The Chronicles of Clovis | Page 7

of lights and the whir of a motor went past us at the same

moment at uncomfortably close quarters. A thud and a sharp screeching
yell followed a second later. The car drew up, and when I had ridden
back to the spot I found a young man bending over a dark motionless
mass lying by the roadside.
"'You have killed my Esmé I exclaimed bitterly.
"'I'm so awfully sorry,' said the young man; I keep dogs myself, so I
know what you must feel about it I'll do anything I can in reparation.'
"'Please bury him at once,' I said; that much I think I may ask of you.'
"'Bring the spade, William,' he called to the chauffeur. Evidently hasty
roadside interments were contingencies that had been provided against.
"The digging of a sufficiently large grave took some little time. 'I say,
what a magnificent fellow,' said the motorist as the corpse was rolled
over into the trench. 'I'm afraid he must have been rather a valuable
animal.'
"'He took second in the puppy class at Birmingham last year,' I said
resolutely.
"Constance snorted loudly.
"'Don't cry, dear,' I said brokenly; 'it was all over in a, moment. He
couldn't have suffered much.'
"'Look here,' said the young fellow desperately, 'you simply must let
me do something by way of reparation.'
"I refused sweetly, but as he persisted I let him have my address.
"Of course, we kept our own counsel as to the earlier episodes of the
evening. Lord Pabham never advertised the loss of his hyaena; when a
strictly fruit-eating animal strayed from his park a year or two
previously he was called upon to give compensation in eleven cases of
sheep-worrying and practically to re-stock his neighbours'
poultry-yards, and an escaped hyaena would have mounted up to

something on the scale of a Government grant. The gipsies were
equally unobtrusive over their missing offspring; I don't suppose in
large encampments they really know to a child or two how many
they've got."
The Baroness paused reflectively, and then continued:
"There was a sequel to the adventure, though. I got through the post a
charming little diamond brooch, with the name Esmé set in a sprig of
rosemary. Incidentally, too, I lost the friendship of Constance Broddle.
You see, when I sold the brooch I quite properly refused to give her any
share of the proceeds. I pointed out that the Esmé part of the affair was
my own invention, and the hyaena part of it belonged to Lord Pabham,
if it really was his hyaena, of which, of course, I've no proof."

THE MATCH-MAKER

The grill-room clock struck eleven with the respectful unobtrusiveness
of one whose mission in life is to be ignored. When the flight of time
should really have rendered abstinence and migration imperative the
lighting apparatus would signal the fact in the usual way.
Six minutes later Clovis approached the supper-table, in the blessed
expectancy of one who has dined sketchily and long ago.
"I'm starving," he announced, making an effort to sit down gracefully
and read the menu at the same time.
"So I gathered;" said his host, "from the fact that you were nearly
punctual. I ought to have told you that I'm a Food Reformer. I've
ordered two bowls of bread-and-milk and some health biscuits. I hope
you don't mind."
Clovis pretended afterwards that he didn't go white above the
collar-line for the fraction of a second.

"All the same," he said, "you ought not to joke about such things. There
really are such people. I've known people who've met them. To think of
all the adorable things there are to eat in the world, and then to go
through life munching sawdust and being proud of it."
"They're like the Flagellants of the Middle Ages, who went about
mortifying themselves."
"They had some excuse," said Clovis. "They did it to save their
immortal souls, didn't they? You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't
love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach
either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly
developed."
Clovis relapsed for a few golden moments into tender intimacies with a
succession of rapidly disappearing oysters.
"I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion," he resumed
presently. "They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it,
they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive
at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the
thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches
the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. Do you like my new
waistcoat? I'm wearing it for the first time to-night."
"It looks like a great many others you've had lately, only worse. New