-you-what are you going to do?" whispered the woman. "Why don't you
call out?" There was a wild hope in her dilated eyes. "You don't! You
don't!"

Nickie shook his head. "I don't run for the police?" he said. "No, I am
not on speaking terms with the police myself."

"You won't seize me, you won't betray me--you, a clergyman!"

"No." said Nicholas Crips.

The woman moved forward, she laid hands upon him, she looked into his
face.

"He was a villain." she said. "He deserved it, but I am a murderess, and
you won't--" Her hands gripped him, a new light shone in her eyes.

"Why were you creeping in here?" she said. "You are a thief, That's
it--you are a thief. Well, listen, there are five thousand pounds' worth
of diamonds in a little leather bag in his breast pocket!" She pointed
down at the body. "Five thousand pounds' worth," she said.

"Five thousand!" he gasped. "Five thousand!"

The woman's hand was on the door knob. She opened the door and slipped
out. The lock clicked as she closed the door behind her.



CHAPTER VI.

A DEPARTURE INTO ART.

NICHOLAS CRIPS seated-himself on a warm stone, on a convenient boulder
spread the contents of yesterday's "Age." The "Age" contents on this
occasion was the lunch of Mr. Nicholas Grips. Nickie had been given the
meal half-an-hour earlier by a kind soul in one of the suburbs, to whom
he had pitifully presented his urgent need of sustenance of an inviting
kind. Very adroitly Nickie the Kid had dwelt upon his necessities, while
impressing the lady's with the eccentricities of a peculiarly capricious
appetite.

It was the day after the distressing incident in Biggs's Buildings. Mr.
Crips was no longer dressed in his clerical garments; they were carefully
stowed away in a niche in a riverside quarry where he had long kept his
wardrobe. To-day Nickie was dressed in the rags of a simple mendicant.

The strongly melodramatic adventure the previous day did not seem to
distress Mr. Crips; he ate heartily, but had only reached his second
course, which was represented by the chicken, when his attention was
attracted by a very lean, very pale, hollow-eyed, sad stranger who had
seated himself on a sloping tree nearer the river, and was eyeing the
banquet hungrily.

Nickie the Kid, was not selfish. When his own needs were fairly met he
could be generous with anybody's property, even his own. He tapped the
chicken's breastbone invitingly with his penknife, and addressed the
stranger.

"May I offer you a little lunch, sir?" he said urbanely, with quite the
air of a generous host.

The long, lean man shook his head in mute melancholy, but accepted the
invitation as an offer of friendship, and approached nearer, seating
himself on a rock facing Nickie's banquet.

"No, thanks, boss," he said.

"You'll forgive me," said Nickie, after wrenching a mouthful from the
back of the pullet, "but you look famished."

"I am," answered the stranger.

"Well, help yourself. These garlic sausage sandwiches are superb. Try the
beer."

Nickie pushed his jam tin forward.

The other shook his head very regretfully.

"I mustn't," he said. "Fact is, my livin' depends on me not eatin', an'
I've got a wife an' kiddies to support."

Nickie paused with the bottle half-way to his mouth.

"Your living depends on your not eating?" he ejaculated. "What, do you
earn anything by starving, then? By Jove, that's a quaint idea."

"I earn all I get by starvin'. My name's Cann--Matty Cann, but I'm known
professionally as Bony-part. Ain't yeh seen me advertisements up the main
street? I'm drawed on a big poster outside Professer Thunder's Museum iv
Marvels, I'm the livin' skelington."

"He isn't ruining himself with your upkeep," Nickie.

"No." replied the Living Skeleton. "I'm allowanced off an' I've got t'
eat on'y what he gives me--that's in our contrac'. If I eat more an put
on flesh out I go. There's a clause in ther contrac' what sez I'm li'ble
t' be fired if goes above seven stone seven. The previous livin'
skelington got the run at Barnip fer breakin' out. He was the only
original. I'm just a sort iv understudy."

Nickie clicked his tongue sympathetically. "Well," he said, "you might
pick a hone. That wouldn't be very fattening, and it might delude your
stomach with the idea you were having something to eat."

Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, took the wish-bone with a few shreds of
chicken on it.

"Thanks," he said, "it might be a comfort." He sucked the bone fondly.

"You said that Professor Thunder's only original living skeelton broke
out at Barnip. What happened to him?"

"He went on the spree," said Matty Cann.

"Drink?" queried Nickie.

"No, food. He got at a bar spread in the Shire hall at Barnip, an' afore
they missed him he ate enough fer ten Shire Councillors. He completely
rooned that banquet. That was the third time he'd gone on th' spree, an'
ther Perfesser 'ad warned him if it 'appened again he'd get the shoot."

Nickie the Kid grinned.

"It isn't a Profession that would suit me," he said. "I have an
instinctive fondness for meals. I knew the travelling show' business was
a hungry game but I never reckoned on starvation as a means of earning a
livelihood."

"Oh. 'tisn't all bad." said Ronypart eagerly. "There's th' Missin' Link,
fer instance; he a glutton. Blime, th' food that Missin' Link gets makes
me lose all patience, an' sometimes I'd like t' get right up from my
chair, an' bite him. He's in the 'ospital just now, sufferin' from his
over--feedin'. It's a judgment on him."

"A monkey in the hospital!"

"Well, he ain't exactly a monkey. He was a man done up something like one
o' them hoorang-hoo-tangs. Yeh see, part o' Perfesser Thunder's show is
called the Descent of Man. It contains ten different kinds of monkeys,
from Spider, a little cove 'bout th' size iv a rat, up t' Ammonia, what's
a big griller. Th' Missin' Link, he comes next; but as I was sayin' he's
out iv it just now, bein' ill, an' Perfesser Thunder ud give ez much ez
two quid er week fee a good, reliable Missin' Link what wouldn't over-eat
hisself." The Living Skeleton was allowing an inquiring eye to roam over
Nickie the Kid.

"I was thinkin' yon was just bout th' build fer a Missin' Link," he said.

"What, me?" cried Nickie.

The Skeleton nodded, and Nickie was silent for a moment, lost in thought.
It was very necessary that Nickie should sink his identity for a time.
Here was a magnificent opportunity. "Has the Missing Link much to do?" he
asked.

"No," replied Matty Cann. "He's just gotter he careful not t' over-eat
hisseif, as I was savin'. Yeh see, people what come in t' th' show gives
him buns, an' lollies an' things, an' if he's a glutton he' bound t' he
knocked out."

"What else does he do?"

"Oh, prowls round in the cage."

"Anything else?"

"An' scratches hisself."

"Yes."

"An' growls."

"That seems easy."

"Well, it all depends. If yer gifted that way it's easy enough, but real
scratchin' an' natural growlin' takes a bit o' doin'."

"How's this?" asked Nickie.

He scratched himself in approved monkey style, hopped briskly over the
stone, then sat up, and growled a deep, guttural growl.

"That's it--that's it, t' th' life!" cried Bonypart in amazed admiration.
"Why, you're er natural born artist, that's what you are. If I could
growl an' scratch like that I'd be a Missin' Link t'-morrer. No more
living skelingtons fer me."

"Look here," said Nicholas Crips seriously, "how long does the Missing
Link have to remain in the cage?"

"The show opens et one in th' afternoon, close at five, opens again at
seven, an' closes et arf-pas ten."

"And has the Missing Link to be growling' and scratching all the time?"

"No, not all the time. If there ain't any people in he kin lie in er
corner on th' stror under his blanket an' sleep, an' sometimes he kin
stay lyin' on the stror when there's on'y a few people in, so long ez he
growls a bit, an' stretches hisself. There's a lot in stretchin' hisself
proper."

"Like this," said Nickie. He reached out one leg, clawed with his left
hand, and yawned cavernously.

"Th' very identical," said Bonypart admiringly. "You was meant t' be a
Missin' Link. Y'iv got all th' natural gifts, an' with th' proper hide
drawn on over yeh, an' yer face made up a bit, nobody ud ever think you
was anythink else but a true African Missin' Link, born an' bred."

"Are you quite sure the Missing Link has nothing else to do?" asked
Nickie, cautiously.

"Positive, Missin' Links is scarce; they has pretty much their own way.
Hold on--he's gotter 'aug a bit by one hand from a bar what goes through
his cage, an' pretent to be sleepin'."

Nickie the Kid had a contemplative expression "Bless my soul," he said,
"there are strange ways of earning a living, and I'm not sure that my way
is the easiest after all."

He drained the bottle.

Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was established in a shop in Bourke
Street, Melbourne. The shop window was curtained with large posters, one
representing a tall man, very thin even for a skeleton, sitting at a
table, tying knots in his limbs. The other pictured a strange, hairy
monster, half human, half monkey, which was labelled "Darwin's Missing
Link." On a kerosene case at the door stood Professor Thunder himself,
appealing to the populace to pause and contemplate the "astonishin'
marvellous pictorial representations," and assuring five small boys that
these were "living, speaking likenesses" of the wonders within. "No
deception, ladies and gents, no deception!" he cried.

Professor Thunder was his own "spruicher;" his eloquence was remarkable,
his voice had the carrying power of a steam whistle, and the penetrating
qualities of a circular saw. He was a quaint product of the show
business, having been born in a museum and bred in an atmosphere of cheap
theatricals.

"Step inside! Step inside! Step inside!" cried the Professor. "There you
will behold our extraordinary educational collection of Nature's
mysteries, known as 'The Descent of Man,' described by the nobility, the
scientists, and the faculty as the most complete representation of man's
descent from the apes ever presented to an intelligent audience. There
you will behold Bonypart, the miraculous, the bone man who has mystified
all the doctors and amazed millions. There you will behold Ephraim, the
enlightened pig; Madame Marve, the unrivalled seer, and last, but not
least, Mahdi, the Missing Link, pronounced by travellers, medical men,
and Darwinian students to be the one and only authentic and reliable
Missing Link discovered by mortal man. And the price is only sixpence.
Step up! Step up!"

The people stepped up, and saw the living skeleton, a thin, long,
melancholy man sitting on a chair, in limp tights, showing his bony
knees; the educated pig, that did astonishing things at the bidding of
Madame Marve; and the Descent of Man, represented by several monkeys of
varying sizes, a gorilla, and the awe-inspiring Missing Link.

The cage of Mahdi, the Missing Link, was some what dark, and the terrible
form of the mystery loomed in the dusk, heavy and formidable. He was as
big as a man, somewhat lank, and covered with coarse hair the colour of
cocoanut matting. This afternoon, when the early patrons entered, they
found him hanging limply by one arm, like a great ungainly bat.

"The Missing Link always reposes in this manner in his native wilds,"
said Madame Marve, in the chaste tones she assumed when imparting
valuable instruction "but he is otherwise very human in his tastes and
habits."

"Has 'e a vote, ma'am?" asked a facetious labourer.

A stout lady prodded Mahdi with her umbrella, and he flopped on all fours
on the floor of his cage, and sprang forward with a hoarse growl,
reaching a great, hairy paw out of the cage.

"Lor blime, missus, yer ortenter do that to another woman's 'ushand,"
said the facetious labourer.

The people pressed about Mahdi's cage. They threw nuts at him, and
offered him lollies and cakes, and the Missing Link went through many
surprising contortions, and rolled about, and capered, and growled in a
most realistic way, while Madame Marve gave a full and exciting account
of his capture in the jungles of Central Africa by a party of hunters, of
whom Professor Thunder was the leader and the conspicuous hero.

"Mahdi was then very young," said Madame. "He has been reared with great
tenderness, and is now probably the most valuable, and he is the rarest
animal in the world. Professor Thunder has been offered thousands of
pounds for Mahdi, but refuses to part with him, preferring to take the
marvellous monkey-man through the world for the education and edification
of his fellow-creatures."

Mahdi swung on his bar again, flopped, and then ran up the back wall
several times, after which he sat in a corner and scratched himself
industriously, grinning at the people every now and then, or uttering a
growl that gave the women delicious cold shivers.

The attention of the patrons was next drawn to the educated pig, and
presently the show-room was empty again for a minute or two. Madame Marve
addressed Mahdi the Missing Link.

"You must growl more, my boy," she said. "The people like the growling,
it terrifies them, and they talk to their friends about it. You really
must keep on growling. I don't care if you don't scratch quite so much,
but you must growl."

The Missing Link pushed his drab muzzle through the bars.

"Keep on growling," he protested. "Excuse me, madame, but I'm damned if I
do unless you give me more beer. I've got a throat like a hot-box."

Old friend of Mr. Nicholas Crips would have recognised those crisp tones
instantly. Nickie the Kid had found his vocation.



CHAPTER VII.

AN UNFORTUNATE MEETING.

NICHOLAS CRIPS entered into formal agreement with Professor Thunder, sole
organiser, director and owner of Thunder's Celebrated Museum of Marvels,
to impersonate Mahdi, the Missing Link, at a salary of thirty-seven and
sixpence a week and keep, Nickie undertaking to observe the Sabbath, to
behave becomingly and in no circumstances to disclose his identity to
persons outside the show.

The clause entailing strict observance of the Sabbath was a wise one from
the Professor's point of view, as a previous Missing Link had taken
advantage of Sunday being an off-day to get unreasonably drunk, in which
state he betrayed the confidence of his employer, and disclosed the most
sacred secrets of the profession.

Nickie was assured that the job would be a permanency if he proved
himself a zealous, efficient Missing Link, and as he understood that even
when on show Mahdi was expected to do little more than curl up on the
straw in his cage and growl, he gratefully accepted. The contract was
signed.

So far Nicholas had discovered the new skin he was compelled to don to be
the only serious disadvantage attached to his office. It was
tight-fitting, coated with monkey-like hair, and covered him entirely,
the face being disguised under an attached mask with a flat nose and
patches of hair. The skin laced down the spine, but the laces were
artfully hidden under the fur.

At least Nickie was leading man of the small company. Ammonia (whose cage
adjoined the more sumptuous one in which Nickie was exhibited, and whose
open jealousy of Mahdi was a source of no little inconvenience to Nickie
the Kid) was an item of considerable interest, but the Link was the
culminating point of the monkey's progress the climax, so to speak, and
he enjoyed great popularity and many nuts. Possibly the nuts were the
true source of Ammonia's dislike.

Nickie the Kid had been three days figuring as the star of Professor
Thunder's Museum of Marvels, and was growing accustomed to his suit, and
to the situation. The Professor himself was a born vagabond, and his
wife, Madame Marve, the somewhat plump prophetess, who read fortunes, and
was mistress of the educated pig, had the Gipsy instinct and took life
easily. Nickie had a good deal in common with both, and they promised to
be a happy family.

In his proudest moments Professor Thunder was not likely to overestimate
the intrinsic value of the Missing Link as he stood, for tucked away
under the singlet that lay between him and his hairy simian cuticle was a
store of treasure with the product of which Nicholas Crips dreamed of
living a life of ease and luxury when certain matters had blown over and
it was wise for him to resume his proper place in the animal creation.

The murder in Briggs's Building had stirred up a tremendous sensation,
but as yet no one had thought of associating either the Rev. Andrew
Rowbottom or the tall, fashionably-dressed lady with the crime.

The show was not yet open for the evening, and Mahdi, the Missing Link,
was permitted the privilege of free speech, denial of which was one of
the most painful disadvantages of his public career.

"Well, how're yeh likin' th' grip, Nickie?" asked Matty Cann, otherwise
Bonypart the living skeleton.

"It is not exacting." said the Missing Link, dreamily, "but it has its
drawbacks to a man accustomed to finding favour with the ladies."

"Drawbacks," exclaimed Bonypart. "What price living skelingtons? You
wouldn't believe it, but I'm considered rather a fine man in flesh. It
almost breaks my poor wife's 'eart t' see me in such redooced
circumstances. I tell yeh I never thought I'd come clown t' this."

Nickie peered at the living skeleton from his cage. "I believe being a
missing link has its advantages." he said. "After all, a missing link
does have time off, but a living skeleton has no relaxations."

"Dry up, Mahdi, an' get on your perch," cried Madame Thunder, "The
Professor's openin' up."

The door was opened, and the Marvels heard Professor Thunder declaiming
on the astonishing quality of his exhibits.

"Roll up! Roll up! Roll up!" exclaimed the professor in his deep,
steam-organ tones. "Roll up, and see Mahdi and Marve--Mabdi the Missing
Link, the great man-monkey, captured in the gloom junge of Darkest
Africa, the Connectin' link 'tween man an' the beasts; Marve, the Mystic,
the prophetess, enchantess and Egyptian seer, who will read your future
in your palm, exhibit her educated pig, and display the occult science of
the Oriental wonder-workers!'

"Here they come," said Madame, arranging her rich Egyptian costume, made
by sewing a design of spangles on a curiously-patterned bed quilt.

The Missing Link hooked himself to the crossbar with one hand, drew up
his hairy legs, and remained suspended in a limp attitude, as two women,
with frightened children clinging to their skirts, entered the show.

Madame took charge of the audience, and lucidly explained the Darwinian
theory, beginning with Spider, the tiny ape, and tracing the descent of
man through Ammonia, the gorilla, to Mahdi the Missing Link, and Mahdi
romped about the cage, growled and gibbered, poking his amazingly human
face through the bars for fleeting moments.

When not engaged telling fortunes, performing a few primitive illusions,
or putting Ephraim, the Educated Hog, through his manoeuvres, Madame was
anything the occasion required. The Professor had great faith in her. She
had once carried the show through successfully when the Living Skeleton,
the Missing Link, Ammonia the Gorilla, and Ephraim were all incapacitated
through an influenza epidemic.

They had a big evening, the holiday-makers flocked in so freely that
Professor Thunder abandoned his position as "spruicher," or public
speaker, and took charge of the interior, acting as explainer and
interpreter, leaving his little daughter Letitia to take the sixpences at
the door.

The night was warm, and as the stream of patrons was incessant, Nickie
the Kid found his duties most oppressive, and had serious thoughts of
shedding his skin.

Professor Thunder greatly excited the interest of the crowd by announcing
that a sum of one pound and a silver medal valued at one guinea would be
given to any person courageous enough to follow Madame Marve's example
and enter the cage containing Mahdi, the Missing Link.

Nickie was resentful, as this meant a most energetic demonstration of
savagery on his part, following a fawning and submissive manner, while
madame, wearing a large sombrero and a man's coat, moved about in the
cage, cracking a whip.

The people gathered before the cage gazed upon madame with stupid awe,
while the strange monster capered, or prostrated himself in great
humility at her bidding. When she had withdrawn, and after the Professor
had made his prodigal offer, it was Mahdi's duty to stimulate
ungovernable ferocity, in order to deter any too-venturesome spirits.
Nickie did his best. He bounded madly round the cage, he tore at the
straw, tooth and nail, he roared terribly, and snatched furiously at the
people near the bars. The crowd retreated in terror; all save one woman,
a grim-looking female with the indurated face of an old-established
lodginghouse-keeper.

This woman came forward, and jabbed at Mahdi the Missing Link with her
umbrella. "Gerrout, yeh brute!" she said. Mahdi backed into shades
carefully provided at the back of the cage, and the old woman reached her
umbrella through the bars, and made a hit at him. Mahdi seemed to cower.

"A prize of one pound and a silver medal to any person daring enough to
enter the cage of Mahdi, the man-monkey!" repeated Professor Thunder,
with great hardihood.

"Wha's that?" gasped the woman.

Professor Thunder repeated his intrepid words; aside he hissed "Bellow,
damn you--bellow!"

Nickie bellowed; he jumped with desperate energy, he clawed up the straw,
but he remained in the shadow.

"A pound!" cried the woman. "A pound jist fer goin' in with that ape?
Done! I'm yer man."

The Professor was thunderstruck, so also was Mahdi the Missing Link.
Never since Thunder invested in his famous fake of the man-monkey had man
or woman been found courageous enough to beard the monster in his den for
a pound. Never had any been expected to. Professor Thunder stood
non-plussed.

Madame went to the back of the cage. "Howl!" she whispered. "Howl! Do you
want to ruin us?"

Mahdi howled, he growled ferociously, he made an attempt to savage
Ammonia. His paroxysms were fearful to look upon, but the woman did not
seem to mind in the least.

"Open the door," she said.

"Madame, are you quite resolved to take this terrible risk?" said
Thunder, gravely, feeling keenly the approaching loss of a hard-earned
pound.

"Terrible pickles!" said the woman. "I've bin managin' men fer twenty
years, an' I ain't goin' t be stopped be no monkey."

"Very well, madam, the consequences be upon your own head." (Aside to
Nickie) "Roar, curse you, roar!"

The Missing Link crept to the back bars in an imploring attitude. "No,
no; for the love of heaven! don't let her in!" he whispered to Madame
Marve.

Professor Thunder burst into one of his frenzied street orations to drown
the voice of the Missing Link, and threw open the cage door. The crowd
huddled hack, horrified. One girl screamed, but the heroine from the
old-established lodging-house boldly entered the cage, swinging her gamp.

It was expected that the strange monster from the dim, damp jungles of
Darkest Africa would spring upon her, but he did nothing of the kind; he
rushed to the back of his cage, and cowered down, burying his face in the
straw.

The heroine butted Mahdi the Missing Link with her gamp. He gave no sign.
She kicked him. He bore it meekly, crouching lower. There was some
tittering in the crowd.

"Get up, you nasty brute!" said the woman, and prodded the horrid
monster.

Nickie didn't even growl. The woman kicked, she kicked with force. She
booted the terrible brute round the cage. She seemed to glory in her
triumph, and when Mahdi butted into a corner and refused to stir, she
took him by one leg, and towed him twice round the cage, and the
tittering the crowd swelled to yells of derisions and ribald laughter,
while Professor Thunder pranced about and cursed furiously. To save his
show from being ruined with ridicule, he rushed in, seized the woman, and
bundled her from the cage.

"I can't permit on to risk your life in this mad way," he blurted; "any
moment he might round on you, and then they'd pinch me for manslaughter.
Here is your pound, madam; go, and thank God you have been permitted to
live through this fearful experience." He paid with the grand air of a
hero of melodrama. His manner was so impressive it almost restored
confidence, but Mahdi, the monster, remained crouched at the back of his
cage, his face hidden in the straw, and nothing would induce him to come
out till closing time.

When the last patron was gone, and the doors were closed, Professor
Thunder approached Nickie.

"Well, my friend, you're a pretty cheap kind of baa-lamb for a Missin'
Link, I must say," he said haughtily. "Why in the devil did you allow the
woman to make such a holy show of you?"

"What was a man to do?" answered Nickie.

"A Missin' Link that knew his business would have scared her out of her
rags. By Heavings, man, you are no artist--you will never be an artist."

"You couldn't scare that woman with a den of lions and an old-time German
dragon, Professor."

"Bosh! Rot! My last Missin' Link would have had her in fits, sir."

"Allow me to know, please."

"What do you know about her in pertickler, fellow?"

"Well, it's ten years now since I ran away from her, Professor, but I
ought to know something about her. She's my first error of judgment.
She's my wife!"



CHAPTER VIII.

THE LINK GOES MISSING.

THE Missing Link was recognised by patrons of Thunder's Museum of Marvels
as no ordinary animal. The Professor's show being conducted in a small
shop, and owing nothing of its popularity to expensive advertisments in
the "Amusements" columns, received no recognition from the press,
consequently fame on a large scale did not come to Professor Thunder.
Nevertheless the Museum of Marvels enjoyed a reputation in humble
circles, and here Mahdi was talked of, and accepted without a question,
as an astonishing vindication of the Darwinian hypothesis about which the
Professor discoursed so fluently in his three minutes' lecture before the
cage. It had only taken Nicholas Crips two weeks to assert himself, and
already he had introduced many novelties into the recognised "business"
for Missing Links.

Occasionally a too-inquisitive visitor with a taste for natural history
became obtrusive and sought close investigation. It was part of Nickie's
duty to fill such visitors with a proper respect for Missing Links, but
ninety-nine out of every hundred accepted Mahdi in good faith. It is an
axiom in the show business that the people who can't be deceived are so
few that they are not worth considering.

It was a hot day, life in the cage was very oppressive. Nickie the Kid
was painfully thirsty. Probably no Missing Link since the day when man
began to emerge from the monkey had ever been so sorely afflicted with
the craving for alcoholic stimulants.

Mahdi had a fixed allowance his beer supply was rigorously prescribed by
Professor Thunder, and precisely measured by Madame Marve. It was this
precision that prevented Nickie being quite content with an artistic
career.

He had had his first pint. The second pint was not due for two hours.
Nicholas Crips was not satisfied he would survive the time. The place was
stifling.

"Yar-r, get to blazes!" snorted the Darwinian hypothesis, and hurled his
water tin at Ammonia.

Ephraim, the pig, grunted pitifully, and Matty Cann, the bone man,
drowsed in his chair. Madame Marve was sleeping, too, and the ripple of a
monotonous snore came from the Egyptian tent.

There were no patrons, the town was still, prone under the great heat.
Professor Thunder entered, mopping his brow, and the Missing Link pressed
against the bars.

"How is it for a drink?" he said. "You've got to be generous, Professor,
or I resign. There you are, a drink, or my resignation--the loss of the
most versatile Link in the profession."

The Professor entered the Egyptian tent, and presently returned with a
pint pannikin which he passed through to Mr. Crips. Nickie seized it
greedily, raised it to his lips, and then changed his mind, and hurled it
at Thunder with a furious imprecation.

"Water!" snarled the Missing Link, "Water! You have the heart to insult a
Christian thirst with water on a day like this, you blastiferous heathen!
Let me out! I resign. Let me out of this monkey house."

Professor Thunder laughed and returned to his post at the door, and the
baffled Link pushed his face through the bars and poured a torrent of
frantic objurgations in the direction of the street door.

"Nickie, fer th' love iv 'Eaven let er man sleep," pleaded the Living
Skeleton pitifully. "I was just a-dreamin' iv pickled pigs' feet an'
fried taters--crisp, brown, fried taters. Oh, Lord!"

"Be quiet!" snarled the Missing Link, "and do a perish here from thirst
while that cow of a man swills his fill and makes a fortune out of my
mortal agony? No, hanged if I do."

The Missing Link howled again, and Madame Marve, that she might sleep
peacefully, broke rules and regulations, and smuggled him another half
pannikin of beer.

"Lucky dog!" sighed the bone man. "If I was t' tear the place up they
wouldn't give me half yard iv grilled steak an' er pint iv chips."

After tea, Mahdi was very quiet on his straw. The Professor and Madame
Marve were making their usual dinner of cold boiled leg of mutton, bread
and beer, in the Egyptian tent. The other animals were sleeping.

The Link was not sleeping, he was amusing him self in a quaint way at the
back of his cage. He had a small lassoo made of cord, and was throwing it
at an object near the wall at a distance of five feet.

Every time Nickie failed he swore in a patient heart-broken way, but he
persisted, and eventually success crowned his efforts. An exclamation of
great joy burst from his lips.

"No silly business there, Mahdi," cried Madame warningly from her tent.
"The public will be here in half a tick."

Mahdi dropped his string and curled in a knot, but presently he started
cautiously hauling in his prize. A long hairy arm reached out and
clutched it, and hastily hid the object in the straw. The treasure was a
bottle three-parts full of brandy, Professor Thunder's extra special.

The Missing Link's performances during the next hour were curious and
perfunctory: the animal was not himself. If Missing Links were habitually
intemperate one would be inclined to say this Missing Link had taken
something too much. During a quiet quarter of an hour Mahdi got the key
of his cage from the Professor's ordinary vest, which had been left
hanging within his reach, opened the door, and going quietly along the
wall behind the cages, reached the back door, opened it, and stepped into
the night.

Two minutes later a monstrous shape came out of the shadows of a
right-of-way into the well-lighted City Street, a strange, misshapen
animal, with a head half-human half-monkey, with a body like that of an
ourang-outang and long, flapping feet. The brute was covered with short,
tufted, reddish hair, and in its hand it carried a brandy bottle
containing about half-a-cup of spirit.

The first to confront Nicholas Crips, the Missing Link, was a woman. She
did not attempt to escape, but stood right in his way, staring at him
with eye frantic with terror. Fear had struck her motionless but not
dumb; she shrieked in Mahdi's face again and again. Her screams echoed
along the street.

"Thash all ri', missus," said the Missing Link affably, "I don' know you,
an' excuse me; I don' wanter hear you sing." He brushed her aside, and
rolled drunkenly into a wine shop.

In the wine shop a large mirror served as a door screen. Nickie saw his
grizzly shape reflected in this, and after surveying it in stupid
surprise for a few moments, smashed the glass with his bottle, and rolled
out again.

Amazed men assembled at the door, fell back in awe before the Missing
Link, and Mahdi crossed the road, carrying the neck of the broken bottle,
his quaint feet, like huge hands, flopping in the dust. Mahdi's make-up
did Professor Thunder great credit--it was grotesquely inhuman. The shape
of the costume demanded a stooping attitude and shambling gait. Only in a
good light and at close quarters could the deception be seen.

People came running from all directions. A cab horse backed in terror
before the monster, reared, plunged furiously and bolted into a peanut
stall.

Nickie waddled on, blissfully unconscious of the sensation he was
creating. He invaded a secondhand clothes shop.

"Shemima, mother of der brophet!" gasped Moses Aaronstein, throwing out
his palms in a gesture terror, and Moses bolted through a side door.

The Missing Link appropriated a spangled skirt and trailed it after him
down the street. The shouting crowd followed at a respectful distance. In
a small eating-house the Link encountered two men eating fried steak and
onions. They beheld him with indescribable emotion, glared for a moment
and fled. A girl coming in with a tureen of stew dropped the lot on the
floor, threw her apron over her head, and fainted amongst the broken
crockery and scattered viands.

For a moment the strange inebriate stood swaying over the prostrate girl,
making a grave, drunken effort to grasp the situation, then the Italian
proprietress came into the room humming a cheerful strain, and carrying a
burden of fried sausages. She beheld the horror, uttered a piercing
scream, and dashed up the narrow stairs. Nickie went up the stairs after
her, anxious to explain. The horrified people pressing at the front door
and the windows saw him pass out of sight. There was now a large, excited
crowd in the street. All sorts of rumours were afloat. Already it was
stated that the mighty gorilla had killed three men and eaten half a
horse. Two policemen were busy beating back the crowd, and collecting
evidence from excited onlookers who had seen nothing.

At this stage, Professor Thunder dashed through the assemblage. The
Professor was in an agitated frame of mind.

"What is it?" he cried. "Has anyone seen a Missin' Link--a dark brown
Missin' Link?"

Ten persons explained at once.

"He's in there now," cried a bewildered cabman, pointing to the
eating-house. "He's ate er girl, an' he's out after the missus with a
club."

"'T went up them stairs," cried a trembling woman.

Yells from the crowd in the road brought the people surging into the
middle of the street. Mahdi had opened a front window, and stepped out on
to the roof of the verandah. He was dancing clumsily on the corrugated
iron, and gesticulating, with his long, shaggy hands. Nickie was
declaring with the warmth of absolute conviction that he was a king, but
the yelling of the crowd rendered his speech inaudible.

"I'm a king!" cried the Missing Link. "Behold in me your rightful
sovereign. Bow down t' ye ri'ful sovereign, ye base born!" He threw five
fried sausages into the crowd.

The crowd continued yelling, and Nickie broke into a vain-glorious song,
and capered like an idiot brandishing a Vienna loaf.

Professor Thunder beat on his forehead like the baffled villain in the
play. "Ten thousand furies!" he howled, and dashed for the stairs.

While the Missing Link was still capering, Professor Thunder appeared at
the window. He climbed through. The crowd loudly applauded his courage.
He descended upon Mahdi, he seized him. The crowd cheered vociferously.
Professor Thunder kicked the Missing Link. He dragged him back to the
window, and kicked him through. The crowd nearly went frantic in its
appreciation of such heroism.

Presently the Professor appeared on the stairs, dragging the hairy
monster after him. He dragged it by the leg. It bumped cruelly on the
steps. The Professor pulled the Missing Link to his feet, took him by his
rudimentary tail and the scuff of his neck, and ran him out of the shop.
He ran the grizzly monster up the street as a publican ejects the
unwelcome drunk. The crowd followed, cheering still.

It was an inspiriting sight. The Missing Link running on tip-toes, his
eyes projecting, seemingly in imminent danger of falling on his nose, the
Professor furious, two wild policemen with drawn clubs following after,
ready to do or die should the terrible brute break loose again.

The Professor ran Mahdi into the show, kicking him through the door. He
kicked him into his cage, and ten seconds later was vociferating on his
kerosene box again, strenuously inviting the crowd to roll up, roll up,
roll up, and see the wonderful Missing Link, the only genuine man-monkey
in captivity.

The rush that followed was unprecedented in the history of Professor
Thunder's Museum of Marvels. The people flocked in. Prices were put up to
a shilling all round, but still the people flocked, and Letitia took
nearly a bucketful of silver before public interest was exhausted.

Meanwhile, Madame Marve stirred up Nickie in his cage, and made him grin
and howl and caper for the edification of the crowd, whose souls his
street escapades had filled with awe.

Next day the papers contained an account of the excitement occasioned in
the city by the escape of a huge monkey from Thunder's Museum of Marvels,
and the Missing Link demanded an increase of salary and a double
allowance of beer, and got both, in view of his increased importance as
the greatest draw the show had ever known.



CHAPTER IX.

THE MISSING LINK PERFORMS IN THE PROVINCES.

AFTER taking to the show business, Nicholas Crips often complained of the
vicissitudes of an artistic career and threatened on many occasions to
resign his arduous role as the Missing Link, but despite his occasional
eccentric departures from the manners and customs of Missing Links,
Nickie had so far proved to be the most successful and profitable
man-monkey ever associated with the Professor's show, and Thunder was
determined not to lose him.

A bottle of beer, a good meal, and a season of repose, usually overcame
Nickie's reluctance to continue his splendid impersonation. Besides, the
easy Bohemian life was taking hold of him, and the actor's morbid love of
applause had already planted itself in his breast.

Matty Cann, the bone man, was the most respectable and melancholy freak
in the museum, but his melancholy was not native to him, it sprang from
the cravings of appetite doomed to dissatisfaction--he had his brighter
moments.

"I ken put up with always bein' like er specimei iv er Indian famine," he
said, confiding in Mahdi the Missing Link, through the bars of the latter
cage, "knowing the missus and the kids has plenty. You noticed 'ow fat
Jane was when she brought the fam'ly t' see the show the other day? Well,
I give you my word, the wife was thin enough t' take on this billet
'erself when the Perfesser engaged me."

Nickie's sentimental side was quite stirred by the affection existing
between Bonypart and his small family, and the anguish of Jane and the
kiddies at parting with Matty when the show was on the eve of starting on
a provincial tour so wrought upon him that he shed two large tears down
his Simian cheeks, and handed a shilling to Mat, the fat baby.

The show opened at Bunkers, a small Gippsland town. The Museum of Marvels
was conveyed in a two-horse caravan, and was displayed in a small circus
tent, Mahdi's cage, as usual, being thrown into shadow by an ingenious
device of the Professor's.

Professor Thunder was more at his ease in the bush towns. There patrons
are neither so inquisitive nor so exacting as in the metropolis. The
Museum of Marvels was opened to the public of Bunkers in the afternoon,
admission sixpence, children half-price, special concessions to schools
and other educational institutions.

Nickie found his sphere of usefulness enlarged in the country, since he
expected to assist in pitching the tent and striking it again, and had to
do his share of the camp work, cooking, &c. The quick changes prevented
outsiders from noticing that the absence of Nicholas Crips was always
coincident--with the appearance of Mahdi, the Missing Link; but, still,
nice judgment and caution had to be observed in effecting the
transformation.

Business at Bunkers was only moderate--for the first afternoon and
evening, but Professor Thunder had so worked his "splendid living
realisation of the Darwinian theory, the descent of man," as to induce
the proprietress of a local young ladies' school to bring her pupils on
the second afternoon.

There were twenty-five young ladies in all, daughters of the superior
families of Bunkers and the surrounding district. Miss Arnott, their
teacher, was a tall, bony spinster, with austere glasses and sharp elbows
that looked like weapons of defence.

The Professor had several manners adapted for various audiences, and
possessed costumes to Suit. He met Miss Arnott and her pupils in his
splendid impersonation of the studious naturalist and reverent authority
on the wonders of creation. A long black coat, a somewhat dingy
belltopper, and a pair of smoked spectacles went with the part. So
equipped, the boss conducted the seminary through his Museum of Marvels,
educating and edifying the pupils, first with the astonishing
mathematical calculations of Ephraim, the educated pig, then with Madame
Marve's amazing acts of mysticism and legerdemain.

The Living Skeleton was described as a unique freak of nature--"Teaching
us all how wise and wonderlul are the workings of Providence," said the
Professor, piously. "He is thin, ladies, but very--happy," he added.

This was Bonypart's cue to work off a long, wan smile, and he smiled
accordingly. The effort so worked on the feelings of one of the younger
pupils that she burst into tears, and offered the bone man her piece of
cake.

Matty Cann looked eager, but the Professor smartly intervened.

"Excuse me, young lady," he said suavely, "but visitors are requested not
to feed the Living Skeleton. Living Skeletons are very delicately
organised, madame," he continued, addressing the teacher. "A dry biscuit
has been known to throw them into violent dyspepsia and they have died of
a rump steak."

Bonypart groaned audibly and recovering himself, made another effort to
smile, but failed, and sighed hungrily, whereat the younger pupil broke
into a dismal wail, and had to be taken out and soothed with lemonade.

The fine collection of natural curiosities, illustrating the descent of
man, was reserved for the last, and Professor Thunder proudly arrayed his
company before the cages containing the tiny apes, the middling-sized
gibbons, the baboon, Ammonia, the gorilla, and Mahdi, the man-monkey, or
Missing Link.

The young ladies were quite enthusiastic in their admiration. They fed
the Missing Link with spongecake and nuts, which he took from their hands
and ate with a certain genteel decorum. His manner of cracking the nuts
was much appreciated. Nickie was a specialist at nut-cracking, having
made a special study of the subject at the Zoo.

Some of the girls said he was a "regular dear," and threw him flowers,
and frosty Miss Arnott relaxed her elbows a trifle, and admitted that
this quaint creature was indeed entertaining and instructive--most
instructive. She had never met a more instructive creature. And meanwhile
Ammonia the gorilla shook the dividing bars, and reached fierce claws
towards Mahdi, convulsed with jealousy, and inspired with a primitive
yearning for nuts.

Professor Thunder spread himself in the delivery of his learned oration
on the origin of the human race, beginning with Spider, and ranging up to
the wondrous Missing Link. "Captured by my own hand in the jungles of
Central Africa, ladies," said he, with fine dramatic elocution and the
attitudes of a leading man.

"You will observe that the creature is kept in semi-darkness, that is
because he is accustomed to the thick shades of his native forests. He is
very docile, excepting when attacked or irritated"--(descriptive growls
from the Missing Link)--"when he displays extraordinary activity in
pursuit of his foes"--(display of extraordinary activity by Madhi,
swinging on the bar, racing round the cage, roaring, &c.). "He is very
human in his appearance, as you will observe, and is much more upright in
his carriage than the gorilla, while his mild and benevolent expression
in repose"--(mild and benevolent expression artfully simulated by the
Missing Link)--"gives his countenance a certain manly beauty and dignity.
Looking at him thus, ladies, no one will deny that he stands for the
missing link in the chain leading from the small ape up through the
gorilla to the noblest work of God." The Professor finished chin up,
heels together, eyes lifted, and the left hand thrust in the vest, a la
Napoleon--to signify the highest effort of a benign Providence.

Here Ammonia created a diversion by squealing angrily, spitting at the
Missing Link, and clawing for him in a paroxysm of professional envy.

"I think, ladies," continued Professor Thunder in his best manner, "that
even those who discard the Darwinian hypothesis because of their
objection to acknowledging relationship with the monkeys should have no
reluctance to admit some distant connection with this noble and
intelligent being, so like man in bearing and intellect, and yet so
closely allied to the gorilla that we cannot deny--Blazes and fury!"

The Professor's indecorous ejaculation was in spired by the mean,
vicious, and unsportsmanlike conduct of Ammonia the gorilla, who had
succeeded in gripping Mahdi by one leg, and was hanging on, squealing
frightfully.

"Pull him off! Pull him off!" yelled the Missing Link, forgetting
everything in the moment of pain and, peril.

Instantly the whole show was thrown into commotion. Miss Arnott screamed,
her pupils screamed, the monkeys all rattled at their cages and jabbered
excitedly; the Professor, the Living Skeleton, and Madame Marve added to
the uproar.

Ammonia, having his hated rival in his power at last, was determined to
glut his hate. He secured a grip with the other iron talon, dragged
Nickie down, and pulling him close to the bars, and pushing his short
nose between the rods, bit at him with gleaming teeth, and all the time
he clawed furiously, his nails tearing through the hide of the Missing
Link, and lacerating the man beneath pitilessly.

Nickie fought and yelled and swore, in good strong Australian. Miss
Arnott's pupils, huddled together, staring with round, horrified eyes,
and as they stared a truly horrible thing happened. The skin was torn
clean from the upper part of the Missing Link, and the bare,
blood-stained head and shoulders of a man emerged.

That was too much for a well-conducted ladies seminary. With a final
ear-piercing scream in chorus the school turned and fled; it broke
pell-mell from the tent, headed by Miss Arnott, who executed a remarkable
sprint, taking her age, her dignity and her lack of training into
consideration.

It was Madame Marve who rescued Nickie from the clutches of the gorilla,
having subdued the brute with a discharge from a squirt charged with
ammonia; but Professor Thunder was not thankful, he hadn't time, his
magnificent mind was already busy on ways and means of repairing the
mischief done to his Missing Link and to his reputation as an honourable
showman.

Of course, the revelation resulting from Ammonia's misconduct would go
round the place like wildfire. There might be a raid of indignant
residents, a prosecution for fraud, and there wasn't time to run.

The raid came in due time. Ten heads of families accompanied by Quinn,
the local constable, bore down upon the Museum of Marvels within an hour.
Professor Thunder met them at the entrance, with his studious manner and
his solemn black hat. The raid was going to express itself forcibly; it
did refer to "iniquitous frauds," "shameful imposition," "scoundrels,"
&c., but the Professor's big, penetrating voice, his heavy-as-lead
manner, triumphed.

"Most unfortunate, gentlemen, a most lamentable disaster," he said. "My
valuable Missing Link is more seriously injured than I imagined, and I
may lose him, which would be a heavy blow, indeed, as the College of
Naturalists of London, values the beast at four thousand and seventy
pounds."

"It's a fraud--a blanky imposition!" cried a fierce little man.

"Gentlemen will you favour me by stepping into the museum, and judging
for yourself," said Thunder gravely. "You will find the Missing Link in a
low state, but Madame Marve has done all that surgical skill could do.
The murderous attacks of the gorilla scalped the poor creature, and tore
the skin from his body, but the wounds have been stitched up--there is
still hope. This way, gentle men, and quietly, if you please."

The surprised and subdued deputation found Mahdi, the Missing Link, lying
moaning on his straw, his wounds--artfully bloodstained--all stitched up.
There were white bandages about his head and his injured arms.

"But the girls say it was a man gasped the fierce deputationist.

"A not unnatural mistake, my dear sir," said the Professor, "Strip the
poor creature of its hairy hide and its resemblance to a human creature
would deceive the most expert naturalist."

"Wonderful!" said the local publican.

"But all the same, me mahn," said Quinn, regretfully, "I have half a
moind t' prosecute yeh fer croolty t' animals."

The trick worked, however, the situation was saved, and that night all
Bunkers flocked to see the Missing Link that had been flayed in its
life-and-death struggle with an infuriated gorilla.



CHAPTER X.

THE STOLEN BABE.

IN the larger townships and the small towns visit by the museum of
Marvels on its provincial tour, Professor Thunder, gifted manager of this
"colossal amusement enterprise," as the streamers eloquently phrased it,
preferred to secure a shop in the main street to pitching his tent in
some out-of-the-way place, where his persuasive powers might be wasted on
the desert air.

The Professor flattered himself there was not a more seductive
"spruicher" in the business, and, mounted on a gin case at a shop front
plentifully papered with screaming posters depicting the more popular
attractions, he reckoned that he could always lure a given number of
people into the show by the sheer force of his eloquence, and so make up
the rent, provided there were men and women in the street willing to
listen.

Professor Thunder had found a vacant shop to suit him near the end of
Main-street, Wangaroo. He would have preferred a central site at the same
price, or even less, but none was available. However, business was so
good on the first afternoon and evening that he resolved to extend his
Wangaroo season into the following week. This involved a day of idleness,
an unemployed Sunday, a boon that rarely came to the partakers in
Professor Thunder's godless enterprises, the day of rest usually being
given over to travel and arduous preparations for a Monday matinee.

Nicholas Crips was well content with the change of dates. He certainly
took a good deal of natural pride in his marked success as the most
artistic and realistic representative of the missing link, and toyed in
the reputation he was rapidly making for himself in the show business;
but for all that, it was a great relief to throw off the hide of the
celebrated man-monkey, drop the exactions of art, and be himself for a
whole day.

Nickie did not find, as many celebrated actors have done, that the work
of sustaining a grand role day after day, night after night, week after
week, and month after month, was too exacting; he bore the strain with
consummate ease; moreover, the most conscientious artist wishes to be
himself once now and again, if merely for a change.

The shop in Wangaroo occupied by the Museum of Marvels was rented from a
Chinese greengrocer, who carried on a business next door. The place had
originally been one shop, but Kit See, with the frugality of his race,
had partitioned it roughly, and with Oriental astuteness let the half for
nearly as much as he paid for the whole.

Kit See was a stout, cream Confucian with an oleaginous smile, and the
gentle, propitiatory man of an inferior people, cunning enough to realise
that if you cannot dominate it is wisest to be docile. He had a good
stock, a good business, a half-caste wife, and a noiseless, placid,
slit-eyed baby about the size of a Bologna sausage.

The Missing Link discovered this much through a crack in the partition,
and amused himself with his eyes glued to the slit when there were no
professional demands on his time and talents.

Most things that Mahdi did irritated Ammonia, whose jealousy and hatred
were intensified by Nickie's habit, when in a playful humour, of teasing
the gorilla by ostentatiously devouring delicacies Ammonia particularly
affected in Ammonia's sight, almost within his reach.

Nickie's interest in that hole in the wall was a course of consuming
anxiety to Ammonia. While Mahdi had his eye to the wall, the gorilla
would cling to the bars of his cage, pushing his blunt nose through, and
gibber and spit and protest in a high-pitched, querulous growl.

"Blime, yiv got the noble Ammonia goin' this trip, Nickie," said the
Living Skeleton.

"Yes," replied Nickie, still with his eye to the crack, "that beast will
have to learn decency and good conduct, Matty, my man. I aspire to teach
him moral restraint."

"He'll do you a bad turn one o' them days, mark me."

"I believe not," said the Missing Link. "I've got something here that
will always reduce him to reason." Nickie touched his breast. "I say,
Matthew, this Chow next door is a luxurious heathen. He's got all sorts
of lovely preserved fruits in beautiful juices, and cakes, and ginger
floating in its own gravy, and there is a bottle of Chinese brand under
the counter. Now, Matthew, I think it is a sin to encourage the inferior
races to indulge in intoxicants."

"Don't," cried the Living Skeleton, a ring of anguish in his tones. "Yeh
know, it's agin the rules t' talk t' me of things t' eat. It makes me
fat." Poor Matty Cann groaned aloud. "Is there anythin' substantial?" he
asked pitifully.

"Not just now," said Nickie, "but last night I watched the Chow and his
missus dining on roast duck. You notice there's a door in this partition
just at the back of my cage. Curious, is it not? Well, I found an old
rusty key in the crack under the wall, and it fits the lock of that door.
Remarkable that, don't you think? Now, I shan't be surprised if some of
those Chow delicacies find their way in here most unaccountably."

"What's it t' me if they do?" sighed Matty. "I wouldn't dare t' eat 'em.
If I did the boss would find I was puttin' on flesh, an' I'd be doin' a
bunk."

"But I suppose a drop of Chinese brandy wouldn't entirely spoil your
figure, my boy."

The Chinese delicacies did find their way into the cage of the Missing
Link, quite a fine assortment of them, also the bottle of Celestial
spirits. Ammonia witnessed the process of transference that night, and
nearly went mad in his cage, springing about wildly, clinging to the
bars, squealing and certainly blaspheming in his peculiar monkey
gibberish, and Nicholas Crips sat in his cage, impishly eager to goad his
enemy to fury, and ate luscious figs and fine preserves, while the
gorilla strained at the intervening bars and shrilled his anguish.

After this there were other casual visits to the shop of Kit See, and
Ammonia's curiosity concerning the mysterious place from which the
Missing Link drew such delectable supplies kept him at the back of his
cage for hours together, peering at the wall, scratching it, and whining
impotently.

Evidently Kit See was troubled in his mind, too, for he came into the
show to examine the door in the wall, and finding the cage of the Missing
Link right up against it, and the formidable monster sleeping in the
straw, was satisfied that the petty larcenist found access to his goods
in some other way.

On the Sunday, Nickie and the Living Skeleton walked abroad, seeing the
sights of Wangaroo, including a waterfall; a hanging rock, and a
cemetery, the latter the favourite resort of the elite and fashion of
Wangaroo on Sundays. Mat's skeleton proportions were disguised in a long
overcoat, and Nickie wore a loud theatrical suit, and a conspicuous
clean-shave. He thought he looked like Henry Irving. He didn't see why he
shouldn't.

The company ate a late dinner in a room behind the show that evening.
Amiable Madame Marve had prepared an excellent meal, in which the
regulation beer and boiled leg of mutton course was relieved of monotony
with vegetables and dumplings. There was soup before and pudding after,
and in a burst of gratitude the Missing Link proposed the health of the
Egyptian Mystic which was being drunk with enthusiasm in Chinese brandy,
when suddenly a great racket arose in the yard, shouts and screams were
heard from the street, and Kit See burst in upon the dinner party, his
Celestial fade pale with terror, his usually benignant eyes round with
apprehension.

"What' for? Wha' far?" screamed the Chinaman at Professor Thunder. "Come!
Come! You come dam quick! Monkey he stealem my baby."

"Wha--at?" yelled the Professor.

"The monkey cally baby away alonga house-top si'." Kit pointed to the
ceiling. He was dancing with anguish.

The Professor dashed for the caravan cage, and was back in a minute.
"It's Ammonia," he cried, wild with excitement. "He's broke loose. He's
got the Chinaman's baby on the roof."

Kit See ran into the street, the Professor turned to follow, but Nickie
seized him.

"Hold hard," he said, "there's no hurry, no hurry in the world. Let us
think this thing out."

"No hurry!" snorted the Professor, "and that infernal gorilla waltzing
round up there with a live baby?" The Professor's tragic manner would
have been the making of a cheap melodrama.

"Did you ever know Ammonia drop anything he'd once taken a good grip of?
The youngster's safe for a while. It strike me we can make a hit out of
this. How will it read in the Wangaroo 'Guardian': 'Child stolen by a
gorilla. Rescue by Professor Thunder's famous Missing Link'?"

Professor Thunder stopped with a gasp. "Holy Joseph!" he said, "that's a
noble thought, my boy. Can it be done?"

"You get out there and keep the crowd from overexerting itself. Leave the
rest to me."

Professor Thunder dashed out by the front door. There was already a large
and vociferous crowd in the road, staring up at the gorilla,
gesticulating and yelling, and people were coming running from all
directions. On the side of the road stood Kit See, weeping, and
brandishing his arms helplessly in the face of this grand calamity.
Aloft, on the top of one of the chimneys, about three feet above the
roof, sat the gorilla. In one of his hind claws he held the baby's
clothing, and the youngster dangled, apparently disregarded by Ammonia,
who, despite the terrors of the situation, cut a most ridiculous figure,
for he was composedly sucking the milk from the baby's bottle, keeping
his vindictive eyes on the crowd the while.

"For God's sake keep quiet," thundered the Professor to the excited
crowd. "Do not irritate him, and all will be well." He dragged to the
ground a heroic Cousin Jack miner who was climbing the verandah post.
"Back, man, back," he cried, "or all is lost."

The Professor strode up and down with all a heavy villain's
impressiveness and orated. His eloquence was drowned by a great
hullabaloo at the next corner, and with a rattle and a yell four firemen
came tearing down the road with a hose-reel. Some excited individual had,
rung the fire-bell. The firemen attached the hose to a plug, and came on,
hydrant in hand. It required all the Professor's energies, supplemented
by the frenzied protestations of Kit See, to prevent them turning a full
stream of water on the gorilla.

The crowd was now a large one, gathered far out on the road, where a good
view of the roof was obtainable, and when the excitement occasioned by
the fire men had subsided, a fresh outburst was provoked by the
appearance of another huge monkey, the great bulk of which came up slowly
over the left ridge. The second monkey, which was much larger than the
gorilla, sat upon the apex of the roof, jabbered at Ammonia, and the
gorilla turned towards him, baring his teeth in a hideous grin of malice.

"Keep still!" yelled Professor Thunder. "Keep quiet, for the love of
heaven! Mahdi, the Missing Link, will save the che--e--ild! Mahdi, the
animal that approaches nearest to man, captured by me in the dark jungles
of Darkest Africa. Observe."

The gorilla seemed animated with an implacable hatred for the larger
monkey. The shades of night were falling, but the people in the street
could divine this enmity from Ammonia's attitude and his gestures. His
flat, ugly face was thrust towards the Missing Link. He grimaced
horribly. With his eyes always on Mahdi, the gorilla slowly lowered the
baby to the roof and let it go. The roof was shaped like an M, and the
child rolled harmlessly into the gutter between the ridges. For a moment
Ammonia faced the Missing Link, his venomous little eyes luminous as
those of a cat, and then he ran along the ridge.

A cry broke from the crowd, but when Ammonia was within couple of feet of
the Missing Link he stopped as if shot, let go his hold, and rolled down
the roof, and lay in the gutter beside the child, limp and inanimate.

Mahdi clambered down the ridge, took up the baby, and, nursing it gently
on one arm, came along the roof and down the sloping verandah, and
lowered the son and heir of Kit See into Professor Thunder's arms amidst
a storm of cheering such as had never been heard at Wangaroo.

Nickie had predicted rightly. The Wangaroo "Guardian" next morning
contained a thrilling account of the rescue, and in a leading article the
editor pointed out that the humanitarian action of the Missing Link was
proof that it approached nearer to the standard of man than any other
known animal.

The enthusiasm provoked by Mahdi's action brought a tremendous rush of
business. In fact, the attention excited threatened to lead to an
exposure of Professor Thunder's daring imposition. Leading men wanted to
interview Mahdi; a section of the people of Wangaroo were even talking of
having the Missing Link adorned with the Humane Society's medal, and
another section prepared an illuminated address. Eventually the great
showman left the town in something of a hurry to escape notoriety that
promised to be dangerous, but he had done a record six-days' business,
and was content.

"But how'd yeh beat the blanky gorilla?" asked the Living Skeleton on the
morning after the rescue, as the Missing Link sat in his cage munching
preserved fruits presented to him in abundance by the grateful Kit See.

"How do you think?" replied the intelligent animal. "With an ammonia
squirt, of course. When he came at me I squirted a dose into him that
nearly killed him. I'm never without that little weapon, and I think,
Matthew really think that we shall teach the gorilla proper respect for
the superior animals before we have done with him. His desire to supplant
me in the scheme of evolution is contrary to science, my boy, and a
defiance of natural law, and must not be countenanced for a moment."



CHAPTER XI.

THE DEFEAT OF DAN HEELEY.

AT Big Timber Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels had run for several
consecutive hours to satisfactory business, and was now well on its way
to The Mills, where a great day was expected in view of some local
festivity that meant a general holiday for the mill hands, and a bush
carousal.

The caravan was drawn up for tea in the moonlit bush by Howlet's jinker
track. A camp-fire blazed in the end of a butt under a wide-branching
gum. The Professor lay at a distance--for the night was warm--smoking on
the crisp grass. The Living Skeleton crouched near, embracing his lean
knees, staring into the fire, thinking fondly of his absent wife and
family, a furtive tear lurking in the hollow of his cheek, for Matty
Cann's absurd sentimentality made him a failure as a vagabond. Nickie
fussed about gallantly, assisting Madame Marve and little Miss Thunder,
who were busy spreading papers for the evening meal.

Professor Thunder had in Madame Marve a perfect wife for a showman. In
addition to her value as the Egyptian Mystic, a wonder-worker, and teller
of for tunes, she was chief cook and housekeeper for the whole caravan,
but she had a flirtatious disposition, and the attentions Nicholas Crips
offered in his unprofessional moments were received in a spirit of
frivolous appreciation that disturbed the boss showman's complacency at
times.

"Less of it. Less of it, my boy!" was his deep throated exhortation on
such occasions.

All the members of the company had to take a hand in the hard graft and
menial tasks incidental to the upkeep, management and movement of the
show, and neither professional etiquette nor artistic pride could rescue
Nicholas Crips from the vulgar task of preparing comestibles for the
monkeys. But Madame was certainly the most useful artist on Professor
Thunder's salary list, a document preserved with much pride, to be
exhibited in bars and such public places for purposes of advertisement,
and which represented the Egyptian Mystic as receiving £30 per week. On
the salary list Bonypart, the Living Skeleton, was rated at £15 per week.
He actually received twenty-shillings and his keep.

"Professional usage, my boy--professional usage!" explained the
celebrated entrepreneur when Matty Cann drew attention to the
discrepancy. "It's always done in the theatrical business. Bless you, you
don't think we pay our Sarah Bernhardts, and our Cinquevallis, and our
Paderewskis and our Peggy Prydes those enormous salaries that get into
the papers. No; no, we couldn't do it, but we are content to let it be
thought we do. It impresses our public, Bonypart--it impresses our
public, my boy."

Madame Marve produced bread, butter, pannikins, and the familiar
necessities, brought forward the usual boiled leg of mutton on a lordly
dish, large, fat and steaming like a laundry.

"Encore, encore!" cried the Professor.

"Hear, hear!" applauded Nickie, clapping vigorously. Matty Cann even
ventured an expression of appreciation.

Madame Marve placed the mutton for the carver, and bowed low to the right
and left, picked up an imaginary bouquet, and threw three kisses to
hypothetical "gods."

"Come, come, Bony," she said, patting the Living Skeleton on